Project Appleseed

dont get me wrong i am a huge fan of all 22 caliber rounds,  but if anyone really wants to have some fun try a ruger #1 chambered in 458.  kicks like a mule but punches holes as big as my thumb in 1/4'' thick steel siloett targets at 100 yards, cant argue w/ results.

Quote from: jpf on November 13, 2007, 05:17:54 PM
we need snake45 to chime in on this thread.
he has done extensive testing with .22 ammo!

I'd have been here sooner but I only just this minute discovered this thread!

Here ya go, here's everything I learned about six different kinds of cheap ammo shooting them in more than two dozen different rifles:

http://rimfirecentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=168594

Read all that and then feel free to ask any follow-up questions.

Snake,

Very nice summary of 22 ammo.

I just default to CCI mini mags for Appleseeds. MidwayUSA sells 500 for $25 in the individual 100 packs.

CCI is the only 22 mag my Marlin 922M will shoot without extraction problems.

MiniMags are good stuff, very reliable, consistent, and best of all accurate in a wide variety of guns. Now over 5c a shot in my area they're a bit spendy for ALL my shooting but I shoot them without hesistation in my guns that really like them.

I saw that bit over at Rimfire Central, and Snake, good job.

That cleared a LOT of it up for me.

I see that the cheap Federal I've been getting from Wal-Mart is going to be good enough for practice and for training new shooters.

I do have 2 or 3 bricks of Remington standard velocity (some mil-surp stuff) for my 513-T, and the 10/22's will eat Federal.

This year's production of Fed Bulks seems to be down a bit on power. Been getting several stovepipes with them, and up to a third don't sound supersonic. Previous lots were very zippy, very reliable, and 100% supersonic.

And this year there was one lot (1AV592) that gave a LOT of misfires--seemed to be a problem with the brass being either too thick or too hard, because they'd give good performance in guns that had a hella firing pin strike but balked in others.

I shoot a lot of those things just because they're so cheap. I especially like them in handguns. They're very clean, too.

I'm liking Remington Golden Bullets more and more. Several of my guns won't run reliably on anything else, and in others they are very, very accurate.

 At my range, the mis-fire boxes always have a lot of .22's in them.
Remington leads all the others in numbers with Winchester in 2nd.
Federals would be in 3rd place with CCI's last of all. In fact, hardly ever find a CCI.

In my own case,Remingtons lead the way and also seem to find a lot of oversize rds. in the bulk packs.
In my Ciener 1911 kit the Remington's will not chamber sometimes. Even if you push the slide forward.

Quote from: ken grant on December 06, 2007, 05:34:00 PM
At my range, the mis-fire boxes always have a lot of .22's in them.
Remington leads all the others in numbers with Winchester in 2nd.
Federals would be in 3rd place with CCI's last of all. In fact, hardly ever find a CCI.

In my own case,Remingtons lead the way and also seem to find a lot of oversize rds. in the bulk packs.
In my Ciener 1911 kit the Remington's will not chamber sometimes. Even if you push the slide forward.

Remember, some of those numbers are based on the amount of them used.

Snake, I agree that quality is spotty on the cheaper stuff.

Worst stuff I've yet come across was some Federal Auto Match from Wal-Mart (350 rd box). Way too many misfires and malfs in the 10/22's, and that stuff is GREASY. I won't use any more of it due to the grease issues, and I don't think it was all that much better than the regular bulk Federal (55 rd box) that was cheaper.

Quote from: Nickle on December 06, 2007, 05:44:21 PM
Snake, I agree that quality is spotty on the cheaper stuff.

I wouldn't really call it "spotty," which means to me that you never really know what you're gonna get. MOST of the bulk ammo (and I shot 26K of it this year alone) is pretty consistent, but there is an occasional bad lot that gets through. I pity the guy who buys one box of that stuff as his FIRST box of that ammo, he's always going to think it's all junk.

If this year's Fed Bulks weren't quite as good as the stuff I shot in 2004-2006, I'll have to say that this year's Remington GBs were much, much BETTER than the 2005 and 2006 stuff.

 I have been shooting .22's for the better part of my life. Started at 7 and am now 70.
In all that time I have never seen misfires like we have today.
In fact, if you had a misfire in the past, that was unusual and a rare thing.Now it a common thing , everyone expects it and talks about what brand gives less.

Today we are supposed to have better equipment,powder,priming and etc., Why all the misfires?
This seems like the same problems that are going on in the 1911 field. NIB and won't work properly and most expect it .

Snake45,

Thanks for the info.  Good job. 

I agree about the Win. DynaPoints.  They've been my favorite since I discovered them several years ago.  (Reliable, accurate, and clean.)

The local Wal Mart used to carry 'em, but now I get 'em from Midway.  They work well in my Ruger 22/45 pistol and my 10/22.

They also make clean/quick kills on cottontails (I smoke 'em - then I smoke 'em  ) - much better than solid points.

I need to shoot (anything) more as I've not had the misfire problems to the extent reported here.  I've chosen my ammo based on accuracy in my rifle/pistol.

