Remington Golden Bullet was available at ...

[Danny Creasy]

Walmart yesterday morning – 525 count bulk pack for $21.97. I thought, "What the heck – give 'em a try."

First, I got home and reboxed them in some old 100 count Remington trays I had in the shooting closet. Guess what – there were exactly 525 rounds in the box. That's a good start:



A close inspection indicated the rounds were uniform in crimp, dimensions, and lubrication coverage. Unfortunately, all of the bullets would turn in the case with gentle finger-tip pressure.

I had been wanting to give my Remington Model Five a bit of exercise and chose to take it to the range for a test with the 38 grain Hollow Point Golden Bullet ammunition. I set the Serbian rimfire in the Caldwell RockBR and rear bag and went to work at 50 yards. The rings are Leupold steel 11mm tip-off rings and the scope is a Nikon Prostaff 2-7X32mm shotgun scope. It has always made for a fine rimfire optic.



The much maligned Golden Bullet ammo shot a bit worse than hoped but about as expected:



After group #8, I decided to zero for the Remington ammunition. If they had all been like groups numbered 5 and 7, I would have fainted.

I shot three 5-round magazine fulls of Golden Bullet at the 1.5" spinner offhand from 50 yards to finish up and, as I always try to do, get off the bench. It's a tough little offhand target but I managed to hit it five times out of the fifteen shots. Below, is a two out of five run. The 1.5" disk is in the center of the video but near the top just below the lower right corner of the white target backer. I could only see the targeted spinner by scrolling to the prompts at the bottom and hitting the fullscreen double-arrows – good luck.

http://vid47.photobucket.com/albums/f169/sheffieldshootr/IMG_1238_zpsd91hglam.mp4

I did not experience a single misfire with the 125 rounds of Golden Bullet fired this morning.

As a control, I pulled out a box of Wolf Match Target. After a first/transition/seasoning group, the 2nd and 3rd Wolf groups were so tight, I decided to re-zero the rifle/scope combo with the Wolf MT. I'll save the Golden Bullet for the Marlin 81T and Marlin 60 to be fired in the next family get-together plinking extravaganza.

 

[wally]

I found some at a gun show awhile back at $25/525 out the door, and almost didn't buy them because they were Golden Bullet. I was happy to find out they're much improved over the crap I finally quit buying ~2010.

I got a bucket of 1400 at Academy for $66 a few weeks ago and hope they are as good.

 

[HOOfan_1]

I've shot thousands of Golden Bullets..never had any more problems with them than any other. 22lr Accurate enough in my guns for 1 inch and under groups at 50 yards

 

[wally]

I never had any complaints about the accuracy, it was the high dud rate (wouldn't go even after two or three strikes at different locations on the rim) and blown rims that made me quit buying them.

In the Ruger MkII/III or 22/45 the blown rims are potentially hazardous to someone shooting to your right because all the gas and brass fragments are focused out that side. After a couple packs with five or six of these per 525 I just quit buying them -- too scary for my wife to deal with.

I'm actually happy to see Remington using the shortage to rehabilitate the brand.

 

[HOOfan_1]

I had more duds and spitting ammo with standard CCI

 

[thegunpunch]

Thank you for the detailed report

 

[Danny Creasy]

Your welcome, thegunpunch.

 

[Jim Watson]

None left this afternoon.

 

[Danny Creasy]

Aw shucks, Jim. That is the third time, out of about half a dozen in the past year, I have dropped by Walmart on a Wednesday morning and caught rimfire ammunition. CCI MiniMag was in stock the other two times. I have heard that there ammo shipment comes in during the wee hours on Wednesday morning. Not sure that is gospel.

 

[LocoGringo]

I bought some new golden bullets recently at a gun show because I tested some old golden bullet ammo (don't ask me "when", it's been so long since I bought them) because the old vintage FAAAAAR outshot Winchester, Federal, CCI and another brand called Scorpion out of my 10/22 at 50 yards. It wasn't even close. Winchester and Federal were tied for second, but again, it wasn't close. I was completely surprised and disappointed as I would rather have bought any of the other brands.

The gun likes what it likes.

 

[Elkins45]

A guy at the range tried unsuccessfully to give a box away because the misfile rate was somewhere between 20-30 percent. Several of us loaded up our guns with the box of free ammo, but no one managed to fire 10 consecutive rounds without having to eject a dud.

Most of the duds wouldn't fire when rechambered and rotated. The free ammo went in the trash. I'm glad your box actually came with priming compound. Frankly I don't think I'm going to buy any new bulk 22 ammo until the panic is completely over because I don't need a shelf full of substandard ammo with no appreciable QC.

 

[matrem]

Nice.
Sounds like maybe they've fixed their priming compound issues.(at least in some lots)

Haven't bought any in three or four years, certainly not because of accuracy problems, just the inability of a high percentage of them to make any noise louder than a firing pin hitting a piece of brass.

 

[LocoGringo]

Ya'll are making me nervous now. Gotta go out and try this new batch I guess.

 

[HexHead]

When I had an Advantage Arms .22 upper for my Glock, the manual said to use only Golden Bullets or Mini-Mags. I went through a 525 box of the GBs with not one issue.

