Why are .22 LR cartridges so shoddy?

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About the only thing I notice with those loose boxes is accuracy, and it ain't just Remington. Federal and Winchester make those bulk packs as well.

The key with .22LR is to keep the firearm clean. .22LR ammo is really filthy ammo and you need to keep your guns clean. Also, .22LR requires a really good strike on the primer for reliable ignition. I normally shoot ammo like Wolf Match Extra in my target rifles, but I shoot the cheaper stuff in my pistols with very few duds.
 
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rpenmanparker said:
Okay, so I just ordered 5X50 of Federal Gold Medal Ultra Match 40 gr lead RN. I saw some good reviews on it. Pricey but I am a chemist by trade and love to experiment. It is worth it to me to get an answer at the end of the process. I will shoot this against the crap I have been using. Not to find an everyday round, but just to learn what I can do with the good stuff. And along the way I will get to learn what quality ammo looks like. Better not be any loose bullets in that stuff! :)
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For quality plinking CCI Mini Mag, standard velocity or green tag target ammo. For more of a serious attempt at targets Eley Tenex, RWS Premium or something along those lines. Best used in target guns or sporting guns with target chambers work well also such as the CZ 452 or the Ruger MK3 Target model.
For quality devastation ammo for varmints CCI Stinger or Velocitor. Do not use these two in target chambers.
.22 rimfire uses heeled bullets because the bullet diameter is the same as the case diameter. The heel is smaller and fits inside the case allowing the crimp. Cheap fast production does not assure a good crimp with some even being so loose as to cock to one side. I had one Remington Golden Bullet actually droop when held horizontal. IMO Remmington makes the worst 22LR ammo out there no matter which "brand" brand it is under. Their Thunderbolt is some of the dirtiest to boot.
 
Why is 22LR so poorly made?
A while ago people were in line buying all they could and the manufacturers answered the artificial demand by stepping up production.
 
A lot of great ammo out there for rifle. I shoot the heck out of Pistols for training and love the Remington Goldens. I have seen to many test over the years to show they can be very accurate and I always get good results. I do not shoot bullseye when training and use the ammo for fast point and shoot. The Goldens are High Velocity and do a great job in My Bersa. In fact before I worked on the Bersa, they would work even better than CCI for cycling the slide. People can say what they want, but for two weekends in a row I have shot 200 rds out of my SR22 and about the same out of my LCR22 revolver with zero failures.
A few years back they did have a number of bad batches starting to come out. It was that time they said they upgraded the ammo and it was written on the new boxes. Since then they have been running great in my revolvers and Pistols. And for the Little LCR, I love shooting the High velocity.
For standard low cost ammo I like the Federal in the Blue Box. And If I do buy CCI, I actually perfer the standard over the mini-mag, most especially in a rifle.
 
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A good 22 will cycle and shoot anything. The semi auto pistols have the most trouble.

My marlin 60 fires pretty much everything. It will cycle 20 year old thunderbolt with maybe 1 malfunction per box. Dad has an Ithaca M49 that never misses a beat. It will fire 99 of 100 that misfire in anything else.
 
Rimfire is a genius of a round. Plenty of great ammo out there. A lot of reasons are the guns and the people that shoot them.And even a good gun can be finicky on ammo. Dry firing and wearing down the firing pin, bad storage of ammo. Bad handling of ammo of ammo will move the primer. If a round does not work well, then simply get one that does. What is the big deal? I shoot the SR22 frequently. Not to long ago , I had some bad failures to strike. Did I blame the ammo? Start saying, oh this is the worst ammo around? No simply broke it down and saw that the firing pin was worn down. Easy replacement and bingo, works like a charm again.
I hear so much about certain ammo that is bad, lol, yet that ammo shoots fine out of my guns. Gun-test just did a review on 22.cal ammo and low and behold the Thunderbolts did quite well. I have no problem with them. In fact my two little Phoenix HPA's love them. This ammo is dirty, that ammo is dirty. I have news for you, most 22.cal is dirty, so what? Just clean your gun.
People say they can dry fire their guns. I could care less what they say. So simple to use a snap cap. In fact I keep these dry wall anchors handy all the time and so cheap, why not use them and take a chance.So simple.