Has anyone done a test with their new "lighter" spring kits vs. the original springs to see if the misfire rate is different?  One difference between now 40 years ago was folks usually learned to shoot what they had in spite of the triggers.  Just wondering.

Oh yeah, I buy old used Colts, they work and I don't think they wear out.

As to .22 misfires, I've come to the conclusion that at least 50% of the time, they're a GUN problem, not an ammo problem. The trick is knowing which is which.  (I shoot several different .22s, both rifle and pistol, so it's not too hard for me to figure out whether it's the gun or the ammo that's causing them. It's harder when you're only working with one or two different guns.)

Maybe I should start a thread on that sometime.

Snake, agree again on the misfires/malfs usually being a gun issue.

Problem with the Auto Match was that I ran it through several 10/22's, and they all had troubles with it. I've got 6 10/22's currently, most of them donated (as RWVA Trainer Rifles), 4 less than a year old, the other 2 slightly older, but in excellent condition. The greasyness alone is enough for me to avoid further use, as when the rifle is fired, that grease isn't all going downrange or staying on the ejected case. And that slone will eventually cause malfunctions, after a few hundred rounds.

I think I may try it in the bolt gun to see just how accurate it really is.

My Wally's doesn't carry the AutoMatch, so I've never tried them, but I've read many, many favorable comments on their accuracy at RFC. Don't recall any complaints about grease on them, though. Perhaps you got an atypical batch.

I can tell you that if I say the grease is really thick, you can bank on it being THICK, as I'm not known for nitpicking stuff to death, and I do know that .22 ammo is supposed to be greased (many folks don't know that).

Seems like we got about 5 to 10% malfs or misfires with it, and I just had the shooter switch to the regular Federal.

Could have been a crappy batch that they sold cheap to Wally World, too.

The reason we're seeing some "less than stellar" .22 ammo these days, is way back in the day, the ammo makers didn't sell off their bad lots to the big box stores. Today, they do exactly that.

So, expect that bulk ammo you're buying to be less than great. You want really good ammo, you WILL pay for it.

For me, the bulk ammo is "good enough" for most work, and that suits me fine. Not like we're shooting matches here, we're just training with a "rack grade" rifle with "issue" ammo, and a slightly tweaked (as in the basics) 10/22 and bulk ammo is pretty close to that.

Interesting. I ran a search for the words "grease" and "greasy" in the .22 Ammo forum of RFC and couldn't find any mention or postings of the Fed Auto Match being greasy. So maybe you did get a bad or atypical batch.

Here's a good thread on the AMs, where most people seem to have had positive accuracy experiences with them:

http://rimfirecentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=186025&highlight=greasy

As I said, I've never shot any so I can't say one way or the other. Next time I run across any, I'd like to try them in three or four of my bolt actions.

My 22s love automatch.  It shoots almost as well as Wolf Match Target is my Green Mountain barreled 10/22.  Its all I feed my MKII and it loves it as well.

I have heard good things about Winchester Dynapoints and I think I will try it next.  I hear it is awsome in suppressed weapons.

BTW I shoot Automatch regularly and it is not lubricated (greasy)

Wold match target on the other hand is very heavily lubed.

I appologize if it has already been mentioned in a thread, but what .22 ammo goes bang every time.  Accuracy is nice too, but if you are doing a rapid fire string and the rounds will not go off, it just doesn't matter.   I was zeroing in my LTR and I had  missfire from Remington Golden jacketed hollowpoints nearly 1 in each magazine.

Every rifle has it's preferences, but here's a link with three pages of experiences:

http://appleseedinfo.org/smf/index.php?topic=371.msg3069#msg3069

Thank You!  That is what I was looking for.  For some reason I didn't see that thread while doing a search.  This thread can be locked now if someone wants to.

fepowered,

You must also understand that, due to the way rimfire ammo is constructed, it will NEVER be as dependable as centerfire ammo.

The priming compound has to hit a happy medium between flowing and sticking in place when made.  Then it is dropped into the center of the base of the rimfire case and SPUN to throw the priming compound into the rim via centripetal force.

There can be small gaps in the priming compound and the way the rifle and firing pin are designed can make a great difference in how the ammo fires.  Ammo can be near 100% in one gun and only 75 % or 80% in another just due to design features.

One problem we saw again and again when we had a shop open was Ruger 10/22s and Ruger Semi-auto pistols and Remington Thunderbolt (loss leader) .22 ammo.  Switch to any other ammo and one of the mentioned firearms running 80% or 85% on Thunderbolt would go to 99.99% on the new ammo.

I have also seen several Rossi pumps and Henry Lever guns that DID NOT LIKE ANY REMINGTON ammo, leaving fired cases in the chamber, refusing to extract, but working 99.99% with Federal, CCI, Winchester and other brands of ammo.  This was apparently due to the shape of their extractors versus the shape of the cartridge case head not letting the extractor grip properly.

It seems like they can make good rimfire ammo or cheap rimfire ammo but good, cheap rimfire ammo doesn't seem to exist.

