Not Reloading, but .22 Ammo Experiences

[Truculent turtle]

When I  first  started  with  10/22s  I  bought  a  bunch  of  the  "target" stuff, Eley, etc.  It  was  all  just  ok, then  I  went  back to  my  standard  from  another  lifetime ago, Rem standard velocity.  It  shot  like  a  dream, serious  better  than  everything  else, but  it  is  a  tad  expensive.  Tried Federals,  hummm,  in  that  gun  some  pretty  regular feeding/extracting  issues though  when  I  tried  a borrowed  box  of  Fed  match  it  helped  alot  and  the accuracy  was  very  close  to  Rem standards.  In  looking  at  lots  of  10/22s now it  seems  that  with  Federals there  are  more  feeding/extraction  issues  on  Sunday  morning  than  with  other  brands--just  an  issue  of  a extra  good  cleaning  on  Saturday  night

[scopeboy001]

alright guys, i wanna know if it's just my gun or if this is true in general.

i recently bought some 22WMR rounds form CCI.  they have a nickle plated case and utelize a copper version of the V-max bullet.  and i have been getting PHENOMINAL results out of my savage-anchultz @ 100 yards using only a little $8.00   3-9 variable scope, i dont really know. they could just shoot well from my gun, but for the price of picking up a box, i still recomend that u guys give them a try.  b/c my results have been !!!

[TnTimberwright]

Biggest problem I see happening with .22 ammo has been recent MAJOR shortages in supply of it everywhere for over a month now (since late NOV). 

All area WalMarts are out of almost all .22, absolutely have not had any "bricks" of it except one case each that 3 stores I monitor regularly received, and that case of Bricks was sold out in hours the day they got it (some people have sales clerks who are 'buddies' give them a ring and they go get most of it). People are seeing a shortage in .22 and are buying up several to 10 bricks or more thereby taking all of it off the shelves. This is a VERY SERIOUS CONCERN FOR our 2009 AS plans, in my humble opinion. 

I have been MONITORING AMMO sales in area stores and most Major Internet Suppliers since back last Spring with a focus on both supply availability and price hikes. Since the run starting right after the NOV election, this has most definitely become a Major Issue. ALL ammo suppliers have sold out, have a very rough time getting any replacement merchandise to sell, have a tremendous customer demand for it, but don't get much replacement ammo to sell or else have it gobbled up almost immediately when they get some in. 

If we have people not wanting to waste their battle rifle ammo due to shortages and cost, and now are going to see this happen also to .22 ammo, then WE DO have a problem. We cannot use Paint Ball ammo on an AS, but we might have to go to Air Rifles/pellet guns.

I am really worried that we have already been seeing centerfire ammo disappear for the most part and prices going up on it when it is available; then also seeing the major Internet suppliers and all my area gun stores run out of the common stuff we mostly use; and NOW, it's even the .22 cal going. If this keeps up, then I am going to, regretfully, predict that we will see a definite decline in AS shooters response because they will not want to burn up their ammo, regardless of caliber, because they cannot be assured of a resupply.  I'll be among the first to say that if a man only had 1000 rounds of any ammo and spent 500 at an AS then it would be worth it, because he will be better able to use that last 500 rounds than if he did not attend an AS to learn how to shoot and burned up the entire 1000 rounds as a NON-Rifleman. However, people are people and psychologically they are into "hoarding" ammo due to the shortages happening which are only worsening and expected to worsen even further.

All I am saying is that I really think we have a problem before us that is significant. However, I want others to give some feedback on other "necks of the woods" in the U.S. We need some answers on this. I know we have a lot of 'hunters'/gunowners in my area, but I really think this is Nationwide because the Internet Suppliers are having the same problem. Okay guys, what's up on this??

Is this a problem in areas of the U.S. besides here in East TN, Southwest Virginia, Southwest NC? It is on the Internet and it is at all our sporting goods, hunting supply, gun shops. They want it in order to sell it. The manufacturers, it seems, are trying to resupply the "pipeline," but that is taking time and running slow. Most Ammo houses/suppliers are not taking Backorders and most are running at least 4 weeks or more behind on filling orders to ship obligated ammo they have already sold.

Anybody else got any observations on this Ammo thing??  BTW, .223 seems to be plentiful. It's the 30-06,  7.62x39, .308 and others which now includes Bricks of .22 that I'm seeing shortages on, as well even common pistol ammo calibers. I sure hope some of you will give us some info on your areas on this. For doing so, you have my sincere thanks in advance.

