Federal Automatch Accuracy?

It’s okay bulk ammo but nowhere near CCI Standard in accuracy. It’s also supersonic and a bit dirty.

The red box Winchester is the worst I've seen with consistent velocity seen like 250 fps spread.

Scout21 said:

Would you happen to be talking about the 100 pack red plastic sleeve that is going 1300FPS? I'm intrigued by the velocity, although I've consistently read that accuracy is garbage in many cases.

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Well, I will allow you a little process of eleimination, and answer: NOPE!

I too found the Winchester +V ammo to be profoundly disappointing.
It chronographed in the high 1,000-1,100fps. Won’t cycle a GSG Firefly or a Ruger LCP.
HOWEVER, some surprisingly good Remington Golden .22 HP are the most reliable, even better than the CCI mini mags.

The Auto Match shoots “ok”. Plinking grade...but reliable. but won’t cycle the aforementioned pistols.

I have come to the conclusion that today's Automatch is just federal bulk in a differently labeled box with a higher price. Years ago it was pretty good although not on a par with CCI. Even CCI seemes to have slipped a little in quality and I won't even consider buying any 22 ammo from Winchester anymore.

For me Federal Auto Match ammo has been a little above average in terms of reliability and accuracy and certainly better than anything from Remington or Winchester. My 22LR ammo of choice is Wolf Match Target, CCI SV, CCI MiniMags, and Federal Gold Medal.

You will find that peoples' experiences with Auto Match is all over the place from horrible to great. It is a lot like Remington Thunder Duds, either it works well or it doesn't for each individual.

Here is my personal experience with Auto Match. Accuracy was so so in my bolt action rifles. I had quite a few duds/light primer strikes with it in all of my guns I trie it in. When the Auto Match choked and caused problems with my Marlin Model 60 and Ruger 10/22, I knew it as not the ammo for me. When it choked in those rifle and in my Ruger MlII, I knew to not bother trying it in any of my pistols with a reciprocating slide such as my Glock G44, Ruger SR22, or 1911 conversion slide.

my experience has been that is is accurate, but inconsistent. If I shoot 5 rounds, 3 will cloverleaf at 50, and I will have 2 fliers that open it up to maybe .75"-1" Could be me, but it repeats itself over and over, and if I switch to wolf MT or something, they mostly all make 1 ragged hole if I do my part.

You can expect benchrest accuracy out of loose packed ammo that you shake out of a carton.

I just checked my list and found that I've shot some Auto Match in 28 different guns. It suits some guns better than others (that's the way it is with all 22 LR guns - some ammo works better in individual guns than others), but it is NOT match grade ammo by any stretch of the imagination. It's plinking-grade ammo.

I don't recall having any FTFs with it, or if so, it'd be one round out of several 325-round boxes. That's the same with all 22 LR I've shot in the past several years (Federal, Winchester, SK, Wolf, Norma, Geco, Aguila, and probably some others). I almost never have a failure to fire. If someone is having a lot of FTF's, you either have terrible luck buying ammo (not likely), or more likely you need to clean your gun, replace a weak spring, or reshape your firing pin to strike the primer properly.

LiveLife said:

Auto Match accuracy is pretty good only surpassed by Aguila 40 gr Lead/CPRN.

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I6turbo said:

If someone is having a lot of FTF's, you either have terrible luck buying ammo (not likely), or more likely you need to clean your gun, replace a weak spring, or reshape your firing pin to strike the primer properly.

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My results and sentiment as well. In fact AutoMatch was my go-to for the year leading up to the last .22 shortage as I had a good bit of it. Then as luck would have it my LGS had several cases of Aguila SE on hand and I bought with reckless abandon having never fired a round of it. Once I tried it though, it supplanted AutoMatch as my does pretty well in everything plinking favorite.

Aguila has been one of the more plentiful brands of 22 ammo around here. I have shot a fair amount of it for that reason and like it. It seems comparable with CCI, both in HV and SV versions except for the smell. They must add burro poop to the powder for filler.

