Armscor 22 ammunition

[twarr1]

I usually use CCI 22lr but came across a few boxes of Armscor recently. This is the dirtiest, foulest ammo I’ve ever used of any caliber. After the first few rounds I checked the bore of my rifle and it was 1/3 clogged with residue. I asked my sil to have a look and tapped the barrel a few times and the gunk fell out.
Has anyone else run into issues with Armscor 22?

 

[Alex Clayton]

Panic before this one when I was buying a little of a lot of kinds I tossed a few boxes on one order. It had a really nasty smell when fired. It was VERY dirty too. After a couple mags the pistols I was trying it in started to hang up. This was quite a few years ago but sounds like nothing has changed. I tossed what I had left of the stuff.

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

Hmmm, I shot some of their .22 a couple years ago and didnt have any issues.

Their .30 Carbine has been excellent actually.

 

[Riomouse911]

I’ve also shot lots and lots of 36 gr HP in .22 LR and 40 gr JHP .22 Magnum. Armscor is certainly not match ammo, but it’s about as accurate and reliable as almost every other standard plinking rimfire I’ve shot.


I still have a bunch of Armscor .22 on the shelves, so far so good.



Stay safe.

 

[Varminterror]

Has anyone else run into issues with Armscor 22?

Dirty as it can be, but I’ve shot it out to 300 yards. Consistent enough to hit prairie dog silhouettes and 4” squares at 200 - not great, but not worthless.

 

[LiveLife]

Has anyone else run into issues with Armscor 22?

As some others already posted, not really other than sharper smelling powder burn. I wonder if storage condition could have been an issue.

When I did 20+ 22LR ammo comparison test in 2019 with ammo all purchased within a year, Armscor 36 gr CPHP went bang consistently (Had no duds) and my GSG 1911 produced the following groups.

In my 3000 round 10/22 ammo comparison testing, Armscor 36 gr CPHP also produced respectable groups at 25/50 yards compared to other boxed/bulk ammo - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...22-collector-3-break-in.859106/#post-11307816

 

[LoonWulf]

ive shot something like 2000rnds. my buddy and I split a case of 5000, im about out.....none of the cheap ammo ive had really beats it out of my bolt guns, and its been 100% (which in rimfire terms means i cant remember many failures) reliable in a half dozen autos.
IF i could get blazers for a reasonable price id shoot those, simply because they always worked well and were accurate when they were 9 bucks a brick......but otherwise ill take armscor over most of the bulk ammo.

 

[beagler]

We use it often. It is dirtier then some others out there, but with three boys that like to blast away, it is fine. It’s accuracy is decent for us as well. Prior to the panic, I could buy a brick for 19.99.

 

[Spats McGee]

I've never shot the .22 that I can remember, but I've shot a couple of hundred of their 9mm rounds without issue. I don't remember it being remarkable in any way, good or bad. It went bang and was as accurate as I am...

 

[Speedo66]

I’ve had no problem with it, it’s certainly much better than Remington in reliability.

 

[Dunross]

Armscor makes 22lr in both the Phillipines and the U.S. I don't recall now which of their lines I was shooting, but it proved to be good ammo for what I was doing and no dirtier than other brands. I plan to buy more when I can.

 

[Dave DeLaurant]

Thanks for the warning! Could you possibly post a pic of the box and lot number for us?

I've seen many packaging changes with Armscor over the years. FWIW, I'm still using this stuff, which I bought in a batch of 5K rounds from Midway during Bush Jr.'s second administration:



This stuff has been great. Clean, reasonably accurate and will consistently cycle my fussy Glock 19 .22 adapter slide. I still have a couple thousand rounds left to work through.

Good and bad lots of rimfire ammo of the same brand seem the norm for me. I've had both excellent and crappy results from different lots of PMC, Federal and Remington. I haven't had great luck with Winchester or Aguila. Only CCI has been consistently good for me across the years. Your mileage may vary.

 

[Dunross]

https://www.armscor.com/ammo/rimfire/

According to their website yours in the photos was made in the Philippines.

