Remington CBee .22LR review

I like those little CeeBee's as well. They are one of two Remington .22's that I will buy! I haven't used them on varmits (I usually have muskrat problems and the pond is ~50yd away) but it is great for paper punching in a casual setting because it is quiet enough to not need earplugs.

Great report, I may have to go look for a box or two. Have you tried the CCI CB Longs? They have the same power as the CCI CB Shorts but I found them to be much more accurate due to less freebore before engaging the rifling.

Thanks for the post, papa bear. I have been using CCI Target .22 Shorts for several years now, but after your review I will try a box of the Remington ammo.

BluEyes said:

I like those little CeeBee's as well. They are one of two Remington .22's that I will buy!

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What's the other? I avoid Remington Rimfire like the plague, except for CBees as an alternative to CCI shorts and CCI CB shorts.

Impressive expansion, papa_bear! I might stock up on CBees based on that alone ... plus they fit in semiautos that you can't shove a CB short into easily. I suppose I'll add those to the "buy when spotted" list on the phone.

bigfatdave said:

What's the other? I avoid Remington Rimfire like the plague, except for CBees as an alternative to CCI shorts and CCI CB shorts.

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Rem Subsonics. Lowest price subsonic I can find and since they are basically a standard velocity .22, they match the sights on my M69 trainer well. That rifle crushes the rim with the firing pin, so I have very few FTF's. It will often fire the duds that I extract from my other .22's.

Have you tried disassembling a cartridge to see if it's primer-only or has a small load of propellant

in this thread I posted on Rimfire Central, it turns out the CCI CB series rounds actually contain .5 of a grain of propellant

MacTech, I've disassembled the cartridges in the traditional way only ... and I'm all out.

Now I'm curious though ... if nobody else does I'll pop one open and investigate.

Remington CBee .22LR ultraquiet round autopsy report

Against my better judgement, I went and purchased some Remington CBee cartridges, I haven't had the best luck with Remington .22LR ammo, their "Target" rounds were horribly inconsistent and had shotgun-sized groups in all my rifles, and the less said about Golden Bullets the better....

So, it was hard for me to stump up the money for Remington ammo

Once I saw the box they came in, my resistance began to wane a bit, a nice, reusable plastic box with a decent spacer/rack, plus, the truncated cone bullet just looked cool, nice tapered point, deep hollowpoint cavity and scoring marks on the nose to insure adequate expansion and mushrooming

So, I came to this thread to first see if anyone else had performed an autopsy so I wouldn't have to tear open a cartridge, but no one has, so I decided to "take one for the team" as it were

Date; October 28, 2010
Time; 7:00 PM EST
Subject; Remington CBee .22LR low-noise cartridge

Mr. Bee was clothed in a bright brass colored jacket and wearing a golden-colored "hat" with a hollow in the top, a silver "hatband" near the top of the "hat"

the subject weighed 45.1 grains before the initial dissection, the hat weighed 33.8 grains, and the subject's "jacket" weighed 9.3 grains

Upon dissection, it was discovered that Mr. Bee contained .8 grains** of smokeless propellant, and that the primer "belt" in Mr. Bee's jacket was applied in a heavy ring around the rim of the cartridge, the primer is dark blue-green in coloration and appears to be rather thick, there is a circular area of bare brass at the center of the cartridge that is approximately the diameter of the very tip of the bullet, it looks like due to the heavy layer of primer compound, ignition *should* be theoretically very reliable

Mr Bee is survived by his 99 remaining Next of Kin, which will be next in line for dissasembly, the "old fashioned" way, inside a gun

From what I can see from the dissected cartridge, the CBee's look to actually be a pretty decent cartridge, we will see once I can get out to the range this weekend

**for comparison purposes, the CCI CB series has .5 grains of propellant, the Remington CBee has .8, that would explain the slightly louder muzzle report that the OP referenced

Thanks for the autopsy!

Sounds like the interior of CB shorts, almost no powder and extra primer (if I remember right)

I'm with you on the bulk of Rem Rimfire ammo being junk, but the CBee is at least a good CCI substitute for when I can't find the stuff I want.
I'm not touching the golden bullet line ever again, though ... and there always seems to be a cheaper alternative for centerfire, too.

