Consistent .22 LR Bulk Ammo?

[Religious Shooter]

I'm looking for bulk/cheap .22 LR's that are fairly consistent from lot to lot (from year to year). I plan to zero my rifle and see where it is hitting at various ranges. I don't want to redo that work every single time I break open a different box of .22's.

I would prefer that the ammo also works with the AR15 Ciener Kit, Ruger 10/22, Ruger 22/45, AA Glock Kit and 1911 Kimber kit.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[AzShooter]

CCI Blazer has performed well inn all of my .22s and is very cheap in bulk prices. Minii Mags are also excellent but they cost much more.

Federal Auto Match also works great if you can find it. Mostly I find it at Wally World but they only seem to have two to three bricks at a time and I buy all they have.

Hope this helps

[boz1911]

I do the same thing, buy all the Federal bulk WW has in stock. Seems to shoot well in my pistols and my T/C rifle.

[Hank Ellis]

Ask any mildly hardcore rimfire shooter and he'll tell you that each rimfire gun is a law onto it's own. What works in this may not work in that. And that no one cartridge is going to perform best across the board. The only way you will know what works in your gun is to try it.

With that said some general statements about bulk rimfire ammo my friends at www.rimfirecentral.com have a somewhat consensus about. Anything from Remington except the Eley/Remington is junk. Failure to fires and unacceptable accuracy. Federal AutoMatch works pretty decent across a wide variety of rifles. If you can find Winchester Dynapoints, they have a cult following. My rifle gave so-so accuracy. Winchester XPert22 will either work great or give groups like a 12ga. My rifle was one of the latter. Handguns are very picky about what they like. Nothing but trial and error to find what works.

If you find it useful here is a link to a ongoing project I'm doing chrono'ing .22RF through my various guns. The tables are in the 2nd and 3rd posts.

I've found that Aguila ammunition works pretty darn good across the board for lesser expensive ammo. If I really care about accuracy then I switch to Eley Standard brown box. 0.75 to 1.0 moa at 50 yd in a modified 10/22. Yeah, it's $4 a box but it's worth it.

[Bruce]

Not "bulk" in the traditional sense, but I order cci mini-mags through a buddy from Jerry's Sport Center, most recent was $4.70'ish per hundred for 50 or more boxes. I think the order for 6k was like $284. The consistency I get with these has been really good.

[AlamoShooter]

Hank is rite , I may be hard core 22 ? I have found three lost of cci blazer that would not work in any of my guns. Rem fed win Augi = all of it I have had or had shooting buddies that had it fail.

All Rim fire Ammo is "LOT sensitive" and The way the rim fire ammo is made makes it hard to get consistency with it.

Consistent 22 Ammo is an Oxymoron

The ammo that I trust months of practice to when the national event is on the line for one run is the CCI Standard and CCI Minny mag.

Every thing Else seams to waist my time when I take it to the range. = But I demand a bit more the most do.

My second pick would be the Fed bulk box.

The teams that compete with the Augila ammo = get to pick from several "Lot #s" when the find a LOT that test out good they get several cases of that Lot.

My favorite round that I can not afford to shoot is Fiocchi SM320 That stuff is great at 90yards and in my handgun at 50

So the Fact is when you buy some 22 rim fire = what works this week for cheep may not work next

In 1998? i think it was Win put out a large amount of ammo that failed 20% of the time several diff lot ##s

That has not happened again and The Win guys denied ever thing

[bigbrowndog]

my team challenge ammo is remington hp, in the 550 round bulk box. it just happens to give me 1" to 1.25" accuracy and its cheap and as consistent as any of the higher costing ammo I've tried, plus it has the added benefit of upsetting the delicate sensibilities of the AMMO SNOBS, that I compete against. It shoots very well in both my pistol and rifle.

It gives me all the accuracy I need to hit the targets from 25 to 90yds. its one of the cleaner ammos that also produces good accuracy in all my 22's.

Trapr

[MichiganShootist]

I teach indoor pistol classes and as such go through TONS of .22 LR in many dozens of different 22 pistols.

I have BY FAR had the best results with Winchester Expert. It comes in bulk boxes at Wally World.

Many brands quality has gone to Hell in the past 24 months. Bricks of Fereral and Remington I purchased in the past few months were so poorly crimped that the failure to feed and failure to fire ratio was at 1 out of every 3 rounds.

I have also used the Expert in my CZ and Browning 22 rifles and found it very adequate ammo for the price.