 

[matrem]

There were evidently different manufacturing systems, and likely different QC systems in place, depending on which facility produced the ammo we're buying.
Have been a fan of big green for a lot of years, and don't like what they've become in last several years, but always do my best to call it as I see it.

The few thousands of "Golden" bullets I've been exposed to in the last several years, proved to just be plain terrible.

 

[redneck2]

I found some at the WM in LaPorte, IN last Saturday. Bought a box of 525. I saw one of my friends today and he said he only had fifteen rounds left. I sold him mine for the $22 I paid.

FWIW...they hadn't gotten any in for months. She said they're getting some about every week now.

 

[Mike J]

It has been a few years since I shot any Golden Bullets. I may have to try them again if yaall say they work. I had so many misfires I got mad & quit using them. I have been mostly using the Winchester 555 or 333 packs since but that is so hard to find I may have to give Remington a chance again.

 

[Candyman87]

I don't mind them, I just won't feed them to my P22 which tends to be ammo picky.

But in my 10/22? It'll eat almost anything!

 

[Cee Zee]

I had more duds and spitting ammo with standard CCI

What planet are you on because here on earth CCI makes some of the most consistent ammo available. And Golden Duds are about the worst. I always see people say they haven't had problems with Remington ammo but you are the very first I have ever seen say CCI had duds. I've never seen that before.

The last brick of Golden Bullets I bought was by far the worst ammo of any kind I have ever seen. One round would be hyper-sonic and the next I would check to make sure it actually cleared the end of the barrel and the next wouldn't fire at all. Needless to say accuracy was impossible without a consistent load of powder in every round.

Clearly different ammo is sold in Remington boxes around the country or at least it was when a person could actually buy ammo all the time. I swore I would never buy another Remington .22 bullet but I broke down and bought 100 rounds early on in the shortage period. I couldn't bring myself to shoot the stuff though. My experiences with that ammo made me cringe at the thought of trying it again. The stuff was so dirty it would make my single shot Stevens bolt to where it was all but impossible to move the bolt. I'd have to clean the gun after every 100 rounds because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to get the bolt out. It was that bad. I've had that rifle for over 35 years and I went decades without cleaning it at all. It never really needed to be cleaned. But it had to be cleaned time after time when I shot that Remington ammo through it. I started out shooting the ammo in other bolt action rifles BTW but I was worried I would never get them to feed again so I started using the single shot only. And even that didn't eliminate the problems. That stuff was insanely bad. I've never seen anything anywhere near as bad as it was.

 

[ford8nr]

I saw an interesting suppressor test recently on a .22 rifle. One brand on ammo they used to test was Golden Bullets. The sound difference round to round was amazing, some were super sonic, some were sub sonic. I don't shoot Golden Bullets since every test I've done with them will not hold 1/2" (or 3/4") 5 shot groups at 50yds. Most groups have been in the 1-1/4" range which is big enough to mis the steel chicken at 40 meters. In 20rd rapid fire timed matches, I use to load 22 rounds to make up for the random duds.

 

[HOOfan_1]

What planet are you on because here on earth CCI makes some of the most consistent ammo available. And Golden Duds are about the worst. I always see people say they haven't had problems with Remington ammo but you are the very first I have ever seen say CCI had duds. I've never seen that before.

I live on the planet where my own first hand experience is more important to my buying habits than what I read on the internet.

I've barely ever had any Remington Golden bullets fail to ignite. That is what I have used for years as my go to 22 LR. I had plenty of older CCI stuff that my grandfather bought either spit out powder onto my hands and arms, or just fail to ignite.

I had a brand new box of 50 CCI Maxi-Mag .22WMR with 2 rounds which failed to ignite in two different rifles.

I switched to CCI Blazer .22 LR at one time because they are a bit cheaper than Golden Bullets and were available when the Golden Bullets were not. I never had a problem with them, but I probably only shot 2000 of them versus the 10000+ I have shot of Golden Bullets.

 

[likesguns]

Man you guys are lucky ,I'm in NY and if I could find bulk.22 ammo I would buy a few thousand rounds of just about anything.

 

[ttarp]

Interesting, I had no idea the ammo I'd been shooting was considered garbage. Guess I've just been lucky with Golden Bullets, never had more than a couple of duds a brick, which I was under the impression was normal for rimfire.

 

[Carl N. Brown]

Back in the 1960s, the Remington .22 LR with the golden gilding metal plate finish was the ammo to use for me. I was sorely disappointed with the decline in quality in the bulk pack in recent years--I guess to keep the price down they figured bargain plinkers would accept a few duds every carton. Or their machinery was wearing out. I am pleased to hear reports that Remington Golden Bullet quality control is up.

Adjusted for inflation, what cost a dollar in 1960 should cost about ten dollars today. Maybe the decline in quality of .22 ammo was the result of trying to hold an unrealistic price line.

 

[ford8nr]

ttarp
never had more than a couple of duds a brick, which I was under the impression was normal for rimfire.

I've shot 10,000's of rounds of CCI, Agulia and Wolf through 9 different rifles and handguns with only a couple duds. I'm talking about one or two per 5000rd case. Anymore then that I'd call a problem.