Beech King Air problems during approach at DCA

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I had a break this afternoon, so I thought I would take the MS default Beech King Air for a flight from ATL to DCA. Things were going fine until ATC told me to lower my altitude to 2400 feet. On the autopilot, there was not an option between 2700 and 1600 feet. That is, I was able to click it down normally to 2700 feet as it should. However, the next click below 2700 feet was 1600 feet instead of 2600. What I did then was to turn off the autopilot and lowered my altitude to 2400 manually and then followed the ATC instuctions. At that point, my altitude began to oscillate wildy, and it took all I could do to hold the plane steady. It shot me down to 1800 feet before I could gain control. Once I got it back up and in trying to hold it steady, my plane would descend to 2300 feet, and then I would have to over-correct and it would climb to 2500 feet and then back to 2300 feet again. All this time, ATC was yelling at me (so to speak) to either climb or descent to 2400 feet. I was afraid they were going to cancel my flight plan like they notoriously like to do.At some point during all of this, I clicked on my autopilot and I was able to click in 2400 feet on the altimeter. The 2400 feet option seemed to magicially reappear. So, I clicked on the AP switch and the ATL switch once again in hopes of stabilizing the airplane. However, the ocillations continued, and it never did hold at 2400 feet. So, once again, I had to turn the autopilot off and go at it manually.The weather in the DC area was few clouds, very light precipitation, 10 miles of visibility, and light wind speed. However, it felt like I was flying through a darn thunderstorm in strong winds. I was able to get it on the ground in one piece, however.I have quite a bit of experience flying the smaller aircraft manually, so I am no beginner and have made quite a few flights using various aircraft without this sort of problem.Any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.Thanks,Robb

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