Looking at the online photos mine was their American made line.

Yours shoots well, mine shot well, so it may be that Twarr1 got a bad lot. I once had some Remington Thunderbolts perform so badly I threw the rest of the box away.

 

[MacAR]

I'm of the same opinion as most here; shot a lot of it and have had no issues. No more or less accurate than most bulk ammo, and no more or less dirty that I've noticed. Good performance rate as well. Never noticed the smell, but then again I rarely do. I can't help but wonder if the OP's particular batch didn't get damp; an abundance of fouling is a classic sign of damp shotgun shells, and I'm sure the same is true for metallic cartridges.

Mac

 

[Slamfire]

Thanks for the warning! Could you possibly post a pic of the box and lot number for us?

I've seen many packaging changes with Armscor over the years. FWIW, I'm still using this stuff, which I bought in a batch of 5K rounds from Midway during Bush Jr.'s second administration:

View attachment 1015917

This stuff has been great. Clean, reasonably accurate and will consistently cycle my fussy Glock 19 .22 adapter slide. I still have a couple thousand rounds left to work through.

Good and bad lots of rimfire ammo of the same brand seem the norm for me. I've had both excellent and crappy results from different lots of PMC, Federal and Remington. I haven't had great luck with Winchester or Aguila. Only CCI has been consistently good for me across the years. Your mileage may vary.

I am still shooting a case of that stuff. I remember paying 50 cents a box of 50! Now I pick up empty CCI HV 100 round boxes at the range, and they have $11.00 price tags on them! EEK! Anyway that cheap Armscor, it goes bang, and I can practice offhand Bullseye Pistol style.



The ten ring at 50 yards is around 3.5 inches, and Armscor will shoot within that with a rifle. So if I could hold that (and I can't), it is not as if the Armscor is limiting me in any way.

Would limit this guy, a two time Bullseye Pistol National Champion

His targets at CMP Talladega



The first target, which was stapled over with a clean target every 10 rounds, in a 25 yard reduced match

 

[HOWARD J]

Dug out a 100 pack of armscor 38 spl. new brass I purchased a while back.
The primers would not go all the way down in the pocket.
I used my RCBS trim mate to recut pocket---WHAT A PAIN IN THE ...........

 

[cdb1]

Bought a CZ 512 .22 Mag a week or so before the Sandy Hook tragedy. In addition I bought 250 rounds of ammunition, five different makes and models in 50 round boxes, don’t remember what they were but it wasn’t premium. Soon after needed more ammo but couldn’t find any because of the mass shooting induced shortage. A few weeks later found ARMSCOR on line and picked up 2,000 rounds. Sometimes you get lucky, it was dirty but more accurate than the other stuff I’d tried

 

[Demi-human]

I once rubbed the gooey wax off the cartridges in an attempt to use them through a magazine loader. That resulted in lead fouling and a baffle strike to my compensator.
If I leave them un-screwed-around-with, they are quite good ammunition.

Other than my own stupidity, I don’t notice it to be more or less dirty than another manufacturer.
I have had only good accuracy and reliability from several firearms, and have gone though four cases or so thus far. I hope to find it on the shelves in the future, in which case I will buy more than I did.


I hope the experience was just a fluke, @twarr1. Especially if you can get more.

 

[twarr1]

@Dave DeLaurant,
Lot numbers are
101620
108120

 

[Slamfire]

I once rubbed the gooey wax off the cartridges in an attempt to use them through a magazine loader. That resulted in lead fouling and a baffle strike to my compensator.
If I leave them un-screwed-around-with, they are quite good ammunition.

Other than my own stupidity, I don’t notice it to be more or less dirty than another manufacturer.

You are not stupid removing the wax for a semi auto, but if the wax is removed, you need to restore lubrication on the case and the bullet. The 22lr cartridge is one of the oldest on the market, and it was created in an era when cartridges were externally lubricated. Few externally cartridges exist from that period, and the new ones that require lubrication, like the FN 5.7 X 28 are typically lubricated with sintered Teflon. The FN90 action is a delayed blowback action, it used to be that cartridges were oiled or greased for those mechanisms, but current lubrication technology has developed to the point that dry lubricants are used.

