Remington Golden Bullet Flyers

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Swifty Morgan

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Forgive me if I'm posting in the wrong place. My subject is ammunition, and there is no ammunition forum.

Today I shot my Smith & Wesson SW22 Victory for the second time. It is a humbling experience, because tiny .22 holes have to be much closer together than .45 holes to make one big flattering hole. Anyway, I was shooting from 7 yards, using the finest ammunition available: Remington Golden Bullets. Yes, I am a big spender.

This may be a stupid question, but should I get better ammunition to practice at this distance? I got a few flyers, and my assumption is that I caused them, but if it's the ammo, I could go off on a wild goose chase, trying to fix shooting problems I don't actually have.

My goal is to land nearly every shot within a 1" circle at 7 yards. I know the gun will do it, and I'm pretty sure I can do it if I practice a little bit, but I won't get anywhere if the ammo won't do it.

Golden Bullets are cheap, and I can tell most of them will go into a 1" circle if you do things right, so I had hopes they would perform well enough for my purpose.
 
I havent had much luck with golden bullets being consistent to say the least. A lot of shooters, myself included, wont use them.

For inexpensive 22 ammo I like:
cci mini mags
cci standard velocity
federal 325 count white box target ammo
blazer
federal 50 rounder blue boxes
American eagle
 
I guess I should forget about terminal performance and focus on whatever is most consistent. I was told it will only cycle high velocity rounds, so that limits the choices.

This gun seems to like Golden Bullets better than Mini-Mags.
 
I doubt if your flyers are ammo related....Why shoot so close? I would be honing my skills at 15 yards and on back.
 
As you probably know, 7 yards is very commonly used as a practice distance for people shooting pistols for self-defense. Perhaps not coincidentally, in my state, concealed carry instructors recommend not using lethal force against anyone over 7 yards away.

Two other factors:

1. at 7 yards, it's very easy to see where each shot lands (especially rimfire), and
2. I am out of practice.

I expect to go back to 50-foot targets before long, but I will never completely stop shooting at 7 yards.
 
I guess I should forget about terminal performance and focus on whatever is most consistent. I was told it will only cycle high velocity rounds, so that limits the choices.

This gun seems to like Golden Bullets better than Mini-Mags.
Mine cycles SV just fine. I shoot Aguila SV almost exclusively.
 
My recommendation would be to test the ammo and gun by removing as much of the shooter as possible. Shoot the pistol supported on a bag with the Remington ammo at 7 yards for say...50, maybe 100 rounds using 10 shot groups. That should give you a pretty solid statistical analysis of what your system is capable of and if the fliers are you or the ammo.

As a side note, I HATE Remington Golden bullets. I load them in my 10/22 magazine and the bullets don't align with the brass case holding it unless I manually press the bullet in place to be aligned! Surprisingly, it is the preferred ammo of said 10/22. What a huge disappointment. From the groups I've shot, it's not even close in testing with other ammo. I've tried Winchester, Federal, CCI and Remington (all bulk ammo). It was painfully obvious which ammo the rifle preferred. Go figure...
 
I havent had much luck with golden bullets being consistent to say the least. A lot of shooters, myself included, wont use them.

For inexpensive 22 ammo I like:
cci mini mags
cci standard velocity
federal 325 count white box target ammo
blazer
federal 50 rounder blue boxes
American eagle
This in this order too
 
My Mark IIIs like Golden Bullets, one hates Federal ammo. Both like American Eagle and CCI sv. I use the Golden Bullets for competition at 30 feet on 1 to 3 inch targets and they are very accurate and consistent. No flyers I attribute to the ammo.
 
My Mark IIIs like Golden Bullets, one hates Federal ammo. Both like American Eagle and CCI sv. I use the Golden Bullets for competition at 30 feet on 1 to 3 inch targets and they are very accurate and consistent. No flyers I attribute to the ammo.

Yep my Mark III loves Remington Golden bullets. Everyone goes bang! I would say its accurate as well. I was shooting a dualing tree at the range (3 inch targets) hit 10 out of 10 a couple times.Other times I would miss one.
 