I have not measured the groups yet. But I have been burning thru the 325 bulk boxes at 1-3 per weekend in a M&P15-22 and glock 44. Pretty accurate and reliable. Maybe 1 or 2 dead primers out of 4 boxes.

doubleh said:

I have come to the conclusion that today's Automatch is just federal bulk in a differently labeled box with a higher price.

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No.

During my 40,000+ round testing the past several years, I found and especially during the 10,000 round 10/22 and T/CR22 break-in and accurizing threads to include dirty vs clean barrels fully documented with 25/50/100 yard 10 shot groups that this is not the case.

• For one, Auto Match is 40 gr Lead Solid RN where various Federal bulk are 36 gr CP Hollow Point.
• Federal bulk comes in either 525/550 round 36 gr CPHP Value Packs or 325 round 38 gr CPHP Field Pack.
• 5 different lots of 525/550 round packs were tested (2 lots of 525 and 3 lots of 550) and old/new lots of 525 round blue box consistently produced smaller groups which led me to believe that they are even different from 550 round Walmart only packs.

doubleh said:

Even CCI seemes to have slipped a little in quality

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CCI SV and Blazer have consistently produced smallest groups during my 10,000 round test past year. Here's 50 yard T/CR22 target showing CCI SV and Auto Match groups - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...22lr-on-the-cheap.898035/page-2#post-12180149



And 50 yard 10/22 target showing CCI/Federal/Auto Match groups - https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...izing-22lr-on-the-cheap.898035/#post-12146603

I've had good luck with all of it that I've bought over the past two years. From my Smith M-18 4" it chrono's 1070 fps with an Ext Spd of 26 fps for 10 shots.

From a gun between the knees, back rested position it will consistently give me ~1-1/2 gps at 25 yds with the Smith's iron sights. It feeds nearly 100% in my Ruger Standard Mkll and accuracy is as good as the Smith revolver. It also feed ~100% from a cpl of 1911's with Ciener and Marvel .22 LR uppers installed and with good accuracy as well.

This morning I was shooting my Smith M-63 here on my home range in a gusty crosswind using a two handed Weaver position at 7 yds. The gun is an 8-shot revolver and it put the first cylinder full into 1/2" at 7 yds....

Here in La Grange KY, Walmart has it at $21.16 + tax for 325 rounds...a bargain in todays inflated post Covid market. It's good ammunition for practice and plinking but if you're competing in Bullseye NRA matches, the high dollar stuff is still preferred.

Best Regards, Rod

Federal Automatch at 50 yards this morning. Nothing to write home, but good plinking ammunition.

Scout21 said:

Looks like damn fine groups given that it's bulk ammo. What gun were you using?

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CZ 457 Varmint. It prefers Federal Gold Medal (about the same group sizes, but at 100 yards instead of 50). Have not seen those in a while. Special mention to RWS. No luck with British ammo so far, not done trying everything yet. Seems to dislike everything high velocity, detested Aguila sniper subsonic.

I have had zero malfunction or jamming issues out of my Heritage revolver so yeah I stocked up, my Savage Mark II seems to like it too and my wife’s 64 have no issues so it’s good to go and if it starts giving issues the revolver will take care of it.

I'll pick up a pack of the newest fam ammo, I've got some of the original left and some that came out after that maybe 3-4 years ago can't remember. It maybe interesting to compare them.

Frostbite said:

Federal Automatch at 50 yards this morning. Nothing to write home, but good plinking ammunition.

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IME, those are much better than average 50-yard groups for bulk ammo. Based upon my experience with quite a few guns (including a bunch of CZs), that's about as good as it's going to get for what used to be $.04/round 22 LR. Your 457 "likes" it.

I have had multiple guns out at the same time testing Auto Match and also Winchester 222/333/555 (the bulk stuff that comes in boxes of various quantities). It was interesting to find the 333 would shoot similar to your above groups in some guns, and the Auto Match would shoot groups 2x the size, if not larger. Then in other guns, the reverse would be true.

I've found the same to be the case with target/match ammo too. Rimfire guns tend to be picky about their preferred ammo. If you have a rimfire that doesn't seem to want to shoot decent groups, or provide decent accuracy, don't give up on it until you've tried several different varieties of ammo.