Federal .22LR Quality?

[Craig_AR]

Is anyone else seeing a recent drop in quality on Federal ammunition? Specifically standard load .22LR?

For about a year, bulk pack Federal .22LR JHP (550/box) (from Wally World) has been my basic range ammunition. the last couple of boxes have had a distressingly high rate of fail to fire, exceeding 5% on some days. This is in a S&W Model 41 and a pair of Hi-Standard 103's.
Yesterday afternoon the shooter in the next lane was using the same ammunition in his Ruger. I asked him the same question. He said yes, and was relieved to hear my tale, because he had just gotten his pistol back from the smith. He was thinking of taking it back to see if the newly tweaked fire arm was the cause of his high failure rate.

craig

 

[kludge]

I have had very good luck with Federal, and accuracy is also very good, but I don't generally use the bulk packs.

 

[XD-40 Shooter]

I've had good luck with federal bulk packs, just bought another one yesterday, the ammo performed great today.

 

[Drail]

I have three Ruger Mark IIs that after trying everything type of LR ammo I could find clearly gave best accuracy with Federal Lightning high speed. This has been for a long time the only reason I ever go into a Walmart store, they always have it dirt cheap. None of the Rugers or my Ciener 1911 conversion do well with standard velocity ammo of any brand. The Ciener will not function reliably with anything but high speed ammo. As far as the quality I have decided that all brands of rimfire ammo exhibits really lousy quality control. I see folks at the range frequently believing that there is something wrong with their gun and never consider that they have dud rounds. Use whatever your gun likes for accuracy and function and expect a handful of duds in every brick.

 

[swiftak]

All the Walmart bulkpacks in Fed, Rem, and Win. are crap.I'm begging to think that these 3 companies save their junk ammo and sell it to walmart. None of these 3 bulkpack brands will fire very well in any of my semi auto 22s. Remington seems to be the worst for me. The Remington golden bullets in the 100 packs from gun shops work very well in my pistols.

 

[evan price]

The Federal Wal*Mart bulk packs have the lowest rate of nonfire of all the bulk .22 ammo I've tried. YMMV.

 

[Tim the Enchanter]

Federal bulk pack results in at least 1 failure to fire per two mags, while shooting a Buckmark. Winchester x-pert bulk pack works much better, seems more accurate too.

 

[Daniel1120]

The federal bulk 22lr packs do suck. But the bulk federal 510, comes in 500 rd packs is great. I used it in my 10/22 and only had one jam, and for bulk ammo it was pretty accurate. Federal 12g birdshot bulk ammo made me laugh. The stamp on the bottom of the hulls was barely visible on most. But it did fire well. The federal hydra shoks made me shake my head. Seems like some of the posts in the hollow point cavity were longer on some than others. The new hst's seem good though.

 

[DaveBeal]

For about a year, bulk pack Federal .22LR JHP (550/box) (from Wally World) has been my basic range ammunition. the last couple of boxes have had a distressingly high rate of fail to fire, exceeding 5% on some days. This is in a S&W Model 41 and a pair of Hi-Standard 103's.

The only bulk ammo that works reliably in my Model 41 is CCI Blazer. Federal is a distant second.

 

[Carl Levitian]

I fire about one bulk pack of Federals from Walmart a week. Mostly in my S&W 617 and Marlin 39A. I have very few misfires.

 

[rugerman07]

YEP! And I've also experienced problems with the Remington Bulk Pac's as well.

 

[proud2deviate]

Federal Bulk Pack is my standard screwing around ammo. However, the box I'm going through right now seems markedly inconsistent. I've had several that were loaded so light, if I hadn't seen the hole appear in the paper, I'd have worried about a squib and a stuck bullet. Probably 1 in 50 failed to go super sonic (no crack, just muzzle blast.) No failures-to-fire yet, though (actually, I can't remember the last time I had a misfire.)

 

[Pure Kustom]

Brown box is good, green box is bad. I have seen alot of people with jamming problems with the green box

 

[B. Adams]

I've had mixed results with the Federal bulk packs fro Wal-Mart as well. Never anywhere approaching 5%, but maybe 1-2%. I've also noticed a few stovepipes in my Buckmark, which I attribute to light loads.