At 7 yards, Golden Bullets should have no problem grouping at an inch out of a target style .22. At such a short distance I doubt "flyers" are even a thing.

And as you've already seen, the internet gun folks love to hate on Golden Bullets. Personally, I find them to be almost as accurate as Mini Mags out of most of my .22's and at most I get 1-2 FTF's in a brick of 500, but typically I can go through a whole brick with all of them going "bang".

I would also be surprised if you're gun doesn't like Mini Mags, I've yet to find a .22 that doesn't shoot them well. The only thing some guns like better is certain standard velocity or sub-sonic rounds, so once your gun is broken in with 400 rounds or so I'd try some CCI Standard Velocity in it. My Buckmarks runs great on SV, but my Ruger Mark I does occasionally hang up with it.
 
Golden bullets aren’t the worst, but they’re a long ways from the best. I shoot them a lot because I got access to about 20,000 of them at one point for good prices. I’d never use them as a test of maximal performance, but they hold up well enough to manage meaningful practice. I shoot 50 and 100 regularly with my pistols and out to 325 with my specialty pistols and rifles. I expect them to be under 2.5” at 100, usually under 2” in a rifle which will put Eley into an inch to inch and a half.
 
.22's can be finicky about which type and brand of ammo they shoot well and often there's no consistent rhyme or reason as to why. Shot a lot of Remington Golden HP ammo mostly as plunking ammo and find it to be adequately accurate for tin cans and rifle hunting. I have had good accuracy results using the cheap Remington Thunderbolt from my Browning Buckmark but the ammo was too unreliable to use with scored targets having 2 or 3 FTF per 50. Dud rounds pulled apart showed primer compound not completely distributed round the rim or even floating loose in the powder. You just need to sample several types of ammo to see what your guns like. Standard velocity will generally be more accurate for target work out of handguns than high vel rounds. CCI is a good quality ammo that usually shoots well.
 
The Aguila high velocity 40 grain plated rounds work very well for me. These and CCI are what cycles my 22 best.
 
You have to keep trying different brands until you find one it really likes. Most of mine do okay with the Aguila HV.
 
It might not be purely the rounds, it might be a combination of them and the gun itself.
Not that the gun's bad--quite the contrary. But .22s can be picky. If it doesn't like a round in general and the round just isn't the most accurate stuff out there, these things can happen.
Or the batch is just out of spec. .224" diameter could be good, engaging the rifling more, and then you get a .221", and it doesn't. Not hard to do, between the QC the casting and plating operations these get.

Me, I haven't had much of a problem with Golden Bullets aside from generally not being particularly accurate. It's Thunderbolts that my guns have issues with.
 
Hello and thanks for a great question: "should I get better ammunition to practice at this distance?" The other folks have pretty well covered most of the bases. Mr. Tallball offered a great answer. When my customers used to ask what ammunition was best in a particular firearm, I always said that "firearms are a little like people; some of us prefer hotdogs and some of us prefer hamburgers -- firearms are like that too in that you have try different brands and types to see which one your firearm prefers." That was a good answer for most folks but others pressed for more specifics. Many years ago when I was focused on .22 accuracy most of the serious shooters were convinced that the key was uniform rim thickness. There were and still are gauges for sale that allow you to measure the rim thickness of .22s. The idea is that you go through each box of shells before you shoot and put each round in a pile with rounds of comparable thickness. Well, I tried that and it never really worked for me, but then I just attributed it to the fact that I was a lousy shot! I gave up as far as me shooting just one ragged hole at any distance, but I've learned a thing or two since then. One of the best articles on .22 ammunition and its role in accuracy is: http://www.nielsonbrothersarms.com/22 Concentricity.htm The problem that the good stuff isn't cheap! The Eley 10x (Tenex) mentioned in this article is about $20.00 a box when you can find it. RWS -100 is a little more, but there others that are even more expensive. But even then, the folks that are really focusing on accuracy will say that each lot within a brand and model will have some variations. So the moral might be to keep trying different .22s until you find one that you like and buy a case of two of that one from the same lot. Best of luck and keep us posted.
 
