Hello brain trust. I have written many times about my #1 21a Bobcat in 22LR. It has produced many hours of pondering and thought as to how I could make it as reliable as possible. Thousand and thousands of rounds later I have a recipe that works wonderfully. CCI ammo and a boresnake every 50 rounds. It will still choke on every other bulk pack 22 though. Drives me crazy. My other Bobcat does not exhibit this finicky nature.

I have fluffed and buffed, lubed excessively, lubed minimally, shot the hell out of it in general and no improvement. I use Rem Goldens as my baseline for poor ammo performance. It will choke constantly on this stuff. So my plan is to tinker until Rem Goldens are ate up like popcorn. That is the goal.

So, to achieve this ammo non sensitivity nirvana I opened up the grip panels where the twin recoil springs reside. Holy shit are those screws hard to remove. I finally had to dremel a screwdriver down to fit the screws precisely enough that I didn't jack up the slothead. Anymore, that is. I then cleaned up a bunch of lead shavings in one of the springs that actually had cause quite a gouge in the spring channel. Noticeable by sight and feel. hmmm. Next I lubed up the channels and recoil spring guides and this is where I need some advice.

I pulled both recoil springs and snipped off one and a half coils off of each.

I am usually not a spring snipper. Any guidelines that I should follow? Its too late since I already did it but if that was too much to cut what early symptoms of a problem such as frame peening should I look out for?

Hopefully someone has some guidance because I love the Bobcat but I also hate the Bobcat, if that makes sense.

Really interested in this as I only trust CCIs in my Bobcat

Run some CCI Stingers in there and see how it does. For some reason my S&W Victory loves that ammo, but my Ruger 10/22 not so much.

I wouldn't waste my time with Remington ammo if you are seeking reliability, stick with anything CCI. I use the Remington fodder in my 10/22 as it will at least feed and fire anything I throw at it. The last thing I would do is start jacking around with a perfectly good handgun. Find the ammo it likes and stick with it.

I have no Bobcat-specific advice. But you probably know that rimfires can be fussy about ammo. If you find one that works, stick with it while you look for some other ammo that the gun likes, or look for a gunsmithing fix for the extreme pickiness.

Once upon a time I carried a 21 concealed. I used Eley Tenex with great success, they were always reliable. They were also expensive.

Yea, I got the reliability formula down. You guys don’t read so well. Lol. CCI ammo and a bore snake makes for 100% reliability. Run any other brand of HV ammo though and it won’t cycle.

Yes, I can only run one brand but I’m trying to Smith this thing to a better reliability.

This is the only gun, 22 or otherwise that I have kept that exhibits ammo sensitivity. Sold Walter P22, sold Walter PP in 32, every other gun I own eats anything, or it goes.

The other Bobcat works great. I am trying to replicate that. The recoil spring snipping is because I figured the stiff springing was leading to short stroking while using bulk pack. Most manufacturers over spring which works out ok because after a couple hundred rounds everything settles down. The springs in the bobcat are strong. Try racking the slide and it’s tough.

Thanks

In my experience with the Bobcat 21a. Slide Glide lite on all slide/frame moving surfaces. Clean magazine with only CCI Stinger ammo. Clean the barrel chamber after 40-50 rounds since 22LR ammo is dirty.

My Beretta mouse gun of choice now is the SAO 950B in .25acp.

What pisses me off about this is Beretta is so close to having the perfect pocket carry 22. Tiny tweaks would probably work wonders. Dovetail a sight ala the bigger brother tomcats, add an extractor, polish up this turd a bit.

I want to love this gun. Love is hard sometimes.

Years ago, a friend gave me a Bobcat Minx chambered in 22 Short. He gave it to me. I used it to shoot at Pigeons that inhabited an old building on my beat. Coolest feature, at least for me: If you were using a patrol car spotlight to illuminate the bird, you could see the slug flying! As for function and reliability, mine was good for around 50 rounds before gumming up. I kept q-tips, a tiny bottle of Hoppes and a small oiler of CLP in my gear bag. A quick wipe and oil and it was good to go. IIRC, the gun had no actual extractor. Ammo was CCI. I would guess velocity was about 800 FPS. I did own a 21A and it was fully reliable with Stingers. Bulk type .22 would gum it up in about 50 rounds. I did no mods on either of the Berettas, just focused on good ammo and clean/lube.
Oh... The Minx was one the most fun guns I have ever shot. If you can find one, buy it!

How about take the gun that runs 100% and start parts swapping into the problem child until you identify the issue then buy a replacement part?

quote:

So my plan is to tinker until Rem Goldens are ate up like popcorn

Good luck with that! Last time remington golden 22 were consistently good in quality was the 1970s.