Here is pic of a example.

upload_2018-4-18_4-0-46.png
 
Jeb Stuart said:
Rimfire is a genius of a round. Plenty of great ammo out there. A lot of reasons are the guns and the people that shoot them.And even a good gun can be finicky on ammo. Dry firing and wearing down the firing pin, bad storage of ammo. Bad handling of ammo of ammo will move the primer. If a round does not work well, then simply get one that does. What is the big deal? I shoot the SR22 frequently. Not to long ago , I had some bad failures to strike. Did I blame the ammo? Start saying, oh this is the worst ammo around? No simply broke it down and saw that the firing pin was worn down. Easy replacement and bingo, works like a charm again.
I hear so much about certain ammo that is bad, lol, yet that ammo shoots fine out of my guns. Gun-test just did a review on 22.cal ammo and low and behold the Thunderbolts did quite well. I have no problem with them. In fact my two little Phoenix HPA's love them. This ammo is dirty, that ammo is dirty. I have news for you, most 22.cal is dirty, so what? Just clean your gun.
People say they can dry fire their guns. I could care less what they say. So simple to use a snap cap. In fact I keep these dry wall anchors handy all the time and so cheap, why not use them and take a chance.So simple.

Here is pic of a example.

View attachment 786048
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I never said I couldn't shoot the stuff. I can and do. What I said was it is shoddy. That is true. Bullets shouldn't be loose in the casing. Period. If one has to pay more to get uniformly tight bullets, okay, fine, I get that. But IMO cartridges with loose bullets should not be on the shelf. It is possible for loose bullets to be usable and still for them not to be that way.
 
I 've just bought a Anschutz Rifle, heavy barrel silhouette rifle. I've been shooting CCI standard in my Brno .22. I thought about buying a range of .22s to see what shot best in the new Anschutz but the CCI standards shoot really well. I don't see any point of buying more expensive .22 ammo that will give me perhaps a couple of millimeters better accuracy.
I've got a couple of bulk pack Federal somewhere that i will try in the future. Never had a loose bullet
 
rpenmanparker said:
I never said I couldn't shoot the stuff. I can and do. What I said was it is shoddy. That is true. Bullets shouldn't be loose in the casing. Period. If one has to pay more to get uniformly tight bullets, okay, fine, I get that. But IMO cartridges with loose bullets should not be on the shelf. It is possible for loose bullets to be usable and still for them not to be that way.
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Mine are not shoddy. Actually find and dandy. Need to order more. Actually will get a few buckets for this summer. Plan on doing a lot of pistol shooting.
 
I just received my five boxes of the Federal Ultra Match 40gr .22LR. They were expensive. They are not shoddy. No loose, misshapen or misaligned bullets. Tomorrow I will perform a precision experiment with some of them against Thunderbolts in the S&W 22 Victory with Volquartsen lightweight carbon barrel and compensator. In order to keep the whole thing from getting out of hand, I plan to warm up myself, warm up the gun and foul the barrel with 25 shots of the cheap stuff. Then I will shoot both types at 7 and 15 yards, my common offhand pistol distances and compare 3, 5 shot groups of each. Twelve target all together. I hope you guys don't have trouble sleeping tonight anticipating my results. ;)
 
rpenmanparker said:
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.
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In my experience promo ammo is the bottom of the barrel stuff. I have had a fair amount of the cheap stuff that had all kinds of issues.

I have been using Federal Automatch for a couple years now and have had no problems at all. I started using it because I could get it reliably.

I have used Armscor SV. It worked well but was just a hair underpowered to reliably cycle my M41.

I used several cases of Aguila SV that worked well. Have not seen any of it in maybe a decade.

I used to shoot the Remington green box stuff. Great ammo back then (20+ years ago). Went thru 3 or 4 cases of it. A few years ago I bought a couple boxes and had nothing but trouble with it. Looks the same. Does not work the same.
 
Jeb Stuart, pretty dang clever...

