.22 Stingers vs Federal HV

I would go with the Stinger. The Stinger is rated at a bit over 1640 fps that is a nice step up from the Federal at only 1430 fps. The Stinger is a solid performer. CCI in general away seems to put out the best rim-fire ammo I have ever use.

+1 on the CCI.
I have shot a lot of the stingers with no problems.
There seem to be a lot of duds in Federal, although not a many as Golden bullets.

for what the .22lr was designed for I'd go with the 500 rounds for $30 instead of the 300 rounds for $30.

JERRY said:

for what the .22lr was designed for I'd go with the 500 rounds for $30 instead of the 300 rounds for $30.

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Didn't say what you're trying to accomplish, but I agree with Jerry. 200 more rounds of fun for the same price. I usually look for Federal for all my .22's first but I'll buy CCI in a close 2nd.

I've shot thousands and thousands of rounds of various Federal HV, but not the Hypervelocity. Couple of rifles that loved the old Federal Lightning that haven't been made for probably 20 years. Still have some, still shoot them...have never had a problem. I've shot quite a bit of CCI too, some stingers, minimag, etc....Have never gotten them to do anything any better for me than the Federals do.

CCI are fine but so are Federal. My wife and I buy the 550 round Federal pack from Walmart and probably have shot 20 boxes of the in recent months with no issues. I’d guess we’ve had less than a half dozen duds. I have another 14 boxes I think and will pick up more when I see some.

The only ammo I really dislike is Remington Thunderbolts. They are the dirtiest ammo I’ve ever seen. They’ll foul my wife’s revolver to the point the cylinder won’t turn within 150 rounds.

I recently bought 2000 Federal target rounds. Very good ammo but they are low velocity and the only ammo I’ve seen that won’t reliably operate my Ruger MKIV. In a revolver though they are excellent.

For fun shooting I’d go for the Federal. 200 more rounds is a lot of ammo, and what will 200fps buy you if you’re just plunking? Hunting yes, plinking no

I've found the 30-32 grain hyper velocity .22 ammo never shoots as well as 36 or 40 grain does and when you can get 40 grain Winchester Hyper Speed for $6 for 100 rds, it's a better ammo for less money.

Mars5l said:

Is CCI Stingers worth the extra cash over the Federal Hypervelocitys?

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No. If a person would run the Stinger over a chronograph, they would see that they are not 1640 fps either. The Federal 31gr does run as advertised. However, if the situation truly is:

Mars5l said:

It's mostly target shooting only for me.

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Then, the OP is going in the wrong direction. The mini mags or AR Tactical are going to group better than any hypervelocity cartridge.

But more importantly, CCI does not make accurate ammo in the big scheme of things. They make ammo that is better than total garbage. We may pump our fists that we bought American, when we may have been able to pay similar cost for better 22LR ammo. If you're looking for accuracy, the longkept non-secret is that even the cheapest ammo made by the European manufacturers - Eley (Wolf), Lapua (SK), or RWS (Geco, Norma, Prime) regularly outperforms our beloved; never tarnished image; how dare you say that about - CCI.

Sure, someone is going to post their three shot group from 35 yards that is one hole, or some other such statistical travesty with CCI SV. I don't doubt that they may have shot such a group. However, they may never say how many groups they had to shoot to get that one group - remember, statistical travesty.

So, is the cheapest Euro ammo the best ever? - no. I'm just saying that, on average, it is better than CCI. The likes of Tenex, R-50, and X-act/Midas are expensive for a reason. That reason is they are incredibly consistent.

It has long been known that a 40gr bullet at 1080fps will on average get the best accuracy from a 1/16 twist 22LR. It helps to have that lube that sticks to your fingers that people complain about. It helps to have bullets that aren't all dinged up and have consistent bases (which you cannot see once seated, btw). It helps to have consistent priming, charge weights, and consistent exit velocities.

However, when many shoot that in their sloppy, inaccurate, semi-auto 22LR, it short strokes. And that is why people rave about the "function" of CCI because it will cycle. They leave out that Euro manufacturers now make a semi-auto version that is 1150-1200 fps that both cycles their semi-auto AND typically attains better accuracy.

So here's the challenge. Buy one box of 50 round of the cheapest European ammo that you can find from the brands above and visually compare the cartridges to whatever CCI/Fed/Rem/Aguila/Win that you are shooting now. Visually inspect the consistencies of the bullet, the crimp, if the bullet is canted, or can spin. Then, if you have the means, run both the 50 Euro cartridges and any 50 American cartridges over a chronograph. Then compare the velocity statistics and the target groups.

What you will find is that it is not a brand that your 22LR likes, it's quality that it likes. Consistent components and consistent exit velocities lead to smaller groups.

Have never found the hyper loads to be as accurate as the standard velocity stuff.

