Model 63 Ammo feeding issues|Winchester .22 Rim Fire|Forum|Winchester Collector

I think you’ve identified your issue, Nosium. Your 63 will be happier with ammo rated at about 1200fps, save the standard velocity stuff for target rifles. My 63 is one of the few rifles I shoot that prefers the HV stuff, it really likes that Remington high velocity.

Mike

My 63 was made about 1949 and gets sluggish if fed a magazine of standard velocity ammunition. Blowback actions are dirty anyway but this one seems to accumulate more powder residue if SV ammo is used.  

I have been using a lot of point-of-sale Winchester HV hollowpoint at the range in several different rifles recently,  a 52C Sporting, a 62A, and a Stevens 86 (tube feed bolt gun).  The 36 grain plated bullet has a narrow but flattened tip that exactly none of my three rifles like very much. They eject normally but the edge of the bullet tip often hangs up on the barrel faces, none of which appear distorted from dry fire. 

Remington and CCH HVHP don’t produce this problem. 

In a blowback action, the weight of the breechbolt (plus the weight of anything attached to it, as in the centerfire self-loading 1905/07/10 design) and the resistance of the recoil spring are all that control the “dwell-time” of the closed breech phase of the firing/extraction/ejection/reloading cycle. 

If the breech opens too soon,  the bolt slams back to damage the frame and  high velocity powder gas and partially burnt particles damage the shooter. 

If the breech opens too late, the residual energy in the bolt is insufficient to cleanly extract, eject, strip-off a fresh round, and overcome mechanical friction to return to battery without fail. 

T. C. Johnson was very aware of the variability of rimfire ammunition then extant — and in particular of the dirty “semi-smokeless” variety. He insisted on a new, proprietary, smokeless cartridge for his new automatic rifle to ensure reliability.

I have always thought semi-smokeless rimfire cartridges were popular because they encouraged small bore owners to wash their barrels and so, unknowingly, wash out the corrosive priming that would otherwise ruin such barrels in short order.

Because the 22 Winchester Automatic cartridge was always loaded with smokeless powder, which left less residue and that was thought to be harmless but was loaded with corrosive priming until 1927 or thereabouts, I would expect to see a disproportionate number of Model 1903 automatics with corroded bores. Perhaps that’s not so but it seems a reasonable speculation.

In any event, it’s obvious you can’t specify a recoil spring for the Model 63 that is going to allow the rifle to function well with both low and high velocity ammunition. If I recall correctly, the barrel of mine is rollmarked for “Super Speed” long rifle cartridges.