Why are .22 LR cartridges so shoddy?

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rpenmanparker

rpenmanparker

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Maybe this is true of all rimfire cartridges, I don't know. But my .22 LR cartridges are terribly shoddy. Mainly loose bullets that cause FTLs. What's up with that? I never see that in my 9 mm cartridges.
 
rpenmanparker said:
What's up with that?
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Apparently it's good enough to sell. If it's not good enough for you, buy better ammo. I think you don't see really crappy center-fire because it would be dangerous; .22 really isn't dangerous, just inconvenient and annoying.

I know guys shooting .22LR ammo that costs $22/50; they're quite happy with the quality.
 
From experience I find buying the bulk packs are NOT the way to judge .22 ammo IMHO. The better quality ammo, CCI and on up in price is usually fairly good stuff. That said some will work well in one firearm and not in a different one. Also if you have trouble with most .22 ammo I would be looking at the firearm as well. Light strikes on the rim will often be identified as poor quality ammo instead it seems. It has been said that the bulk packs are the lower quality "seconds" that the maker cannot charge premium prices for but still can recover some of the costs. Take this info for what it cost you and go buy a box of SK match or Midas and see if your .22 runs better.;) YMMV
 
Look, people talk about buying bargain bricks all the time around here. It is a standard practice. I didn’t make it up. I’m just asking why the bullets are loose.
 
Economy. I notice fewer loose bullets with match-grade rounds.
The heeled bullet design doesn't press in and crimp as well as non-heeled design. They work well enough to sell for the price, and the heeled design keeps a loose bullet from being dangerous.
Conversely, 9mm can't be loose, or it would be dangerous. It would set back and could cause pressure spikes.
 
rpenmanparker said:
Look, people talk about buying bargain bricks all the time around here. It is a standard practice. I didn’t make it up. I’m just asking why the bullets are loose.
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They're loose because you're buying Remington bulk ammo? Guessing on the manufacturer but Big Green is consistently the most inconsistent bulk pack .22 ammo in my experience. Thunderbolts being the worst of the worst.

Anyway, that's the level of quality control and consistency you're paying for at $20/550 rounds of .22LR. And that's not being snobbish. But people continue to buy it up, therefore the manufacturers have no incentive to make it any better. If you pick up anything from CCI, RWS, Eley, Lapua or SK, you'll find the ammunition is significantly better made (and more carefully packaged, and more expensive). Even Aguila tends to have secure bullets and come in nice packaging.

Now all that said, I do like to keep a brick or 3 of the cheap bulk packs for plinking steel plates with my .22s. For other uses though, I'll use at least CCI Standard Velocity.

And the fact that with .22 ammo, more expensive generally does mean better shooting, is a subject for another thread.
 
Its a heeled soft lead bullet you can pull them out by hand.
Cci have been better but bulk ammo wiggles. If they bend loading and jam its probably your gun, messed up feed ramp or something wrong with the bolt.
 
rpenmanparker

Look, people talk about buying bargain bricks all the time around here. It is a standard practice. I didn’t make it up. I’m just asking why the bullets are loose.
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Typically I have found that quality suffers a bit when buying bulk pack .22LR ammo. It's being made for sale at a certain price point and that there's little if any quality control inspection of the ammo before it gets boxed up and shipped out. So you're probably going to have your fair share of loose (or deformed), bullets and rounds without enough primer in their rims.

Have never run into that problem with any of the higher end ammo from CCI, RWS, Eley, Lapua, Wolf, etc. but then you're paying more for better quality and performance.
 
rpenmanparker said:
Look, people talk about buying bargain bricks all the time around here. It is a standard practice. I didn’t make it up. I’m just asking why the bullets are loose.
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You're asking a specific question which requires a specific answer that we're unable to give you because we don't have the...errr..."specific" details required to answer it.

As others have pointed out, there IS a quality difference between the various brands, and sometimes it's significant enough to make a difference on several levels.

There may be issues with the firearm in question, sometimes.

Here's the deal, especially with .22 ammo: If you're having a problem with the ammo, change the ammo. It could be a bag batch, it could be a poor quality brand, whatever. It's annoying, to be sure...but just change the ammo.
 
22 LR ammo is available in a wide quality range and it's a perfect example of you getting what you pay for. Not satisfied with the quality of the cheapest available? Start working your way up the price ladder and the quality will improve.
 
Thanks. The heeled bullet explanation seems to be the answer I was looking for. I might try some higher end stuff just to see what that is about. I appreciate the responses.
 
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Like Chief says it could be the batch. I recently had a problem with a batch of 1500 rounds of CCI Standard, where I couldn't get a whole magazine to feed properly. The rounds would not feed out of the magazine, and it wasn't a magazine issue because it was doing it with all 10 of my mags.

The rounds looked excessively loose but they also would not rise smoothly in the magazine so they were possibly over-sized.
I don't know.
But I had fired several 1000 rounds of that ammo from a different batch with no problems previously.

As others have said, Remington ammunition is not known to be quality (in .22LR). I've tried Golden Bullet and Thunderbolt and they were both very poor in terms of consistency. They only ammo I have tried which is worse is Magtech (for .22LR).

