You find with Smallbore Prone and 22 lr F Class shooters that ammunition perfection is a utopic dream. The best shooters test a lot of lots of expensive match ammunition to find the very best. They are looking for ammunition that holds half the ten ring, and for F Class shooters, that may be beyond the capability of the ammunition.
Very good match ammunition will hold the ten ring at 50 yards and never leave. These are two targets on the same relay by two National Champs shooting prone with a sling. Each bull has five rounds for record, making the total number of shots 20.
this is the 50 meter target by one of these shooters
These guys are shooting very expensive ammunition through very expensive rifles and I am skeptical that any lever action is capable of this level of consistency even with high priced ammunition.
When I have conducted my own testing with cheap match ammunition, I find low velocity shots happen.
an F Class bud was using TAC and had this amazing low velocity shot at 100 yards
he decided that cheap ammunition was not going to work for him, so he purchased Eley Black box and got much better results
I did take my CCI SV out and shoot it in a match rifle to see how it would do with a rest. Shot surprisingly well
If your ammunition will consistently hold an inch at 50 yards, that is good enough for all the squirrel hunting I ever did. When I tested my ruger 10/22 with its factory barrel, it was very sensitive to brand of ammunition, and I really did not detect the sensitivity until I moved the target out to 50 yards. When I had a Volquartsen barrel installed, the differences between ammunition groups lessened, and which ammunition shot best was racked and restacked. Whereas match ammunition was not so great in the factory barrel, it shot super duper well in the Volquartsen barrel. A better tube shoots better ammunition better.