Buckshot

Fepowered (Iron-powered?? Is that a reference to First Lensman by E. E. Smith?),

I had a problem with my 10/22 last year and misfires. Stripped it down and checked out the firing pin and discovered that it'd been shot so much that it had gotten shorter. One new firing pin later and no more problems (or very little, anyway) with duds.

So if your rifle, whatever it is, still has problems, you may want to do a detail cleaning on it and inspect the hammer/firing pin/trigger assembly just to be sure it's not the rifle.

Good replies and way to get this fella to the right post and the right answers.   Chalk this up to a successful application of team work to get a new fella the good info and a very good redirect to an established thread on this subject.

I see this thread just got referenced today, so thought I'd do a brief update on the results in the link I posted earlier.

Federal Walmart Bulk used to be very consistent and reliable ammo. That hasn't been true this year. I've shot four or five different lots of the stuff (bought this spring) and no two are the same. One lot will be not only reliable and consistent, but very hot to boot. The next lot will produce three or four different sounds, with some rounds not developing enough power to cycle a 10/22 action. One box I shot today was mostly hot, but one round in every 12 or 15 or 20 would be clearly underpowered. And out of the @ 1200 rounds I shot today, I had eight complete duds--NO primer in them at all. That's VERY unusual for Fed Bulk.

If you run across a lot of this stuff that runs well in your gun, run back to Wally's and buy all of that lot they have on hand. This is still the cheapest .22 ammo available, and I still use a lot of it (especially in handguns).

Remington Golden Bullets, on the other hand, seem to be improving in quality. When I first shot them in 2005, they would make four different sounds. Nearly all the ones I bought last year would make the same sound--and it was pretty zippy. This stuff will run a couple of my guns that nothing else will. But they had a very predictable 1-2% complete dud rate. I've only fired a few hundred 2008 production Rem GBs but I don't recall a single dud yet. It's $2 a box (550) more than the Fed Bulks, but in some of my guns, it's definitely worth it.

Snake, I've had the opposite experience with the Federal bulk packs... that's the ONLY thing I shoot in my Savage, and out of 450-500 rounds this weekend, I only had one FTF, and groups were dynamite. Same results last week at the range, different lot number.

I hope it stays consistently decent though; I've got about two cases stocked up!

I hit another GOOD batch of Fed Bulk yesterday. I shot somewhere around 3000-3500 of them this weekend (I fired over 4K but somewhere around 700 were Rem GBs) and just had the one good, hot lot. Two boxes were so "soft" they regularly stovepiped in a 10/22 and I learned NOT to shoot them in my DPMS because they wouldn't run the bolt back far enough to recock the hammer, which would then follow down and sometimes "double" the next round. Several other boxes would run the 10/22 just fine but wouldn't run my Ciener 1911. And so on.

I've been shooting "last in first out," which means all the lots I shot this weekend were the latest stuff I've bought (within the last six weeks). In fact, I'd never even taken it out of the trunk of my car. I still have a bunch of the stuff I bought last year, and even quite a bit in the old blue box bought before THAT. I'm definitely gonna shoot up all this 2008 junk FIRST.

As I said, if you find a lot number of new Fed Bulk that works for you, get back over there and see if they have any more of it.

"Federal bulk box:  Walmart ammo, right now about $10 for 550 rounds.  Good stuff, IMO.  Still a little bit of vertical stringing,"

I had that happen all last weekend. I thought it was not controling my breathing, but maybe it was the ammo.

Quote from: B964 on May 28, 2008, 01:29:09 PM
"Federal bulk box:  Walmart ammo, right now about $10 for 550 rounds.  Good stuff, IMO.  Still a little bit of vertical stringing,"

I had that happen all last weekend. I thought it was not controling my breathing, but maybe it was the ammo.

Very possible. One lot I shot last weekend was giving at least two distinct sounds, one of them very soft. I didn't bench them for accuracy but I wouldn't be surprised to see a half-inch vertical stringing on those at 50 yards--maybe even at 25.

I couldn't get the WalleyWorld Federal bulk to group at all in my 10/22 (actually AMT25/22).  Very inconsistent and a lot of vertical stringing.

I tried a few other brands, and believe it or not, the best shooting stuff in my 10/22 with a plain old Volquartzen 0.920 barrel is the Aguila Super Extra 40gr copper plated. 

After a little bedding work I was able to shoot a nice 0.080" 25yd 5 shot group off the bench paying careful attention to the wind (no flags - only feel).  This isn't Benchrest level of accuracy (~0.32MOA), but I am very happy with it coming from my little autochucker.  I now have this target pasted to my Appleseed ammo can to remind me that it isn't the rifle, it is the person pulling the trigger that accounts for the problems. 

I will have to pull out my can of "good stuff" (Ely 10x, match, club match, rifle match, Lapua match, etc) and try them to see how they shoot now, but for the price I'm pleased as punch with the Aguila.

BTW my "bedding" consisted of a thin piece of cardboard (not corrugated) ~1.4" x 2.5" placed in the barrel channel just in front of the barrel/reciever block free floating the barrel.  This also removed the 45° stringing I used to get with sling tension.  This made much more difference than did most of the different ammo that I tried - FWIW.

Cheers