Bought a used, great-condition 77/22 (in 22 LR) from a buddy last year. Noticing that sometimes when trying to eject a live round from the chamber, it gets stuck. Bolt feels a bit sticky, and when I pull it back, the cartridge remains in the chamber. This does NOT happen every time, just periodically - seems more prevalent if I "baby" the bolt and cycle it lightly. If a live round gets stuck, I just fire it and then easily eject the spent case. Never had a single issue ejecting a spent case, just live rounds.

I'm using cheap ammo (Rem Golden Bullet - bulk bucket). I haven't yet tried other ammo brands, but I plan to. Bolt pics to follow - a friend is going to post them for me (thanks Tom).

Wondering if anyone has had this happen. I'm thinking it may be an old extractor that needs replacing, or just the fact that I'm using cheap ammo.

Any advice is appreciated - thanks.

No pic yet.
How dirty is it? Gummed up 22 extractors are usually the cause. Try another to be sure. Weak extractor spring. Worn extractor claw. Carbon in chamber and bolt. .Bolt feels sticky; that is the bullet stuck in carbon buildup in the chamber. Take your pick from the list and correct the easy things but first thing is do some basic maintenance and thoroughly clean it.

Fair chance someone took a little off the chamber end of the barrel.

It’s a pretty common accurizing trick on 77/22s

I gave away all the Remington bucket .22's... junk... about half of them didn't fire, even in several rifles... I use either federal or Winchester if I shoot bulk, and don't have problems...I'd try other ammunition, cleaning will definitely help, and "babying" the cycling action may affect the extraction of a loaded round... trying to be more careful, etc....

Most common culprit is carbon and bullet lube gunk in the chamber. Give it a good brushing with Hoppes. If that's not it could be a hard carbon ring built up by firing a lot of shorts in it. I usually polish these out with a small split dowel with 600 grit paper wrapped around it for a snug chamber fit. Spin this with an electric drill motor. Could also be corrosion with the same cure as previous.

Thanks for the replies thus far. I was thinking it might be carbon or 22 short crud buildup as a few of you said, but then wouldn't that mean I'd have trouble ejecting fired shells too? I've never had a problem with that - not one. Just a problem when ejecting live rounds, for some reason.

Here are the pics from the OP:

I can see from the bolt face and extractors that zero preventive maintenance has been performed on it. I suspect the chamber is filled with crud, etc, causing those gummed up extractors to balk at removing a bulleted round.
Please clean it correctly inside and out, and get back to us.

Or the previous owner has dry-fired it and caused a burr to form on the edge of the chamber from the fire-pin .. ??
Just a thought ...

But that would affect extracting fired brass too, wouldn't it?

Yeah .... you're probably correct ..

Looking at magnified shots of the extractor it appears the right primary extractor may be chipped. The left side just applies pressure to hold it against the primary.

Bobster - I posted those pics for the OP. I think you might be on to something. Are both of those extractors supposed to be identical? One sure does look different when you enlarge the photo.

Just an update for everybody. I gave the chamber a thorough cleaning with a rod chucked in a drill and a bronze brush wrapped with fine steel wool. Got a good bit of crud out of there.

Tried cycling live rounds through again, with several different brands. It worked a lot better. I had zero cycling issues with CCI Blazers, a couple with Rem Golden Bullet, and more with Federal bulk pack. But compared to before, it was very rare to have a problem. Had an issue about 5% of the time. I concluded I'll steer clear of Federal ammo and just stick with CCI (or Rem GB in a pinch).

Thanks to everyone for the feedback and helpful info. Much appreciated.