TnTimberwright

[Mark Davis]

The ammo problems will get better after enough people get their stash. We saw the same thing back when our girl hill proposed taxing primers and ammo. Everyone was running around getting ammo and components to hoard.
There are no bricks of .22 ammo at wal-mart here (Bozeman MT) but sportsman's warehouse has a few bricks. The local farm supply store has .22 ammo. Yellowstone gateway sports has .22 ammo.
Could wal-marts shortage have anything to do with the way they insist on low prices from suppliers? Right now it's a sellers market.
I quit buying when wal-mart ran out, after spending about 16 months buying two bricks on payday, every two weeks. You know what Fred says, "buy em  cheap,
stack em deep" That was good advice thanks Fred.

[Dirty Bill]

I think the panic buying is about over,and it will take some time for dealers to stock up again.Cabela's has winchester ammo on sale right now. 500 rounds in a wooden box,19.99..it was 24.99..200rnds of 5.56 for 79.99,I don't know if that's good or not. They also have 10-22's for 179.99. All this until Jan.18..just a heads up. <

Sorry for the slightly off  topic post...I really like the CCI .22 mags..,I have a lot of .22 lr stocked up,I don't even know how much.

I always had good accuracy from the remington golden hp. I'm surprised some peeps don't like it..I'm out...

[Fred]

       

You know what Fred says, "buy em cheap, stack em deep" That was good advice thanks Fred.

     Actually, Fred didn't come up with the notion - think I read it somewhere, along with "Ammo: currency of the new millinium."

     But who could disagree?

[bulkhead]

About October of 08 I bought a Remington 597.  It's one of the Dick's Sporting Goods specials.  Bull barrel and a laminated thumbhole stock.  Real nice looking rifle.  Only problem was it shot 3 to 5 inch groups at 50 yards.  I read a lot of the rimfire forums and just couldn't get it to work.  Just after Christmas I hit it with the JB paste and took it out.  Fired groups of every type of 22lr ammo I could find.  The match ammo didn't go any better than the golden bullets.  The last type I tried was what I thought was the cheapest, Thunderbolts.  It was like shooting a new rifle.  It would make a ragged hole at 25 yards.  I was about to send it back to Remington.  Now I'm buying bricks of Thunderbolts.

bulkhead

[TaosGlock]

Federal Auto-Match is the only ammo so far that works flawlessly in my 10/22's. Most other brands are accurate enough for newbies to shoot Rifleman, but often prone to malfs, especially anything "Bulk". Something to consider in your LTR's.
The 795 eats everything and is more accurate to boot.

[Old Dog]

You really need to buy a couple boxes of every type of .22 ammo you can find and shoot it all.  Your rifle will tell you which one it likes the best (reliability and accuracy).

I'm not surprised about the Thunderbolts.  My old Ruger Mk1 bull barrel and my Win. M52B love Thunderbolts.  My old Ruger 10/22 likes the Rem. Golden Bullets with the Federal bulk stuff from WalMart right behind it.

Shop around and feed your rifle what it likes.

[eaglescouter]

Any opinions on the stuff from the CMP?

[henschman]

All I have shot with my 10/22 is Remington Golden Bullets (550 round bulk) and Federal bulk.  The Remington works fine -- I think I've only had one misfire out of about 1 1/2 boxes i've put through the gun.  I did notice that some of the shots would be quieter than others, but it didn't seem to affect accuracy at all.  It groups just fine, and I have no problem shooting rifleman scores with it on the 25m AQT. 

The Federal was terrible in the Ruger -- it would jam very frequently (with the empty case jamming sideways in the bolt).  Interestingly enough, the exact opposite happened with my friends, one of whom has a Marlin tube feeder and another that has a .22 AR-15 conversion -- the Federal worked flawlessly (even though it would give you 2 round bursts every now and then out of the AR), and would group nice, but the Remington misfired and jammed like crazy with both of them.  Go figure.  I guess with .22 the thing to do really is to find what kind of ammo yours likes (preferably by shooting your friends' ammo, hehe), and sticking to it. 

I recently bought a few 500 round boxes of CCI (I'm not sure what kind, whatever one they sell in bulk)... i paid a little more for it at $25/box, but I have yet to try it.  we'll see how it shoots in everybody's weapons at the Badlands Appleseed this weekend.  I mainly just bought it up because OK is getting hit by the ammo shortage bigtime (no wal mart around here has had bulk .22 for a long time)... i thought that CCI was the only bulk stuff i might see for a while (it was at a little out-of-the-way gun shop), but later that day I went to the Bass Pro Shop and they had plenty of bulk Remington gold bullets in stock.  So of course I bought a couple boxes of them too.   