I do know Eley Edge was made with a dry external lubricant, Eley would not say, but surely it looked like carbonized Teflon. Unfortunately my two cases of Eley Edge have never shot as well the heavily waxed Eley Tennex or Match. These bolt gun cartridges, and pretty much back in the 1880’s, the only mechanisms around where manually operated rifles, or pistols. So the heavy wax lubricant on 22lr’s worked just fine for feed and extraction, and of course, preventing leading the in barrel.

I was told that the difference in Pistol Match and Rifle Match ammunition was the lubricant. Rifle match ammunition has a beeswax based lube, and that lube is thick, and resists bolt closure. The Pistol Match has a vegetable based lube, and from the cases I have handled, the lube is thinner. All the time in Bullseye Pistol matches I see alibis created when pistol mechanisms don’t have the force to over come the wax crud and go into battery. If enough waxed based rounds are fired, that wax condenses and gums up the bolt mechanism. Rimfire semi auto's are blow back pistols, they require as little case to chamber friction as possible to function, which explains why the wax lubricant is all over the case, but blow backs open up when there is still chamber pressure in the barrel. And so, powder and lube get blown out the back. And condense to form a sludge. This sludge needs to be cleaned out.

One All Guard shooter, a gentleman with President 100 patches on his uniform, and his pistol box, he was wiping off the wax lube from the Eley Red Box ammunition he had, and rubbing all cartridges with an oily patch. He had figured out long ago, feed and extraction would be more reliable in his pistol, if he coated the cases in oil.


Clark guns advocates this. Old man Clark was a Bullseye Pistol National Champion when the Camp Perry matches had to accommodate 2000 pistol shooters.

 

[doubleh]

What I have shot seems to be in the same class as bulk Federal but at a higher cost. Fed is good grandkid ammo, the Armscor is a bit expensive for the same result. I just bought 1575 rounds of Fed bulk for my little monsters at 5.5 cents a round. If I find some Armscor for the same price I would also buy it.

 

[ms6852]

I've never shot armscor that I can recall and probably never will as I have limited myself to two manufacturers in rimfire ammo, CCI and Aguila, all their bullets do well in my rifles and handguns.

 

[GunnyUSMC]

I bought 30,000 rounds of Armscor 36 gr HP Ammo before the pandemic crazy prices hit. I have nickel and brass case. I bought most of it for .04 cents a round. The last 5,000 rounds I bought for .03 cents a round.
I haven’t found it to be dirtier then the average bulk 22 ammunition on the market, but have found it to be more reliable.
I took my grandson shooting a few weeks ago and he shot 300 rounds of Armscor through my Taurus TX22 and Glock 44. Both gun were 100% reliable with the ammo.



My youngest son, Isaac, has also shot a lot of Armscor 22 ammo through my Glock 44 and Taurus TX22. He’s also short a bunch of it through his custom built Red AR 15 with a CMMG 22 conversion with no problems.

 

[someguy2800]

You are not stupid removing the wax for a semi auto, but if the wax is removed, you need to restore lubrication on the case and the bullet. The 22lr cartridge is one of the oldest on the market, and it was created in an era when cartridges were externally lubricated. Few externally cartridges exist from that period, and the new ones that require lubrication, like the FN 5.7 X 28 are typically lubricated with sintered Teflon. The FN90 action is a delayed blowback action, it used to be that cartridges were oiled or greased for those mechanisms, but current lubrication technology has developed to the point that dry lubricants are used.

I do know Eley Edge was made with a dry external lubricant, Eley would not say, but surely it looked like carbonized Teflon. Unfortunately my two cases of Eley Edge have never shot as well the heavily waxed Eley Tennex or Match. These bolt gun cartridges, and pretty much back in the 1880’s, the only mechanisms around where manually operated rifles, or pistols. So the heavy wax lubricant on 22lr’s worked just fine for feed and extraction, and of course, preventing leading the in barrel.

