Anyone had this problem.....CCI .22 shotshell case split down the center last night while dispatching a pest, I had to gently pry it out of the Buckmark. The ammo has been in my safe for qiute some time....probably 20 years but I never thought that would be a problem. I have used several others from the same box recently without difficulty.....anyone have ideas....is the ammo no good?...is the firearm OK?

The firearm is almost certainly okay. Case failures in high pressure centerfire rifle cartridges can cause flame cutting of the chamber walls, but it doesn't normally happen with handgun rounds or rimfire cartridges.

The failure could have been due to the age of the ammunition, but it's also possible that it was simply an isolated defective round. My guess is the latter, especially with what appears to be corrosion inside the case, but if you continue to fire the ammo and it occurs again, I'd stop with it at that point.

Thank you sigfreund....I don't think the case had any corrosion but I'll have to double check that when I get home....what appears to be corrosion in the pic I think is a result of the flash reflecting off the steel case...I'm not a great photographer and have a hard time with macro shots.

If the gun has a good track record it may have just been a bad batch of ammo. Try out other brands of ammo.

I have had it happen a few times with Remington Golden Bullets. I think I bought a few bricks that came from a bad batch because for thousands of rounds the gun was fine then for about 1,500 rounds I kept getting cracked cases. The issue went away when I stocked up on fresh 22lr ammo.