[jagr31]

Any opinions on the stuff from the CMP?

per thier site delivery time in excess of 100 days

[Mogget]

I was out shopping for .22 for the April Appleseed and I saw a CCI brand labeled "CB LONG: Conical Ball."  It's 29 grain and 710 fps.  When I goggle "conical bullets" I get hits for muzzle loading rounds.  So I thought I'd ask here, as I am quite sure someone knows what, if any, advantage there is to conical bullets in .22 ammunition.

Mogs

[eaglescouter]

Magget, from the FPS it appears that you have found a very low power round.  My bb gun does 700 fps, and 1,000 fps is not uncommon in good pellet rifles.  The projectile is also 3/4 of the normal weight. 

But the only way to know for sure is to buy a small box and see how they perform in your rifle at the distance you shoot.

[BaldDragn]

I'm  pretty sure that would fail to eject in any of my 10-22s

[eaglescouter]

Excellent point BaldDragn, this low powered ammo is very likely to fail to cycle the action of a semi auto.

Might work in a bolt gun tho.

Or it could make your semi auto into a bolt gun by forcing you to manually cycle the action with each shot.

[ashrn03]

22 CB ammo goes back to the earliest days of the 22 rimfire round.  Originallly a blackpowder round, the current CB loadings may or may not even use gun powder for the propellent - the force of the primer can be sufficient to launch the bullet.  22 short, 22 long, and 22 long rifle ammo were progressive developments of the 22 CB round.  You'll be much happier with 22 long rifle for Appleseeding.

[TaosGlock]

SamD turned us on to Blazer 22.   I would of never considered Blazer as it doesn't show up here locally.
Seems that Blazer 22 works great in dirty guns that start to malf. There is more oomph in Blazer to keep that bolt going.
On day 2 when guns get hot and dirty, as in back to back AQT's, the last thing shooters or instructors want is a malfy rifle.
Seems nobody cleans their rifle when they go home, even though we tell em' ....we do clean our LTR's though.
At the last AS we gave a few students Blazer ammo. Works better in tighter chambers too.
Problem solved. Stuff works! We have since ordered a few cases.
I will let SamD chime in how he discovered this wonder ammo.

[SamD]

In Feb I needed to buy a couple of bricks. Nothing available locally. went to Las Cruces the next day and couldn't find any there either.
Checked with all of my suppliers that evening and the only one that had ANY 22 LR available for less that $235 a box was Zanders in Baldwin Ill. They had Blazer, I ordered a case. delivered 3 days later. I tested it. SD from mt 795 was 12 fps which is not too shoddy. Cycled well, kept 2 min groups without special effort so I bought 2 more cases.  Told TaosGlock and he got some along with a couple others.  It has proven accurate and reliable in everything I have tried and and like TaosGlock said it will cycle nasty rifles.   

A report on ammo availability, (5 minutes ago)
The only thing Zanders has in stock right now is CCI Select 100 packs at an outrageous price.

Sport South, the biggest jobber of firearms and ammo in the country has
Federal 22lr shot
   "      Gold Medal
Fiocchi Super Match
Rem CB Longs
Various Ely Match
RWS Match
RWS Subsonic Match
WW 22lr shot

Davidsons has ZIPPO

and that is it folks.
The shelves are bare.

No conspiracy either people.
When our current administration came on board people feared and hoarded.
Can't say why people have fear like that  , but they do. 
Basically 6-7 months of ammunition and reloading components fled the shelves in 2 months based on fear and greed.

Last time it happened, it was primers back in the 80's.
Then, the manufacturers bought up raw material and expanded plant and people to meet what they thought of as "demand".  When the heavy sales did not continue, many went bankrupt, several went out of business. Based on that experience, they are NOT going to expand production this time.  Expect a sluggish supply as goods come back on the market, are snapped up by those still in fear. As the market gets saturated supplies will go up but it will take time.   My jobbers do not expect to be able to meet demand until early fall.

Instructors,
You best emphasize dry fire and keep to quality shooting. High round counts for the sake of shooting should NEVER even come to mind.   Remind your students, every round  expended must have purpose. It should count like it was the last round in the world.     Ammo is too valuable to waste with sloppy shooting. Atticus pointed that out to us in Raton last year. It bears repeating. Every shot by the numbers, carefully and with a purpose. Get the most from your ammo budget. 

