Today, my favorite plinking pistol blew up in my face when a defective .22 round exploded during training.
My Walther P22 receiver fractured hurtling metal from the weapon into my glasses. Thank God for polycarbonate!
Winchester has promised to call me back with a claim number. Presumably to replace my gun and ammo.
Buyer Beware!
Do you know what the malfunction was?.
Not surprised at all. After all these years, only WWB gave me FTF. I used Tula, Sellier & Bellot, Magtech, etc. with no issues.
Like riding motorcycles, all the gear, all the time. Polycarbonate glasses saved you from a worse outcome.
Most likely an over pressurized round
I saw a case of WWB at a fantastic price recently and I still refuse to buy it. I’ll buy Wolf before WWB!
My go to for my 22’s is Federal or CCI. Pistols Fiocchi.
We still don’t know what to beware of …
Ammo is easy to blame…
Exploded .22 round? How do you know? Did you check the barrel after the incident? Was is Walther P22 or P22Q?
Anyway.. I’m glad your eyes are OK ! 
What type of Winchester rimfire was it? Wildcat? 333? Super X?
I’ve seen 333 come apart in the box and Wildcats with loose bullets which I suspect could be set back causing overpressure but Super X has always treated me well. Of course this was long ago. My current .22 only digests CCI-SV
Well, even if the previous shot was a squib, it’s not like he had half a magazine of reloads in the gun…. So the lead cause of the KB would lay with the ammo manufacture, and especially in .22 it would be difficult for a sport shooter to have noticed the squib.
Range safety officer checked the weapon. No evidence of obstruction. He thinks the round was overloaded.
Winchester has numerous recalls out. LeArned this after the fact.
Winchester is moving very slowly in responding to my claim. They want Walther to replace the gun while they do a forensic on my ammo. I’m sending back around 500 rounds at my own expense along with pictures of the failed round and destroyed gun.
I’m not feeling like they want to own this incident. Also, I unbox my ammo and store it in a plastic ammo can. No way to know what lot number this ammo belonged to. I just buy what’s on sale at Dunhams.
I swore off Winchester years ago. I have had more failures and more quality issues with them than every other manufacturer combined, and it’s not close.
I have had out of spec rounds measured that I sent photos and lot numbers to Winchester about (COAL was grossly over max) and never heard a peep.
These failures have been rimfire, centerfire pistol, centerfire rifle, including their premium Talon defensive rounds.
My answer, do not buy Winchester.
That’s what Walther advised me. They are replacing my slide at no cost. Classy company.
Is this P22 or P22Q model?
Are they inspecting the whole gun? Or just sending a new slide?
Walther is sending me a new slide for the P22. . Ill take the gun to my local range and let one of the gunsmiths give it a look over.
Same here except I fold the box up and put it in the can with the ammo.
I think they may be worried about the negative press resulting from this(like it isn’t bad enough from word-of-mouth).
Not really. Probably overloaded round. You should see the cartridge.
Do you have pictures?