Initial sound level report, CBee vs. CB Long vs. Augilla Super Colibri

Distance; 30 feet or so
Rifle; Marlin Model 25 with Tasco Japanese made 4x 32mm scope
Target; small pumpkin about the size of a basketball, maybe a little smaller

On a scale of 1-10, 1 being still air and 10 being the sound of a standard high velocity bulk .22 round, the rounds rated thusly;

Super Colibri; 1.5
CCI CB Long; 2.5
CBee; 3.0

The 'Bees had a slightly louder "crack" than the CB Longs

They are also exceptionally dirty rounds, shooting four of them made my barrel look like I had just shot about 100 rounds of bulk, lots of flaky crud residue left behind

I took some pics of the pumpkin with my iPhone, so the picture quality isn't optimal, I was very surprised with the results;


from top to bottom, the entry wounds are;
CBee (740 FPS, 33 Gn HP bullet)
CB Long (710 FPS 28 Gn solid)
Super Colibri (500 FPS 20Gr solid)
For some reason, the slow, light SC round made a huge entry wound, I thought it bounced off in fact...

Then I turned the pumpkin around to check the exit wounds;

From top to bottom;

Super Colibri
CB Long
CBee

Yes, that slow 20 grainer actually penetrated the entire pumpkin, with barely enough energy to exit, making an almost identically sized exit wound

A few more details about the pumpkin shoot;
The Super Colibri's path had the most deviation of the three, entering near the bottom, exiting near the mid-top of the gourd
the CCI and Remington rounds had the straightest path, when I shot the CCI round, I heard the bullet impact both the pumpkin and the backstop board behind it a fraction of a second later, since the CB was overpenetrating the pumpkin, and the CBees were slightly more powerful, I shot at a more downward angle with the CBee shot to make sure the round hit the dirt/backstop board, that's why the exit wound for the CBee is the lowest, while the entry wound is the highest

The Remington CBee's are another great choice for an ultraquiet .22 round, and as exhibited by my choice of target, *NONE* of these rounds are "toys" even the lowly Augilla Super Colibri was capable of (just barely) completely penetrating a pumpkin, just because they're quiet doesn't mean they're toys

I'll be hitting the range on Sunday (barring inclement weather/wind) to do some 25 and 50 yard accuracy/grouping shots with the CCI and Remington CB rounds

I've been doing a bit more playing with the Rem CBees, seeing how they feed in my collection of .22's....

Marlin 25 bolt; flawless feeding and eject, no damage to bullet from feeding
Savage MKII-G Bolt; same as the Marlin 25, no issues at all
Ruger 22/45 semiauto pistol; flawless feeding and eject
Ruger 10/22 - 25 round Butler Creek Steel Lips mag; see above two entries
Ruger 10/22 10 round rotary mag; Lower edge of bullet nose slightly flattened at an angle, it looks like the bolt is pushing the cartridge into the leading edge of the feed lip, where the soft lead of the CBee is being shaved off, this will definitely affect accuracy

I tested other conventional cartridges in my sole Ruger 10 round mag, and none of them exhibited the "shaving" issue of the CBee, since the CBee uses what appears to be a modified Yellowjacket bullet, perhaps I should pick up a 50 round box of YJ's and see if the "Truncated Cone" style bullet just doesn't play well with the Ruger mag, I should also get another 10 round Ruger mag (or three) and see if the problem is endemic to just this mag, or if it's a design issue between the YJ bullet and Ruger mags

Initial data is interesting, but inconclusive, a larger sample size is needed for a more reliable conclusion to be drawn

Oh and I know the CBees will not have enough energy to cycle the bolts on my semiautos, I just wanted to confirm that they would feed and eject, as both the 10/22 and 22/45 have issues with anything shorter than Long Rifle length cartridges

Oh and I know the CBees will not have enough energy to cycle the bolts on my semiautos,

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Not always true ... I had a friend at the range with one of those purpose-built AR15 trainers in .22LR, and they actually cycled the bolt in it.
I think he had the Colt/Umarex knockoff, but I couldn't swear to it.

They do not cycle a Walther P22, Ruger mkIII (6 & 7/8" or 5 & 1/2"), Ruger 10/22, or Marlin 60

Forgot to bring the CBees to the range today, D'OH, I'll either go after work tomorrow or next Sunday....

Thanks I have been using standard 22 shorts or those SSS rounds on Rats around my bird feeders in the winter.

Since my gun club allows paper targets only, I've been thinking about setting up a homemade "penetration test" at my home range to see how far the CBees will penetrate organic matter

It's clear they overpenetrate a small pumpkin, but how about a large one, a coconut or three, a line of apples, or the classic line of water jugs?