SU-22 Range Report

I'll piggy back on this. I jsut shot mine for the first time. Can't speak to the sites accuracy, put a 3x9 on it, and am quite happy with my groups. I ran 500 rounds of the dirty winchester xtreme wally world stuff. Will give it a big cleanign ASAP.
Many malfunctions, but it got better as the day went on. The most common was a failure to reset the firing mechanism even when a new round was chambered, ie dead trigger, new, live round chambered. The other was that spent casings got stuck in a little wedge space above and in front of the breech. The omnipresent multi-tool made it easy to fix, but opening or closing the space would avoid the issue.
Overall, cheap way to practice, very happy. would love to put an eotech and magnifier on it, but will have to spend less on a knock-of system. suggestions?

 

Hey wmailhos,

I was wondering about the sight thing too. Its seems there is no quality control in place, when testing the sights. That's if they are really tested to begin with. The RFB project is just now coming together, so the pressure should drop some in production. KEL-Tec has been up-ping their game. Add in the political environment and you have a small company up to their rear in alligators .  Bitter sweet  .  

My SU-22 arrived good to go out of the box. I broke it down for inspection and then reassembled.  It shot high to the left my first time out. I notice that the rear sight was two notches forward from the very end. I reseated it to the very end and offset it left of center some. This worked for me. It was now POA/POI . Well, I should add that's if the 22 bullets agree : . Right now I use Winchester 333 box and Aguila Super Maximum Ammunition 22 Long Rifle 30 Grain Plated Lead Round Nose. Aguila has proved or should I say this batch from Aguila has proven to be more consistent from round to round. Cheap ammo is one thing, but if the load is not consistent why make. It certainly takes the fun out of shooting for me. Sight her in. You'll be fine.

 

Uhh, you need to sight the weapon before it will be accurate.

I just don't see being mad about the weapon not shooting to point of aim when you haven't sighted it in yet. Adjust the sights, and then see how well it shoots. I think you'll be pleased.

It sounds like your SU-22 is almost broken in. Mine had some reliability issues until after breaking it in, and now it's quite reliable. 500 rounds of dirty .22 LR ammo is a lot. You may find after a good cleaning that it is now broken in, and maybe it was breaking in at the same time that it was getting dirty.

The failure to reset the trigger even though a new round is chambered is probably a symptom of too much friction. It sounds like the bolt may not be traveling all the way back to touch the buffer. Cleaning and a good lubrication should fix that problem. It has a blow back operation, and they tend to run dirty.

I had the spent brass jamming above the chamber and I wondered about filling in the area and was told by the Kel-Tec engineer that doing that would just cause jams, and the solution was to open up the lower edge of the ejection port to prevent the ejected cases from hitting this surface and being knocked back into the receiver. I used a little sandpaper to remove some material and it worked great. That problem is almost completely gone. I bought one of the first hundred SU-22 rifles. Later rifles should already have the opened up ejection port. There are pictures elsewhere on the SU-22 forum showing the modified ejection port.

 

The SU/PLR-22 sight problem seems to be common; after trying to sight mine in at 5 yd, I called Kel-Tec and requested a call tag for return.* This is a QC problem and is covered by the warranty.  I then sent it to the factory; when it came back, the sights were much better; I sighted in at 25 yd.

*Call them right away and get it back for best service.

 

The problem seems to be with the front sight; there have been posts here where the sight was visibly misaligned with the barrel. I'm like you; I have an SU16 that is simply awesome, and I sure don't want to see Kel-Tec get a black eye.

If you haven't read the relevant posts, the SU22 seems to HATE cheap .22 ammo, such as Remington Thunderbolts, that have loosely-crimped bullets. Be sure to try different brands to find what your rifle likes best. Like L4E, my rifle had some break-in issues, but she runs like a top now!

 

For what it's worth, my 9mm SUB-2000 was just about dead on out of the box. I came to the range ready to sight it in, but it was already sighted in for the 25 yard shooting I do the most with that little carbine. My .40 SUB-2000 was bought very lightly used, and was also dead on, but I assume that sighting was done by the original owner. I never even tried the sights on my PLR-16, SU-16 or SU-22. I took off the rear sights and installed scopes and an EOTech, so I don't know if they were sighted from the factory or not. It never was a concern for me. I assume I'll need to sight a weapon, and if I don't, it's a pleasant surprise.

For my money, Kel-Tec is on the hook to replace the front sight block if it was installed crooked, but sighting the weapon is my job.

I also assume I'll need to clean any weapon I buy before shooting it, mostly to familiarize myself with the operation, but also to remove any protective grease or heavy oil that might have been used for shipping and storage, and replace it with a fresh coat of light gun oil, and exercise all the parts to make sure everything is working correctly.

 

Haha, my sights were way off when I got my SU-22. I spent about an hour at the range and got them sighted in pretty good...good enough for what I am doing with the gun anyway. I didn't really expect them to be that great from the get-go though. When I buy a gun, the first thing I do is give it a good cleaning, and head to the range with some tools to sight it in, along with a variety of ammo.

My SU-22 has it's fair share of issues. It's currently at the Kel-Tec service department for some repairs. My rifle has the feeding disease, and has it BAD! I have tried literally every brand of ammo I could find locally at Wal-Mart and Gander Mountain. The only one I could get to regularly cycle was the blue box of the Federal stuff. And it was still a rare occasion that I would finish a full magazine without at least one failure-to-feed. I shot probably 1500-2000 rounds through it, and it didn't get any better after "breaking in." It would also occasionally jam up when ejecting too. No big deal, I sent it back it so the Kel-Tec guys could whip it into shape!