I agree the slower target rounds are more accurate but my old 10/22 loved Stingers and they were minute of groundhog out to ~140 yards for me. Killed a lot of groundhogs in my younger days using my 10/22 and Stingers. Stingers seemed to anchor the groundhogs better than 40gr solids, far fewer shot with Stingers made it to their hole than those shot with regular 40gr 22 LR.

Have shot every brand, especially the cheap ones; lately, the Federal Black bulk loads are running well in my rifles and handguns

Mars51,
Two of the more accurate rounds that function well and are reliable from my .22s guns are the two you are asking about. Now, I do not have a .22 semi auto pistol. I have 2 revolvers, 2 - 10/22s and a .22 single shot rifle. When I say reliable I mean they fire every time with the same perceived power and they they are consistent in accuracy.

My top 3 .22 LR rounds with my guns are CCI Stinger, CCI Velocitor and Federal Blue Box HV for the faster loads.

Here is what I would do. Buy the brick of Federal Blue and buy a 50 round box of Stingers to try out.

"for what the .22lr was designed for I'd go with the 500 rounds for $30 instead of the 300 rounds for $30"

For what .22lr is often used for by me, I often go with economic ammo over more expensive quality ammo. But that's not what .22 LR was designed for. That's our usage.

The 1870s design intent of .22 Long Rifle cartridge was to make a better rimfire cartridge than the .22 Short or .22 Long for hunting game and for pest control which would not be as expensive as the .22 Extra Long and which could be adapted to production guns that used .22 Long without having to radically redesign the gun for a much longer cartridge. Stevens Co. mated the .22 Extra Long 40gr bullet to the .22 Long case creating the .22 Long Rifle cartridge. That was the design intent of .22 LR. It turned out that the combo of a 40gr bullet in a Long case with 5gr black powder was pretty darn accurate. .22 Long Rifle was so successful most folks don't know the .22 Extra Long ever existed.

I would buy cheap bulk pack .22 LR HVHP if my goal was to take a bag of soda cans to the quarry pond at Five Caves and plink at floating targets at various ranges. When I went squirrel hunting with Uncle Ed, I bought a better grade of .22 HVHP because 0% failure was a goal.

Over the years I noticed that folks in the country who kept .22 rifles for hunting for food and protecting livestock preferred ammunition of proven quality and would avoid brands that gave them misfires or squibs.

mcb said:

I would go with the Stinger. The Stinger is rated at a bit over 1640 fps that is a nice step up from the Federal at only 1430 fps. The Stinger is a solid performer. CCI in general away seems to put out the best rim-fire ammo I have ever use.

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I ran some stingers over the chrony last week outta a Ruger 22/45. Average 1241 FPS with 109 ft lbs. That’s not bad from a pistol. My favorite part of the stingers is reliability. They seem to work in autos well. Cheap stuff goes in revolvers.

I used to use just plain old CCI standard velocity .22's and found them fairly accurate.

I considered them a poor man's target round as compared to the pricey, but no doubt higher quality, Eley stuff.

dodo bird said:

I ran some stingers over the chrony last week outta a Ruger 22/45. Average 1241 FPS with 109 ft lbs. That’s not bad from a pistol. My favorite part of the stingers is reliability. They seem to work in autos well. Cheap stuff goes in revolvers.

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I would have expected a pretty sharp drop in velocity out of the short barrel, but 400 fps drop from advertised seems like a lot.

Howland937 said:

I would have expected a pretty sharp drop in velocity out of the short barrel, but 400 fps drop from advertised seems like a lot.

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That 400 fps is from a 24 inch barrel, so factoring that in and having close to a foot and a half less barrel makes sense.

I have not tried the “hyper velocity” federal stuff but have had decent results using federal gold match as far as accuracy goes.

I have various firearms that prefer different makes and models of ammunition but have never found any that are most accurate with CCI Stingers, even if they happened to shoot well with a different line of CCI ammunition. Another few hundred feet per second, to me, makes less sense than hitting the spot I want to hit. Even if I am killing hogs in a trap, I don’t use them.

TTv2 said:

That 400 fps is from a 24 inch barrel, so factoring that in and having close to a foot and a half less barrel makes sense.

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That has me curious now. I suppose someone on here has checked already, but if shortening barrel length by 18" reduces MV by 400 fps, then normal HV ammo should be subsonic out of handguns? Never considered that before...

Howland937 said:

That has me curious now. I suppose someone on here has checked already, but if shortening barrel length by 18" reduces MV by 400 fps, then normal HV ammo should be subsonic out of handguns? Never considered that before...

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Some of the cheap stuff may be, but for the most part normal, good quality hi velocity .22 is going to be supersonic because hi velocity ammo hits its max velocity around 10 to 12 inches of barrel, but Hyper Velocity .22 ammo is hotter and its max velocity is achieved with 18 to 22 inch barrels.