CCI are the gold standard for consistency in RF ammo without getting into high end $$ aspect of match grade RF ammo.

I hear and understand the desire.

My Bobcat is generally fine with Velocitors and similar hot+ CCI rounds. Everything else is more than merely dodgy with regards to reliable function. I've grudgingly accepted that it is what it is, based on my experiences with the gun and from the numerous collaborating tales of woe from other owners across the web. It's not a gun I would bother 'shooting the snot out of' anyways, so I treat it just like my 22LR pistols that can only feed standard velocity ammo without possibly damaging the gun: use the ammo that works and save the rest for other guns. But one major downside is that it's bloody hard to find Velocitor ammo available and without draconian limits on a regular basis, even with the web as my resource and various ammo-centric search engines. However Stingers we get from CCI regularly, so I resort to those when needed. I've also snared some of CCI's Copper-22 ammo but have yet to try any of that in the gun. None of these CCI loads are particularly cheap as 22LR ammunition goes, which is the second downside to me owning this little handgun.

I suppose that there's one 'good thing' about the scarcity and comparative cost of compatible ammo is that it doesn't inspire me to go out and find upgrades and accessories like nice wood grips or various holsters for my Bobcat. I can save that money for feeding the gun...when and if I can ever find the right loads.

I also have a Bobcat 21A and have found the only reliable ammo it likes is CCI. I used a few other brands and they didn't work so well. If you mess with it and figure out a solution please let the rest of us know.

quote:

Originally posted by molachi:
I also have a Bobcat 21A and have found the only reliable ammo it likes is CCI. I used a few other brands and they didn't work so well. If you mess with it and figure out a solution please let the rest of us know.

My 21A is the same way, I have app.1600 rounds through it.

Both my model 21 and 950 are probably 20 or more years old. But I do remember they both got gummed up with the lube wax.
I polished the little feed ramps smooth, and also polished the inside of the chamber. This made a dramatic difference in both those little guns shoot wonderfully.
When my sons were little, the 21A was a nice light gun that fit their hands and they would shoot hundreds of rounds when we were at the farm with no problems.
Try polishing the inside of the chamber and the feed ramp and see if that helps. Once the sutfaces are super smooth it seems like the lube wax doesn't gum things up as much.

GCE61 has the correct fix. I have three model 21's and they work flawlessly with most brands of ammo. The original one I purchased 40 years ago was bright blue with wood grip panels and it functioned well from the beginning. The later two were purchased used (and cheap because they were not reliable). These two shared the matte black exterior finish and the chambers were not shinny.

I spent half an hour with progressively finer compounds polishing the chamber area to a mirror finish. The feed ramp got a little "love" also.

Think carefully for a moment as that little pistol has no extractor and it relys solely on blow-back for it's function. If the chamber is even slightly imperfect, then only certain ammo will function

Very interesting thread. Can someone explain to me exactly how you polish the feed ramp and the chamber? For the feed ramp are we just talking about Flitz? Thanks vm. B

quote:

Can someone explain to me exactly how you polish the feed ramp and the chamber?

Flitz a q-tip and elbow grease till it's like a mirror.

For what it's worth the only .22 ammo that has worked well and that I will use in a semi-auto is Mini mags. Cutting springs to try and get an inferior ammo to work is not a good idea.

I took a broken in half Q Tip with abrasive rouge and chucked it in my Dremel at low speed. Put a piece of tape on shaft so I wouldn't polish into the rifling.

As to the other stuff, I read plenty of people who say their Bobcat eats everything. All the brands. Most agree that it needs to stay clean but there are plenty of reports of omnivorous Bobcats out there. In fact, my INOX one is like that. To answer someone earlier, I wouldn't swap out parts for two reasons. I ain't screwing with the one that isn't broke and I'm not really sure what parts you could swap on a Bobcat other than mags and slides.

Point is, I don't even shoot my good Bobcat. I am determined to unfuck this one.

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:
I took a broken in half Q Tip with abrasive rouge and chucked it in my Dremel at low speed. Put a piece of tape on shaft so I wouldn't polish into the rifling.

As to the other stuff, I read plenty of people who say their Bobcat eats everything. All the brands. Most agree that it needs to stay clean but there are plenty of reports of omnivorous Bobcats out there. In fact, my INOX one is like that. To answer someone earlier, I wouldn't swap out parts for two reasons. I ain't screwing with the one that isn't broke and I'm not really sure what parts you could swap on a Bobcat other than mags and slides.

Point is, I don't even shoot my good Bobcat. I am determined to unfuck this one.

I may have to give this a try; the biggest issue mine has is ejection. If the Bobcat had an extractor, it would have solved most of its problems.