I have been shooting the 550 count Federal bulk .22 in steel plate matches for over 12 years. In that time my dad and I might have 1 or 2 rounds out of a thousand that would not fire- good primer dent but no bang even when loaded again. That wasn't a bad average, especially when we might go through several boxes without it happening again.
At last month's match I had several from a box a friend gave me that I had just opened fail to fire- 3-4 out of 10 rounds. I also had several squibs. They sounded so soft that I immediately stopped and cleared the pistol- Ruger MkII, and checked the bore.
My friend felt bad and swapped me a brick of the blue Federal and took that box home with him. I haven't tried that brick yet.
This past weekend I opened my last 550 count bulk box to take my wife to the range for Valentines Day- I do love that woman. We had several that did not fire, but when I looked at the ammo closely I noticed that many of the rounds had corrosion on the brass- on the sides and on the bottom of the case. I checked the box and there was no water damage or any spot where the box was otherwise damaged.

Is this common with today's bulk .22 Federal ammo? Has anyone else noticed misfires more often? I could have written the first box off as a bad batch- it happens, but the second box was from a different batch.
Is it possible that in order to fill the demand that Federal is shortcutting QC and ramping up the speed of their assembly line?
I have never heard of ammo going bad in storage as long as it stayed dry.

I will try the blue brick soon, and fortunately I still have 3 bricks of Winchester Super-X, so I am in good shape for a while for matches, but I am not at a level where I feel good doing a lot of practice.

Yes, I'd say it's possible.  I've noticed that some of my recent bulk packs of Federal have had more failure to fire rounds than those of a couple years ago.  Couple to three rounds per 200 vs. per 1000.  
There have even been some that I've ejected from my pistol, picked up, and tried again with the hammer falling in a different place that have still failed to fire.

I hope it's just the bulk stuff and the boxed ammo is good. When it started giving problems during my match, even with alibis it got in my head and I couldn't avoid anticipating problems. It's really hard to be competitive waiting for a misfire. Squibs when shooting as fast as I do in a match are scary too. I am sfraid I won't stop in time if I get an obstructed bore.

I've never had good luck with fed bulk pack.  If they've worked for you, when was the last time you swapped springs in your Ruger.

Yep, with the fed or the rem bulk packs I would anticipate about 5-10 that have no priming compound.  It is the one without powder that will eventually fuck you.  That was the Rem and my Sig Mosquito was fubar'd.  I was having so many misfeeds and fail to extracts that I didn't notice the squib.  The next round bulged the barrel inside the slide locking it up tight.  

Lately I have had good luck finding CCI bricks and I think that I am probably going to neckbeard all of my Fed stuff when I have an adequate buildup.  

I was having decent luck with the Winchester 555, but those are unobtainium.  Fucking Midway just cancelled my 1+ year back order for a case of them. I hope their balls itch for an equal period of time.

I am getting good primer strikes. I had 3 or 4 rounds that went pfft i stead of bang. Those worried me. Another shooter was also shooting the Federal bulk- different box and batch. He also had some squibs. They sounded so soft we looked to see if the bullets fell in front of the bench.
I will try this Federal Champion and see how it does. If I get misfires with it I am finished with Federal. It's a shame too. My Ruger MkII pistol eats it like a fat kid eats candy. My dad's did too and every MkII I see at the match has no problem with it until recently.

Federal is today's bottom end ammo along with Remington Thunderbolt and other RP products.  RP after 2007 kinda went to hello.  Bad priming and poor ignition are par for the course.  People keep buying it and they keep making it.  Even when it fires it is weak.

CCI MiniMag and Blazer are the top end.

WW stuff is in the middle.

I think due to the rush to put out as much product as they can QC has slipped. A recent lot of win bulk .22 I bought has had a bunch of dud rounds too.

With any company the bulk pack ammo is always bottom rung of the ladder for quality- I avoid bulk junk whenever possible. I suspect quality has slipped due to demand and production but it was not even that great with bulk ammo to begin with.

The Federal bulk has been reliable in my pistols for over a decade. I would go through about a case a year or more. It is onlt these last 2 boxes that were bought sometime during the shortage that is giving problems.

As stated above the last year or two has shown many a decline on QC. Atleast it isn't being picky about who or what it goes after.  One would think with the current prices that  it would be top notch stuff.

Call Federal for an RMA and send that box to them.  They will pay you for it.  You have a really bad batch.

Where you have a choice, better to lesser quality would go about like:

CCI MiniMag and Blazer 40RN:  the best

Winchester SuperX 40RN:  usually OK

Federal blue box and American Eagle:  federal made a ton of low quality stuff in the last few years.  Bad priming and hi-low powder going click-pop-bang at random firing it.

Remington especially Thunderbolt which leads the bores to an unshootable degree and is a witch to clean out.  Other Rem is sometimes OK and sometimes not.  After 2007, Rem generally is bad quality.

Generally, 50 boxed smmo is better than bulk from the same maker.  With Federal its equally bad.  Some of the speciality things like "auto" this or that are good from CCI and not so from Federal.

So what you are experiencing with no fires is about right for a Federal product.  Somewhat better than nothing.

What you have to watch out for now is guys getting in back orders, firing some, seeing what is good and bad, and then dumping the bad quality stuff.

I'm with you on this.
The older Fed bulk packs ran just fine but the stuff I've purchased in the last 1-2 years have had up to 40% failures per box.
I've ended up gifting the boxes purchased over the last couple years because they run so poorly.
I never thought about calling Federal to return, but I may do that in the future.

I purchased a couple Fed bulk packs when I first started shooting my 10/22.  Probably 15 years ago now.  Every single report was different some significantly different...I had many failures to fire, some would go off the second time, some would go off the third time....others wouldn't go off at all.

I shot probably 100 rounds and gave the rest away.  Haven't shot it since.  

CCI Mini-Mags or SV only for me.

Did you contact Federal Ammo 800-379-1732 ? If  I was having that much trouble with anyone's  ammo!
They would know about it, from me. I would think they would want to know.
The lease you will get is "Damn we are sorry! Click!!!! But at lease you tried to let them know
their ammo is not up to your standers!
Word of mouth is the best advertisement there is! It can also the worse!!!
I just call them about an ammo I could not fine. Still making it, just not fast enough.
Just my 1/2 cents worth.

PITA45

No I haven't contacted Federal yet. I have been busy and it's low on my list. I will try next week and will report what they say.