I'm with the OP on this, although I've found (noticed) only a very few loose rounds on 22LR cartridges over the decades. They should never have left the factory. The ones I've seen were not in loose bulk packs, but in the trays.

It's just crappy QC. I'm sure if the crimp dies were tightened a little and/or the bullet tooling kept in spec we would never see this, as it would almost never occur and when it did, the rounds would be culled. That being said, as long as the looseness will not allow powder to escape or the bullet to move TOO much, they should be OK, even in repeating actions.

Still, it's wrong, and I don't buy the explanation that it's because the cost is so low. The problem is manufacturers' carelessness.
 
rpenmanparker said:
I just received my five boxes of the Federal Ultra Match 40gr .22LR. They were expensive. They are not shoddy. No loose, misshapen or misaligned bullets. Tomorrow I will perform a precision experiment with some of them against Thunderbolts in the S&W 22 Victory with Volquartsen lightweight carbon barrel and compensator. In order to keep the whole thing from getting out of hand, I plan to warm up myself, warm up the gun and foul the barrel with 25 shots of the cheap stuff. Then I will shoot both types at 7 and 15 yards, my common offhand pistol distances and compare 3, 5 shot groups of each. Twelve target all together. I hope you guys don't have trouble sleeping tonight anticipating my results. ;)
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Well, here are the results of my test. Federal at 7 yards, 1.45 in. Thunderbolt at 7 yards, 0.89 in. Federal at 15 yards, 2.41 in. Thunderbolt at 15 yards, 2.51 in. I'm not terribly surprised to get inconclusive results for an offhand shooting test. The error in my shooting is likely much higher than the difference between the cartridges. I think you would need to shoot a whole lot more groups of five to get a standard deviation that could be used to determine whether the Federal and Thunderbolt results are statistically the same or different. For now I can say that the Thunderbolt is good enough for me for casual shooting even when I am trying to do a good job.

The Federal were noticeably different than the Thunderbolt in sound and feel. They just seemed more controlled if that even means anything.
 
Federal of any flavor is my general go-to for bulk plinking ammo.
In my case, no less accurate than any other bulk, and notably more consistent than the Remington offerings.
 
rpenmanparker said:
I never said I couldn't shoot the stuff. I can and do. What I said was it is shoddy. That is true. Bullets shouldn't be loose in the casing. Period. If one has to pay more to get uniformly tight bullets, okay, fine, I get that. But IMO cartridges with loose bullets should not be on the shelf. It is possible for loose bullets to be usable and still for them not to be that way.
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Again, if it was deemed dangerous, it would not be happening. If it was deemed that the cost to make them better would be acceptable to the targeted market, it would be done. Neither of those is true tho. Soft brass(the case brass needs to be soft so the rim can be weak enough to be crushed by the firing pin) and soft lead projectiles could be tight as heck when they leave the factory. Then you got a bumpy forklift ride to the warehouse, a bumpy forklift ride to the truck, the bumpy truck ride and then numerous other bumpy forklift and truck rides before they get to the shelves. Then they have to survive the store clerk dropping a box or two on the floor and the bumpy truck ride home with you. The thing is, even with loose bullets, the tapered heel design prevents bullet setback and the heavy roll crimp keeps the bullets from pulling. About all one is getting when paying more, is better consistency, either with ignition or accuracy. When I buy .22 ammo, my main concern is accuracy, than amount of duds. Saving 8 cents a round doesn't mean squat if half the stuff don't go off. For most of my shooting the accuracy of bulk .22 ammo is close enough to the higher priced stuff to suit me. If I was going to shoot competition, I would probably go better. The thing is for 4 cents a round, I don't know what one can expect. I pay almost that much per primer alone, when buying them in bulk for my centerfire rounds. Even that is impressive to me. The packaging and distribution probably costs as much as producing the product, if not more. I think, now that the shortage, the hoarding and price gouging is over, that .22 ammo is the best deal out there for shooters. Even if the bullets are a tad loose.
 
