.22LR: what's the best do-all brand/loading?

[anotherinkling]

I've had problems with the bulk Federal stuff, too.

My vote would be for CCI Mini-Mags, as well. A little pricier but reliable, consistent and fairly clean. Hollowpoints would probably be the better bet, but I don't think it makes a great deal of difference.

 

[clarkford]

Fed

Federal Bulk ammo. 550 rounds for under 10 bucks. Wally World.

 

[kbheiner7]

1 more vote for CCI MiniMags. They are reliable across a broad range of weapons, pack a whallop and are pretty accurate for a non-target load.

 

[dm1333]

I shoot a Marlin M60 and a TC R55 .22. I have had problems with Federal Bulk Packs and Remington Golden Bullets. On the other hand both guns are dead reliable with Federal AE, Federal Champion, PMC Zappers, CCI Mini Mags and anything from Eley. My favorite with the TC are Zappers and Eley.

 

[AStone]

Am I really so much of an idiot that I can't open a box of .22LR?

Well, I'm pleased to announce that I'm not an idiot after all.

I finally got the CCI boxes open.

The first of three that I got open was the box that I bought at the gun store, which was labeled very differently from the other two.

Big white letters:
"MINI MAG".

I was right that the tops were sliders.

After I successfully removed the label (which had glued the top in place) with my Benchmade, it finally slid off.

I swear, I lost skin on a knuckle getting that first top off.

The other two from Bimart were labeled differently: "Mini-Mag,High Velocity"

There was a problem with them: 1) shoddy production of boxes, especially, 2) poorly produced labels that shredded without coming off smoothly stuck on with bad adhesive that glued the tops in place, and 3) sliding tops that don't slide easily, even now; 4) funky little nubbins on the underside of the sliding tops that catch the tops of the cartridges, preventing the tops from sliding.

I literally had to tap the tops with a hammer and screwdriver to dislodge the tops on the latter two.

Were the guys at the factory a little to liberal with label glue application?

I hope I'm more impressed with CCI accuracy than I am with their boxes.

 

[Skofnung]

That sounds about right for the CCI boxes. They can be a PITA if you are not used to them. I always just slit the label as opposed to pulling it off. Trying to peel it off is a waste of time.

 

[Owen]

I usually use a poorly mnicured thumbnail to slit the label on the CCI plastic boxes.

If you look around on the web, you may be able to find mini-mags in cardboard boxes. The cardboard boxes are small like the remington thunderbolt boxes.

 

[atblis]

CCI Velocitors

The CCI Velocitors have always shot well out of my guns, and will put a hurting on a squirrel without splattering.



The Aguila SSS rounds work well for special applications (cough deer cough).

 

[fireflyfather]

Minimags are not the *****.

I hate to break up the mini-mag party, but I've had at least two bricks of mini-mags that were just awful, failing to fire (maybe 25% failure rate). They were bought on two seperate occasions at least a few months apart, at two seperate locations. If you rotated the round 180 deg so that the firing pin struck the other side of the primer, those duds would fire. It wasn't the gun, as we tried two different weapons, bolt and semi. The indentations in the good and bad spots were the same depth as far as we could tell, so we ruled out bad brass. It was definitely bad primers. These bricks were bought in high volume locations, so we know it wasn't sitting on the store shelf for a long time. Ergo, we had two bricks that had absolutely craptacular quality control.

I've had great experiences with CCI's subsonic ammo, stingers, etc...it's just the minimags where we had the problem (I've probably only bought 20 bricks or so, so that's a 10% rate of bad bricks). This all happened in the last year.

I generally go with the federal bulk packs. I've experimented with with peters LRN, but it caused some bad lead fouling (keyholing at 7 meters...6 inches off target, in every direction.....so a 1 foot group at 7 meters...). Remington .22 short jammed in the magazine well of my grandpa's Remington .22 semi, and never fed all that well in the tube magazine anyway. Don't know about their .22lr.

 

[AStone]

OK, so we have reports of CCI faulty plastic boxes that don't open,
and our first report of CCI FTF, perhaps caused by faulty primers.