If money is no object Green Tag CCI match ammo is good.. but it costs 5X what I pay for the Winchester.

[Shawn Knight]

I love the Auto Match. Works in all of my 22s and is very very accurate for bulk packed ammo.

[TMC]

I love the Auto Match. Works in all of my 22s and is very very accurate for bulk packed ammo.

+1 on the AutoMatch, I shot 2 boxes, 650 rounds one afternoon with not one failure to fire or feed in my 10/22 or conversion.

[Fullauto_Shooter]

I like the CCI Mini-mags. They're more expensive than the typical "bulk" stuff but they're plenty accurate for what I do and they're the only rounds that work reliably in my Ceiner M16 conversion kit. I still shoot a bunch of the cheap Wal Mart bulk packs for plinking, but when I actually need to hit something Mini-Mags always get the nod.

[gose]

I haven't been able to find a single brand that performs in all my .22s. What I currently use:

CCI minimags: Sig Mosquito, S&W 617

Fed Bulk pack: .22 AR (Spike's Tactical upper)

Fed Gold Match: SIG 210 .22 conv kits, Pardini SP

[fastshooter03]

Eley yellow box (rifle) stinks. Bought a case a few years ago and sold off most of it. Really inconsistent. Worked better in my pistol.

If you can find it. Wolf/SK is very good although the price has gone way up. Used to be $30 brick for the lesser grade. That stuff will do 1 ragged hole@50 yds with my Lilja barreled 10/22.

Nick

[Catfish]

I was thinking about this thread this morning when I threw ammo into my bag for the local steel match.

I had just bought a brick of Remington (not bulk, 500 rounds in 50 round boxes...) and a brick of Federal. Normally, I just would have thrown the Remington in there, as that is what I grabbed first and my Mk III isn't that particular on what it likes to eat. As an afterthought I threw in some of the Federal as well...

Well, that saved my butt today as on the first two strings of the day I had 2 rounds that didn't want to go bang and another one that detonated early, leaving a bullet stuck just inside the barrel. So out of 5 rounds, 3 wouldn't worky.

I figured pretty quickly that it was going to be a long frickin' day and loaded up for the rest of the day with the Federal, which worked like a champ....

[BlackBuzzard]

Great thread going here...........answers to all my 22LR questions.

====================

Not to drift the thread, but my MkIII Ruger pistol eats WW Federal 550 bulk packs with about 1/150 failing to eject or fire......acceptable to me given its the absolute cheapest out there.

But my all-new Ruger 10/22 is failing to fully eject cases in one out of every four, with the above ammo. This sucker is going back to ruger real quick here if latest cleaning doesn't improve things.

BlackBuzzard

[DougCarden]

Mr Buzzard...

Order a new recoil spring for your 10-22, and start tuning "ie. clip a few coils" until the gun runs 100% with the Fed Bulk pack. It wont take but a couple. If your recoil spring is worn, then you wont, or shouldnt have a problem. The Bulk stuff is a little.....um....inconsistent.....

that is one possible fix for your rifle......

Good luck,

DougC

[BlackBuzzard]

Mr Buzzard...

Order a new recoil spring for your 10-22, and start tuning "ie. clip a few coils" until the gun runs 100% with the Fed Bulk pack. It wont take but a couple. If your recoil spring is worn, then you wont, or shouldnt have a problem. The Bulk stuff is a little.....um....inconsistent.....

that is one possible fix for your rifle......

Good luck,

DougC

Thanks!

I'll try that.

Inconsistent for sure with Federal bulk. Taking eyes off the front sight, instead watching the cases fly, they may go limp or strong from ejector.......totally random.

Like others I suspect, I am using 22LR as low cost practice. Dont need ragged holes at 50yd. But I do burn 500 rounds a session on steel plates easily.

BB

[Hank Ellis]

A stock 10/22 has issues with cycling subsonic and some standard velocity ammunition. Problem is due to the bolt aft lower edge being at a less than optimum angle to work with this ammunition. The cure is inexpensive.

Contact Randy at CPC. He will radius the aft lower edge of the bolt, grind the headspace to proper dimension, dowel the firing pin to better control it, and the outside surface is machine turned (jeweled). All for $55 shipped.

In my gun this modified bolt will allow cycling of anything I've stuck in it. Even subsonic at 1000 fps.

[fastshooter03]

This might be related:

I had to take both our 10/22s and grind the bolt face to get some decent FP reliability. Both rifles were different. Before modification they would not reliably fire in colder weather and it could have been a problem in normal weather as well.