buck460XVR said:
Again, if it was deemed dangerous, it would not be happening. If it was deemed that the cost to make them better would be acceptable to the targeted market, it would be done. Neither of those is true tho. Soft brass(the case brass needs to be soft so the rim can be weak enough to be crushed by the firing pin) and soft lead projectiles could be tight as heck when they leave the factory. Then you got a bumpy forklift ride to the warehouse, a bumpy forklift ride to the truck, the bumpy truck ride and then numerous other bumpy forklift and truck rides before they get to the shelves. Then they have to survive the store clerk dropping a box or two on the floor and the bumpy truck ride home with you. The thing is, even with loose bullets, the tapered heel design prevents bullet setback and the heavy roll crimp keeps the bullets from pulling. About all one is getting when paying more, is better consistency, either with ignition or accuracy. When I buy .22 ammo, my main concern is accuracy, than amount of duds. Saving 8 cents a round doesn't mean squat if half the stuff don't go off. For most of my shooting the accuracy of bulk .22 ammo is close enough to the higher priced stuff to suit me. If I was going to shoot competition, I would probably go better. The thing is for 4 cents a round, I don't know what one can expect. I pay almost that much per primer alone, when buying them in bulk for my centerfire rounds. Even that is impressive to me. The packaging and distribution probably costs as much as producing the product, if not more. I think, now that the shortage, the hoarding and price gouging is over, that .22 ammo is the best deal out there for shooters. Even if the bullets are a tad loose.
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Well said! It seems sometime people want their cake and eat it too. They complained when there was no ammo and now complain because they do not like a certain brand. I pretty much buy all kinds of 22.cal ammo. Yea, I like some High Velocity in my Pistols, and Goldens do a great job. And for the most part always reliable. I don't break down in a sweat if I have a failure. Just rack the slide and keep on shooting. And guess what? The Steel Plate alway's makes that same sound, the tin can pops around and the old discarded shotgun clay pigeons shards break up pretty darn good . Maybe I need to invest in some really high quality stuff. Forget the cost, and maybe it will even make a sweeter sound on the steel plate the tin can will pop up more at a precise height, and the Pigeon shards will break more evenly.
But then again, what do I know? I like the smell of cheap perfume and stale beer. Guess I need to start drinking more champagne and hanging out with a different crowd. (I doubt it would be as much fun)
 
Because people want to pay 5c per round, after shipping, wholesale markup, retail markup and cost/profit. Rimfire is nice in that its one of the very few products where you can say "I would pay more for slightly better quality" and actually get it. If you want to pay 9mm prices for 22, you won't have those issues. If you want to pay high quality 9mm prices for 22, you will have an excellent product. 15-20 years ago it was worse. I used to have one to four rounds with not enough, or no powder -just like CB caps- in a 500 round box. Three or so duds, 1-2 overloads. Many brands, over many years.
 
I bought a Marlin 60 and had a bunch of FTF's with circa-2009 Golden Bullets. Remington gave me a new rifle because the Marlin was incapable of 3" groups at 50 feet, and suddenly I don't have FTF's. The defective gun caused them.
 
luger fan said:
I got a deal on Remington bulk in the bucket. I have one FTF, FTE, FTF EVERY mag.
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I would suggest you try any ammo out in small quantities before you invest in bulk. All my pistols and rifle's shoot Remington Bulk with no problem and I buy quit a lot of it in bulk. I was recently at my local club, range, where we give the Boy Scouts Periodic access and priority during the year. I arrived at the range early and watched them all have a great time. Many were shooting Ruger 10/22's but there were many other firearms as well. The ammo supplied to them was all Remington Bulk. And they were shooting the heck out of it Did not observe any problems during the 30-40 minutes I watched.
 
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stevehgraham said:
I bought a Marlin 60 and had a bunch of FTF's with circa-2009 Golden Bullets. Remington gave me a new rifle because the Marlin was incapable of 3" groups at 50 feet, and suddenly I don't have FTF's. The defective gun caused them.
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I have a Marlin Model 60 that I bought back in 2012. It will only reliably fire CCI Mini-Mags. I can shoot Golden Bullets, but they do not reliably fire. Apparently my Model 60 doesn't have a strong hammer to give the .22LR primer a good smack.
 
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