Statistically speaking, the bad news on CCI is fairly limited.
(I can deal with difficult to open boxes. Sledgehammer nearby.
But bad primers is a different story... )

Anybody else?

 

[borrowedtime69]

CCI FTF

never in my 25 years of hunting/shooting have i ever had a failure to fire with any CCI product. in my humble opinion, those people are as close to perfect as you can get when making ammo. im a HUGE fan!

 

[AStone]

Ah, my confidence is raised back up a notch.

No, two.

Bad batches of bullets are possible.

What say you?
___________

<Hurricane force winds are pounding the beaches just 70 mi west of here on the Pacific coast. In this protected valley, I can hear them roaring like a 747 up high, with large trees coming down in more residential neighborhoods...It's times like these that make me seek the best do-all .22LR rnd... >

 

[plexreticle]

I've had good luck with Winchester rimfire ammo in general. Winchester Super Silhouette is awesome but I think it's discontinued.

Remington Lighting is pure crap.

I keep about 20 different types of 22lr ammo on hand. Some of my guns like match grade ammo and some do better with the cheap stuff.

If you have $20 to spare, go to your favorite ammo store and buy several types and see what works best.

 

[Loanshark]

I've used lots of cci ammo... never one problem out of my 10/22. I've beem using Aguila lately... seems pretty good.

The only ammo I recall having misfires with was remington thunderbolt.

 

[Bottom Gun]

I agree with Spinnerblade. Winchester Power Point gets my vote for the best hunting ammo.

It is a full 40 gr HP with a large hollow cavity and expands reliably. It is some of the most accurate .22 ammo I have used.
I shot some through my chronograph and it really does produce 1280 fps. It goes even faster when I shoot it through my Anschutz. I can get approx 1350 fps with it.

It is the most effective HP ammo I have used.

CCI Mini mag would be my second choice.

 

[achildofthesky]

22 LR ammo...

I am going to take a different approach to your question as I do not at this time have a 22 (I know how could this be so) to shoot. Most of my shooting is 357, 45/70, 30-06 and 30-30 for the last year.

I am a scrounger and always scoop the brass can out at the local range and fetch up the good looking stuff under the tables if there is alot. I always end up with some 22 discards or dropsies. I have put them in containers for the time I do plink with a 22 as it would be nice to "shoot for free". All of these were in the MT brass bucket or ground and collected in the last 6 months. I took a pix of all the this but was not able to edit it to a size suitable for the picture viewing requirements ogthis site.

Here is the results of my pickings:
FTF = strike of any sort Dropsie - no rim marks what so ever

Remington gold bullet: Dropsie non FTF - 122
FTF - 35
Remington black bullet: Dropsie non FTF -30
FTF - 5
Federal copper color bullet: Dropsie non FTF -106
FTF - 19
Federal black bullet: Dropsie non FTF - 15
FTF - 4
Winchester copper colored bullet: Dropsie non ftf - 21
FTF - 8
Winchester black bullet: Dropsie non FTF - 58
FTF - 10
Aguila/all bullet types: dropsie non FTF - 8
FTF - 9
CCI: copper colored: dropsie non FTF - 14
FTF - 2 (ultra light mark on rim)
CCI black bullet: Dropsie non FTF - 9
FTF - 0

What does it all mean? Well folks toss out or carelessly drop hundreds of 22's at my local range over the course of the year. While alot of the FTF could be attributed to an individual firearm, it would seem that there are a lot more of Remington gold bullet 22's that are FTF in this example but a lot less with the black bullet. Some of these FTF's had 2, 3 and 4 strike marks along the rims. Looking down through the various numbers the only thing I can say for sure is that the CCi's seem to leave less behind and have nearly no FTF's. Indeed the 2 CCi FTF's I have are rimstruck so very light that it is likely a gun problem in my estimation.

So......... When I finally get a 22 to play with I reckon I will get CCI's, if they are reasonable...

Someday I will try to fire all the FTF's in a known properly operating gun.


Patty