Which .22lr ammo to start with?

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So I have some random .22lr lying around and I am trying to figure out which one(s) would be a good place to start testing for accuracy and consistency out of my 10/22. It will only be for 50 yard target shooting to begin with.

Anyone have good or bad experiences with the few I have here? Should I start with something completely different? ;)
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This was out of my Savage from back in the Summer when I first started shooting rifle. I was using a cheap bipod and a towel on a flimsy plastic table. 5 shots, 50 yards

I feel confident I could cut that down by at least 20% now.


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Very impressive! I think I will have to work just to get within 20% of your original group, lol!

Which scope were you using then?
 
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CCI Subsonics (1050fps, lead hollow point). Bushnell 2-7x32 on a Marlin XT-22RZ at 50yds

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My group with CCI Standard Velocity would’ve been identical but I had one flyer about a bullet width away which killed it
 
Basically, for accuracy, just try out the subsonics. Looks like you have 2 - the CCI SV and the Eley. You might find something supersonic that works well at 50, but at the point it goes transonic and then subsonic accuracy will fall off, and that won't be very far out. Except the Stingers maybe, but I've never heard anyone say Stingers were accurate in their 22 :) You can get actual target ammo for cheaper than Stingers anyway. Get a few boxes of SK Standard+ to try out. It is often better than CCI SV (but not always), and isn't a lot more (about 1.5x last I saw). Definitely worth trying.
 
I am trying to figure out which one(s) would be a good place to start testing for accuracy and consistency out of my 10/22. It will only be for 50 yard target shooting to begin with.

You're going for accuracy and if you're not aware of the following it's definitely worth, and easy enough, to check out.
As usual with most topics there are opinions on both sides of the fence and I tried it on my 10/22s and it makes a difference.

 
good advice in this thread. For target work, I like CCI SV. There's a chart around here somewhere (or maybe RFC) where a guy and his very expensive Anschutz target rifle tried almost every brand of rimfire he could get his hands on. The more expensive, the better for the most part but CCI SV was always in the top 10, and probably the best bang for the buck.

FWIW I hunt with CCI minimags, and I really like Aguila's Eley priming system. If I am blasting thru the ammo, Fed bulk box is the most reliable bulk ammo I have found for under 6 cents a round.

Remington rimfire ammo is terrible, esp the one labled "target". What a freaking joke. Maybe throwing them down range and using the box as a small target is what they intended.
 
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Another thing that kinda hurts is rimfires is variances in velocity. The smaller spread in velocity in a group generally leads to a better group. Ammo like most of the Eley, CCI Green and other “match grade” ammo are assembled to tighter tolerances which includes things to keep their spread in velocity low ... I’ve had some under 5 fps (less that 0.5%). The hyper stuff like the Stingers and Supermaxium tend to have more of a delta in my limited shooting of them ... Velocitors are in that group which I had one 5 shoot test group vary over a 100fps (over 7%). Rimfire ammo production can be fast and spit out numbers like the bulk ammo or more controlled and precise like Eley Tenex, CCI Green, Lapua Midas, etc where each step from case selection (especially rim thickness) to priming & powder all the way to the projectile are held to tight tolerances ... which means slower and lower numbersin production and higher cost.

As to your 10/22 typically to cycle reliably they like a little more velocity ... mine liked MiniMags for cycling and very good groups ... but best group results came from Wolf Match rimfire(a standard velocity) that cycled okay but every so often didn’t cycle. When you start to really look at each one you likely need to run in that specific one ammo for quite a few rounds to let the gun season to it. Don’t just run 5 or 10 rounds of each back to back to back as evaluation ... do 2 or 3 per session. Run a box of each with say the last 5 rounds being for record of each. I tend to see getting a better feel of what a steady diet of that specific ammo by doing so more than shooting a couple mags if this then that and coming back to the first type.

In my Marlin 60 I could almost run a mix of a couple ammos and it doesn’t really affect it but say my CZ bolt gun at longer distances will get a little angry if I run copper plated MiniMags because it has only been fed lubed 40gr lrn ... the difference is visible but fire 20 or so MiniMags and it will tighten up a little ..l still not as good as it favorite ammo but better than at the start.

My 10/22 is not customized and tricked out but with a little 4x rimfire scope and MiniMags it is minute of squirrel all day with maybe a hiccup which tend to be failure to fire and I think is more ammo than 10/22.
 
Also with rimfire ammo the batch can make a difference. My 10/22 shot great with a box of Winchester 333’s one day, as accurate as it was with cci sv, bought a box a few weeks later from a different store hoping for the same results but the groups were double the size.
 
Wow, awesome info from everyone! Thank you! Looks like I'll start off with the CCI SVs and the Eley and grab some SK Standard+. Oh and keeping track of batch numbers too.

My 10/22 shouldn't have any issues cycling with any ammo after CPC's work, but only one way to find out.