You get bad batches in all ammunition but some brands have served me better than others. I've had good results using multiple rifles with these brands:

RWS Target Rifle
RWS Rifle Match
Eley Tenex
Lapua Midas And Master series (that was a few years back)
 
Like auto parts, you tend to get what you pay for with .22lr.... at least that’s been my experience.

I only avoid Remington Golden Bullets and generally buy the next cheapest thing for plinking and have a few issues, just not enough for me to care about. When hunting it’s generally CCI’s and if really I’m trying, like sighting in or playing backyard bullseye then it’ll be match ammo.


And for what it’s worth I’ve told been to Remington has greatly improved the Golden Bullets, but I haven’t bought any in over a decade and I have no plan to.
 
I look at it as what is expected for something that costs a penny? If logic and numbers are considered, we see (cheaper) .22LR ammo being sold for between 4¢ and 5¢ each. Consider shipping, profit markup at the mfg, dist. and retail level and you get about 1¢ to make. You get what you pay for.
 
I was having trouble with my wife's .22 Walther ppk/s not ejecting rounds efficiently.Which is common with that gun. So I got CCI and BPR(Browning) and not one failure. So much better.
 
In my work as an RSO/instructor I see thousands of rounds of 22lr fired every shift. We have a "dud bucket". 95% of ALL ammo in that bucket is Remington 22lr. It is so bad that we actually use it in our basic handgun class as a teachable moment because during their course of live fire, we are guaranteed at least one issue per student which gives them a hands on lesson in clearing malfunctions from a semi-auto.
 
rpenmanparker said:
Thanks. The heeled bullet explanation seems to be the answer ai was looking for. I might try some higher end stuff just to see what that is about. I appreciate the responses.
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As has been said, what are the FTLs you are experiencing and do you not get it with higher end ammo? Bulk ammo is just that. It is meant to be inexpensive plinking type ammo, and not the highest quality stuff you can find, especially when it comes to .22. If the loose bullets were a safety issue, it would not be happening. For the price, I think bulk .22 ammo(for the most part) is a pretty good value. Some guns have a preference when it comes to feeding and accuracy, but that goes for the higher end stuff also. For what it costs, one can try several different types/brands and see what they and their gun prefers.
 
The heeled bullet explanation seems to be the answer ai was looking for.
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There's nothing about heeled bullets that makes them more likely to be loose in the case, it's that the heeled bullet design makes it possible to have loose bullets without the bullets just falling out of the case. So the lower end makers don't worry about the bullets being loose.

Why do they do that? Because it's not a problem and it keeps the price down. For example, I shoot most of my .22LR through a revolver and that means virtually anything works if I'm just plinking or working on DA trigger technique.

The answer you are looking for is that poor quality .22LR cartridges have a number of issues and loose bullets can be one of them. If you don't like the loose bullets and/or they are causing you trouble, you can spend more to pay for better quality .22LR and you won't see that problem any more.
 
I grabbed a bulk pack box of Winchester xpert off the shelf that has a $14.95 price tag on it. It clearly was made before the gigantic quality dive that followed the 2013 banic. Imagine my surprise when 20-30% of them didn’t have enough power to cycle my 10/22.

Sometimes you just get a bad batch. Some days Inspector #7 is just too hung over to pay attention to the powder measure settings.
 
rskent said:
Please do us a favor and tell us what brands of 22lr you are having trouble with.
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Just about all the cheap bricks. Browning, the much despised Thunderbolts and even in 50 round packs the Aguila. I hate to admit it, but I don't pay a lot of attention to the brand. If you try to wiggle the bullet you can. That is it in a nutshell. It just doesn't seem right to me. I don't get a lot of FTFs. But when I do get one, I often notice the bullet has been cocked to the side and the whole cartridge isn't straight anymore. Of course I throw those away.
 
JohnKSa said:
There's nothing about heeled bullets that makes them more likely to be loose in the case, it's that the heeled bullet design makes it possible to have loose bullets without the bullets just falling out of the case. So the lower end makers don't worry about the bullets being loose.

Why do they do that? Because it's not a problem and it keeps the price down. For example, I shoot most of my .22LR through a revolver and that means virtually anything works if I'm just plinking or working on DA trigger technique.

The answer you are looking for is that poor quality .22LR cartridges have a number of issues and loose bullets can be one of them. If you don't like the loose bullets and/or they are causing you trouble, you can spend more to pay for better quality .22LR and you won't see that problem any more.
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I can understand this. I guess what got me started was the recognition that no matter how cheap the 9mm ammo, I never see anything like loose bullets. OK, I understand it is more of any issue with 9mm and the maker can't let something like that out the door. I just would have thought that was true for .22 also. Now I understand that isn't so.
 
You guys have named a number of higher priced and higher quality brands of.22 LR. I have seen CCI aplenty, but I don't recall ever seeing brands like Eley in the big stores like Wal Mart and Academy. Where would I go to get some most likely, a smaller, more specialized LGS, online...?
 
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