Good read, that. A bit technical for me to dig through at this time of night, but I'll read it more thoroughly later.

Me, I hardly see rim thickness as the biggest factor. I think it's adherence to spec in the bullet itself, then being consistent. Obviously bullets of the same diameter, with the same weight, the same bearing surface, and the same powder load will be more consistent. Whether that means it's more accurate also applies to other factors, including the gun.
More expensive ammo is certainly more consistent. Then again, in my guns the $10-per-50 stuff hasn't been considerably more accurate than the $5/50 stuff. That I can usually attribute to the loose nut behind the trigger. But Winchester Dynapoint GT has proven more than acceptable from my Ruger Mark 3 and boringly accurate from my scoped Savage MkII rifle at 50 yards. And that's in a 500-round box.
With that one... Bullseye? Done, dozens in a row. The numbers on the target? Simple enough. A nail head sticking out of the holder? Got it. At least sitting with a rest.
Unfortunately I got it soon after the panic, and haven't been able to find it since. Hanging onto it in case I can get dad out squirrel hunting. I got lucky with it.

Rambling back around to the point: .22s are temperamental. Grab a box of anything new on hand, shoot it, and keep the target and the box top on hand for reference.
Look for consistency first. Then determine whether accuracy is due to the ammo or shooter, and narrow it down to the good choices.
 
If it's just for practice I use bulk ammo. Mostly I have Golden bullets and although there is the occasional no bang round but by far the majority are fine. I bought a lot of them for 7.99 per 500 some years ago and still have a few thousand. Only gun I know accuracy in is my Nylon 66 and it will shoot consistent 2" groups at 50 yards with bulk ammo by Federal or Remington. If you are adamant about getting 1" groups and the Remington bullets won't do it just try some other inexpensive ammo. I can't see spending extra money for ammo unless I am going to compete or hunt.
 
RGB = low grade junk .22LR. I only shoot them out of my SR22 and Taurus Model 94. Shooting CCI Mini-Mags out of the same pistols does result in better accuracy.
 
As I said in my current thread about shoddy .22LR ammo, it is worthwhile to buy a few boxes of top match match ammo to test your guns with. I bought five boxes of Federal Ultra Mstch .22LR for that purpose. It didn’t acquit itself any better than Thunderbolt in my tests, but that isn’t the point. At least I knew the fault was mine and not the ammo’s.
 
As I said in my current thread about shoddy .22LR ammo, it is worthwhile to buy a few boxes of top match match ammo to test your guns with. I bought five boxes of Federal Ultra Mstch .22LR for that purpose. It didn’t acquit itself any better than Thunderbolt in my tests, but that isn’t the point. At least I knew the fault was mine and not the ammo’s.
I'm not sure that proves anything. I've never seen Ultra Match acquit itself well in testing, name aside. Thunderbolt, although junk, can be very accurate if you find an arm that happens to like it. While I'm sure there are ones that like Ultra Match, I've never seen one tested.
 
I am feeling better about the Golden Bullets, as well as my recovering skills. I shot 50 rounds in the pasture today, and things are looking up.

I shot two groups. The upper one in the photo is 40 rounds, and the lower one is 10 rounds. Obviously, I used two different points of aim. I shot from 7 yards, standing.

I didn't feel good today. I felt like my hands were shaky. Nonetheless, things worked out better than last time. I got most of the flyers out of my system while shooting the lower group, I improved my technique somewhat, and I only had one real flyer in the upper group.

I don't know how accurate Golden Bullets are, but I don't think I would have done better with perfect ammunition. As of today, I don't think I can shoot significantly better than this. I am way out of practice, and I was never a perfect marksman anyway. If I start getting better results, or I move back to 50 feet, I may start thinking about different ammo.

It's wonderful being able to shoot in my own yard. Before I moved up here, my opportunities were limited by the long drive to the range. I hope to improve considerably now that I can practice more often.

I have to adjust the sights on this gun. I was afraid to do it before I got some practice in. It looks like I shoot about 1/2" high and nearly as far to the right.

04 30 18 SW22 pistol 7 yards 10 rounds low plus 40 high GB small.jpg
 
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