I guess I'll keep the Remington to give as a gag gift or maybe just use it as a doorstop. ;)
 
good advice in this thread. For target work, I like CCI SV. There's a chart around here somewhere (or maybe RFC) where a guy and his very expensive Anschutz target rifle tried almost every brand of rimfire he could get his hands on. The more expensive, the better for the most part but CCI SV was always in the top 10, and probably the best bang for the buck.

FWIW I hunt with CCI minimags, and I really like Aguila's Eley priming system. If I am blasting thru the ammo, Fed bulk box is the most reliable bulk ammo I have found for under 6 cents a round.

Remington rimfire ammo is terrible, esp the one labled "target". What a freaking joke. Maybe throwing them down range and using the box as a small target is what they intended.

If you want something with consistent POI to the SV’s, try CCI Segmented Subsonics (1050fps 40gr Copper HPs)
 
My 10/22 is not customized and tricked out but with a little 4x rimfire scope and MiniMags it is minute of squirrel all day with maybe a hiccup which tend to be failure to fire and I think is more ammo than 10/22.

Great post but I will take exception to the very last thing of the last part that I quoted. I have fired cases of Minimags (20k+ I estimate) in at least a dozen different semiauto rimfires and I don't recall ever having a misfire when the gun wasn't very dirty or turned out to be broken in some way. For most people I know Minimags are the goto "if it won't run this it's the gun" test ammo.

Some few don't like feeding the hollow points 100% but other than that Minimags are the gold standard for reliability and function in semis. (Use the round nose if you are function testing.)

Your mileage may vary of course. Production runs and overall quality over time do vary. I have exactly one fellow shooter that I see frequently whose guns run Golden Bullets great. Go figure. I sold him what I had laying around from when I didn't know any better. :)

I have and continue to use other ammo as well. CCI Blazer bulk packs or boxes are also very good and used to be 3 cents when the Minimags were 6, up until Newtown (by the case). In various rimfire matches I shot Minimags and the 4 kids got Blazer :) The Fed bulk packs used to be great but I had a lot of problems with them at one point so I dropped them. Fed Automatch was good the last few years when it was one of the only things avaIlable and I didn't want to shoot my last cases of Minimags and Blazer and old Fed bulk.

That was all of course completely off topic for a thread about accurate 22.
 
As far as "cheap" standard velocity ammo goes, I have had very good accuracy in my CZ455 with the Geco Bolt Action Optimized. I know others that have had good success with the Geco Semi-Auto, which is a little bit faster. At 25 yards, when I am patient and do my part, I can pretty much sit back and lob them through the same hole. I also frequently run them out to 400 yards on steel if the wind is manageable. group.jpg 299728_ts.jpg
 
No need to make this complicated. Pick your ammo at random, load up a magazine, and start shooting. When you're done with that magazine, load up another brand and start shooting.

Keep track on the performance of each brand.

Easy-peasy.

And, of course...shooting is fun, so take a magazine load of each type of ammo out to shoot.
 
It ain't gonna matter one bit what I or anyone else who respond here likes. It comes down to what your rifle likes and you ain't gonna know that until you have tried them all. So pick one and get started.
 
If you're going for accuracy, what I do for my Savage FVSR is actually sort CCI SV by weight. The rounds will vary by 5 or so grains. I've read that this is essentially what Green Tag is.
 
My savage b22 fv-sr likes the center x match ammo. It doesn't like the cci SV for some reason.... Lol

For long range 22 stick with standard velocity ammo.
 
CCI sv. If you get the rifle to shoot well with these it pretty much eliminates rifle questions with different ammo. If the rifle shoots bad with ammo x, it ain't the rifle.
I also really like the SK stuff. Seems to be johnny on the spot in any of the rifles. Oily as hell though dirty to handle.

I used to have 700 ~ 1000 rds and it was VERY Difficult even to give it away.
And Yes, I did Give it away.
I'll shoot that stuff in revolvers. That's it.
 
I ordered a bunch of this on sale the other day and it shot fairly well out of my 10/22. The CCI SV did a little better though.
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I forgot I had a case of this older Federal Champion #510 lying around.
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It is a 40 grain lead round nose @ 1240 fps, and it did even better. More consistent/repeatable.

Dang it. That's what I get for impulse buying the Aguila before testing out all the other stuff I have laying around! lol.
The Federal was noticeably louder though with more of a crack than the Aguila and CCI SV, not that that is a big deal.
 
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That crack you hear is the supersonic one. Most standard velocity will run subsonic esp in the colder months. This contributes to accuracy since it's not going above the speed of sound and coming back down
 
That crack you hear is the supersonic one. Most standard velocity will run subsonic esp in the colder months. This contributes to accuracy since it's not going above the speed of sound and coming back down
I did realize what the sounds was, I was just surprised it was much more pronounced than the Aguila. I believe that particular Aguila is just over supersonic isn't it? The Federal is roughly 100 fps over supersonic if I remember correctly. Of course, that all depends on altitude/elevation, temp, etc. etc. I didn't check to see what they had the temp set at in there, but I would guess in the low 70's.
 
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