I don't have as many bad rounds with the Remington bulk packs, but it doesn't feed as well in my guns.

However, I buy the bulk packs because they're cheap and they feed, not because they're reliable. You get what you pay for, so I'm OK with it. It's still cheaper than pretty much anything else. I'm just plinking anyway, so a few failures don't bother me too much.

But yes, I have noticed a higher failure rate lately. Maybe I should be more concerned.

 

[Rmart30]

The brown box 550 pack federal has done good for me and I only use it for plinking. Ive had maybe 10 FTF out of one box.... Even if it gets up to 5% duds its still cheaper than anything else to plink with.
For hunting I use something different than bulk packs.

 

[Catherine]

No problem here with my FEDERAL ammunition.

Catherine

 

[ishida]

Not a problem here in my Armscor, though I have had three stovepipes in three boxes, and only one FTF.

 

[RtHG77]

I've use Federal and Remington bulk boxes. I've rarely had issues with the rounds themselves, they always go bang when I pull the trigger. Sometimes they don't always feed right in my 10/22, but I chalk that up to worn out magazines.

They always go bang in my Ruger Mk.1, Marlin 60's, and Double-Nine however.

 

[cliffy]

If I HAD to buy bulk packs . . .

they would have to be Federal. Since I never buy cheap bulk packs, this becomes an exercize in futility to me. I don't accept misfires at any ratio, hence, I don't even buy CCI Blazers. CCI is the most dependable ammo on the market today. A misfire from a CCI Stinger? Never happened to date. CCI Velocitors: Depend my life on those. CCI Mini-Mags: Top-notch Quality. If a misfire is a mere inconvenience, but cheap to shoot, also consider the velocity may also vary in quality. My Mark III is my self-protection side-arm, so I remain fully aware of my ammo choices. cliffy

 

[Dienekes]

I use the 38 grain HVHP stuff as it works well in my colt conversion unit--minimum ash and fouling, chamber moves freely much longer than with anything else I've ever tired. However I do get the occasional misfire, usually in Ruger semiautos. After replacing firing pins and such I attribute it to the ammo. However my M18 S&W sets them all off. Not entirely sure but for now will blame the ammo. It's not for defensive use anyway. Just bought another case.

 

[Fleetwood_Captain]

Well if your going for absolute precision, wal-mart .22 bulk packs arn't the best thing to use for olympic shooting.

I remember back in ROTC in high school, where I actually first learned to shoot, I got fed up with the dirty rifles and piss-poor ammo. That combined with the fact that I always felt like I was being rushed on the firing line caused me to lose interest. Even though I scored expert my second time out, I wasn't comfortable with the program's rythm as a beginner.

These days, I tend to keep my guns clean enough to eat out of. The bad experiences I had in high school with dirty weapons taught me well in that regard.

But when I'm shooting steel plates, I love that cheap-ass walmart ammo.

 

[stevelyn]

I've never had any issues with the Federal Bulk packs.

Remington OTOH.......

 

[CB900F]

Fella's;

I don't know about bulk packs, but I've noticed that Federal American Eagle has been inconsistent over the chrono lately. That really irks me because one of my .22's really likes the stuff for accuracy. However, over 100 fps differences in MV can do nasty things to accuracy.

900F

 

[bikerdoc]

I find the federaral O K, but think The Remington is junk.
Just my .02

 

[CajunBass]

I've gotten to where I don't shoot anything but Federal Bulk Pack from Wal-Mart. I've got 14 22 rifles and handguns, and while Federal BP may not be the "best" in any, it works fine in all of them. I don't remember the last time I had a missfire.

(Note: One exception. My wife's Bersa Firestorm really likes CCI mini mags so I keep a couple of boxes around for it.)

Just yesterday I sighted in a 77/22. I tried both CCI mini mag, and WWFBP. That's what I happened to have at the house. The FBP shot slightly better groups to my surprise.

I'm quite happy with it.