Since my escape to the free world, I've been able to get back to teaching my kids shooting and firearms handling. The only .22 I have in the stable currently is my M&P 15-22, and, in our last couple of outings, we've been spending increasingly large amounts of times dealing with malfunctions - mainly rounds going straight up at 90 degrees when stripping off the magazine. Due to the design of the mag, this requires stripping the magazine, and wrestling the deformed case out of the front of the mag - not a great situation even without new shooters being in the mix.
Since I'm having these problems across all seven of my magazines, I'm wondering a couple of things: First, is there an aftermarket magazine option that might improve reliability? If not, has anyone had luck using different brands or types of ammo? I've been using big box bulk pack stuff, but not sure if that's the root cause.
If the consensus is this is just the cost of doing business with this platform, would the 10-22 be a more reliable choice?