At first I thought it was ammo related but after measuring the brass rim thickness and comparing it to the boltface I was amazed at the huge gap. IF I remember correctly the boltface was .050 " or deeper and the brass rims were .040-.041". The FP is limited in it's travel so reducing the bolt face a little helped it hit the brass rim harder.

I would reccommend everyone with a 10/22 problem do this mod either yourself or somebody who knows.

Nick

[smokshwn]

A stock 10/22 has issues with cycling subsonic and some standard velocity ammunition. Problem is due to the bolt aft lower edge being at a less than optimum angle to work with this ammunition. The cure is inexpensive.

Contact Randy at CPC. He will radius the aft lower edge of the bolt, grind the headspace to proper dimension, dowel the firing pin to better control it, and the outside surface is machine turned (jeweled). All for $55 shipped.

In my gun this modified bolt will allow cycling of anything I've stuck in it. Even subsonic at 1000 fps.

Randy does do great work, but it is pretty easy to "reprofile" the rear of the bolt with a vice and a flat file. A little sanding/polishing and tada ..... much smoother bolt action and reliability.

[ken hebert]

Despite initially liking them, I've had probs lately with Federal Auto Match, very inconsistant velocities. But CCI Mini Mags are still working well for me. Green Tag and Wolf match give me the same accuracy at 100yds, about 1.5 to 2 MOA, and Eley Rifle Match is half of that, 1 to 1.25 MOA.

[Hank Ellis]

Despite initially liking them, I've had probs lately with Federal Auto Match, very inconsistant velocities.

Fed Auto Match had a few lots where the bullet crimp was very loose. Accuracy as well as velocity was all over the place.

Take a look at www.rimfirecentral.com and do a search for 'bad automatch' in the 22 Ammunition section. A couple threads there where the bad lots are exposed. In a nutshell anything with a lot number of 1BW4xx is suspect. Federal will make good on it. These bad lots were discovered nearly a year ago and they still pop up at Wal-Mart.

My batch of AutoMatch gave me 0.7 MOA at 50' (0.118") average with the worst group still sub-MOA.

[lmccrock]

My experience with all things Remington rimfire are negative. I had a brick of Thunderbolt which would not ignite in 3 different guns - 10/22, Single 6, and an ex-girlfriend's gun, Remington 422, I think. Another batch was almost as bad. Bad, like 1-2 every mag or cylinder. Winchester, Eley, and CCI were all ok. So, no Remington for me. Love the shot shells, the 223 is acceptable, never the rimfire. YMMV.

My scoped 10/22 is sighted in for Winchester Wildcat, at 75 yards. That batch of ammo would hit a beverage can every time at 75, and about half the time (IIRC) at 100. For a circa-1974 gun which was the 1st I ever had, that is not bad. Of course, my H&R Mdl 12 will cloverleaf at 25 with good ammo, and I am not that steady. Of course, I shot up that ammo just before I moved last year and I do not remember what it was. Oh, well.

Lee

[G-ManBart]

If money is no object Green Tag CCI match ammo is good.. but it costs 5X what I pay for the Winchester.

Coming from someone who used to work there, CCI Standard Velocity is the exact same ammo as Green Tag and any variation you see in accuracy between the two is simply lot-to-lot variation. Personal experience tells me that's the truth. I buy SV in bulk and have shot a fair number of 1/2" groups at 25yds from my Smith M41s and 22a (heavy barrel target model) using nothing more than a rolled up towel as a rest.

[Hank Ellis]

Coming from someone who used to work there, CCI Standard Velocity is the exact same ammo as Green Tag and any variation you see in accuracy between the two is simply lot-to-lot variation.

I've found that Green Tag is a bit better than Standard Velocity. However the performance gain for the price paid isn't there. For $7 for 50, I expected better. Another one that I was disappointed with was CCI Select. $6.50 for 50 and it shot no better than Standard Velocity.

Remington rimfire across the board is junk. Misfires are very common. Stuff won't chrono below a SD of 20. Only one did. The Thunderbolts. It printed 2 MOA groups (0.357") at 50'. Only Remington rimfire I'll pull the trigger on is the Remington/Eley line.

Aguila is one that surprises me. Cheap and it works. The Subsonic line (HP and SP) both do very well in my guns. Aguila Standard Velocity gave identical performance to CCI Standard Velocity.

I've got some Fiocchi sitting on the shelf that needs to be printed for groups to see how it does.