I was told that the difference in Pistol Match and Rifle Match ammunition was the lubricant. Rifle match ammunition has a beeswax based lube, and that lube is thick, and resists bolt closure. The Pistol Match has a vegetable based lube, and from the cases I have handled, the lube is thinner. All the time in Bullseye Pistol matches I see alibis created when pistol mechanisms don’t have the force to over come the wax crud and go into battery. If enough waxed based rounds are fired, that wax condenses and gums up the bolt mechanism. Rimfire semi auto's are blow back pistols, they require as little case to chamber friction as possible to function, which explains why the wax lubricant is all over the case, but blow backs open up when there is still chamber pressure in the barrel. And so, powder and lube get blown out the back. And condense to form a sludge. This sludge needs to be cleaned out.

One All Guard shooter, a gentleman with President 100 patches on his uniform, and his pistol box, he was wiping off the wax lube from the Eley Red Box ammunition he had, and rubbing all cartridges with an oily patch. He had figured out long ago, feed and extraction would be more reliable in his pistol, if he coated the cases in oil.


Clark guns advocates this. Old man Clark was a Bullseye Pistol National Champion when the Camp Perry matches had to accommodate 2000 pistol shooters.

When I use brass plated bulk 22 ammo in my pistols or rifles I lubricate them with oil. I load my buckmark with a plastic magazine loader that holds about 100 rounds. I just fill it up and spray some remoil over everything right before I shoot and give it a shake. Hornady one shot spray lube for resizing brass also works really well and doesn't really leave a film after it dries. My buckmarks and my 10/22 don't usually give me any trouble, but my marlin model 60 will barely function unless I lubricate the ammo.

 

[Riomouse911]

You are not stupid removing the wax for a semi auto, but if the wax is removed, you need to restore lubrication on the case and the bullet. The 22lr cartridge is one of the oldest on the market, and it was created in an era when cartridges were externally lubricated. Few externally cartridges exist from that period, and the new ones that require lubrication, like the FN 5.7 X 28 are typically lubricated with sintered Teflon. The FN90 action is a delayed blowback action, it used to be that cartridges were oiled or greased for those mechanisms, but current lubrication technology has developed to the point that dry lubricants are used.

I do know Eley Edge was made with a dry external lubricant, Eley would not say, but surely it looked like carbonized Teflon. Unfortunately my two cases of Eley Edge have never shot as well the heavily waxed Eley Tennex or Match. These bolt gun cartridges, and pretty much back in the 1880’s, the only mechanisms around where manually operated rifles, or pistols. So the heavy wax lubricant on 22lr’s worked just fine for feed and extraction, and of course, preventing leading the in barrel.

I was told that the difference in Pistol Match and Rifle Match ammunition was the lubricant. Rifle match ammunition has a beeswax based lube, and that lube is thick, and resists bolt closure. The Pistol Match has a vegetable based lube, and from the cases I have handled, the lube is thinner. All the time in Bullseye Pistol matches I see alibis created when pistol mechanisms don’t have the force to over come the wax crud and go into battery. If enough waxed based rounds are fired, that wax condenses and gums up the bolt mechanism. Rimfire semi auto's are blow back pistols, they require as little case to chamber friction as possible to function, which explains why the wax lubricant is all over the case, but blow backs open up when there is still chamber pressure in the barrel. And so, powder and lube get blown out the back. And condense to form a sludge. This sludge needs to be cleaned out.

One All Guard shooter, a gentleman with President 100 patches on his uniform, and his pistol box, he was wiping off the wax lube from the Eley Red Box ammunition he had, and rubbing all cartridges with an oily patch. He had figured out long ago, feed and extraction would be more reliable in his pistol, if he coated the cases in oil.


Clark guns advocates this. Old man Clark was a Bullseye Pistol National Champion when the Camp Perry matches had to accommodate 2000 pistol shooters.

Man, if you want to experience greasy cartridges try a box of Norma match .22. They were covered in so much lube it made the rounds so slippery I could hardly load my mags. I had to wipe my hands off on a rag between rounds.

Stay safe.