Sam

[Mogget]

CCI CB Report:  I opted to fire them in my pistol first.  Good idea.  They turned my semi-auto pistol in a single shot so I decided not to even try them in my 10/22.  Must say, though, they were really, really, quiet.  I thought I was firing a BB gun or something.  And when I could get them to fire, they made a nice group.

Mogs

[BaldDragn]

Must say, though, they were really, really, quiet. 

That was my first thought, at well under 1000 fps they are well below subsonic. It would be a good round of choice if noise was more of an issue than power.

[gunville]

I put some (20-30) CCI CB's through my 10/22 a while back - the action seemed to make more noise than the detonation (since then I've put in a buffer - may want to try it again.)

They didn't cycle of course.

Also I had feed problems - I couldn't find CB's in LR so I was running .22 longs - they didn't strip off correctly all the time.

No problem making 25 yards though (or 50 either.)

[henschman]

Remington makes a subsonic .22 LR... its a little louder than a CB cap, but it doesn't have the supersonic crack that makes most of the noise.  They're pretty cheap too... i just picked up 300 rounds of it at Bass Pro for $20.  Definite in-town squirrel hunting munitions!

Also, I went to an Appleseed last month with a few friends who all had different .22s, and here is our experience:  The Remington Golden Bullets worked well in 10/22s and Remington 597s... very few misfires... but it sucked in the AR conversion and the Marlin tube feed.  The Federal Bulk worked really well in the Marlin and worked OK in the AR conversion, and sucked in the 10/22. 

By far the best ammo we found was the Blazer.  It worked great in everybody's rifle, and grouped well.  Its hard to find around here, and its a little more than the other stuff (I think I paid $25 for a box of 525), but its good stuff if you can get it.  It has a nice slick black coating on the bullets too, unlike the solid lead federals and that gold dust crap that gets all over your fingers (and probably all up in your action) with golden bullets.  definitely some clean-shooting stuff.  I bet it doesn't clog the gas ports on AR conversions as bad as the other stuff.

[M. Judges.]

I have been shooting a lot of the Winchester Super X HV loading lately.  My 10/22 seems to like it a lot, and through the roughly 1500 rounds Ive sent through it, Ive had 2-3 that wouldnt go boom.  Im getting them for about $30 per 500.

[zercool]

Just finished another northeast high-round-count Appleseed (Throop NY), and the clear favorite was the Federal bulk 550 with the Winchester bulk 333 being a close second. Few malfunctions or duds with either. A few bricks of Thunderbolt showed the usual (in my experience) results - fouling, FTF, duds, FTEs. Another couple bricks of Remington Golden Bullet, which I'd not seen used before, had similar results as the Thunderbolts, with perhaps a few less FTFs due to the plating instead of bare lead.

Other forums I frequent have been showing some issues with Remington .22 lately, including a few out-of-battery fires and/or slamfires. Rumor - and I stress that this is only conjecture - is that a batch of bad brass went through with thinner-than-spec primer rims that are crushing and igniting when being stripped from mags.

Just a reminder to make sure everyone is using their eyes and ears...

[Old Dog]

Guess what?  Maybe it's not the ammo!!

This weekend (Stinson, WV Appleseed) we had a family on my end of the line with two modern semi-auto .22's and an old Remington model 41 (single shot bolt action antique).  The son was using the old Remington most of the day and switched over to his mom's newer rifle late in the afternoon.  He was in the midst of clearing a dud when I walked up to see if he needed help with the "new" rifle.  I looked at the dud after he dropped it on the mat and saw the mark on the rim.  A few minutes later he had another one.  They were all three shooting from a brick of Remington ammo.  I asked him if he'd been having trouble with that ammo all day and he told me "no", while using the old bolt action he had not had a single misfire.

Next time I run into a batch of "bad" .22 ammo I'm going to pull that brick aside and try it in one of my old bolt action .22's and see if the issue persists with the antique rifles, too, of it just happens with our "modern marvels".

Just for info, your mileage may vary.

[M. Judges.]

Has anyone here shot any of the Centurion HV ammo? My local gun shop had some, I bought 1,000 rounds for $40+ tax.  I did some looking around by searching it and about all I could come up with is that it is made in Mexico by Aguila.  I hope to test it next it next to my Winchester Super X HV this weekend.

[hawkeye]

A friend shot a couple of hundred rounds though my 10/22 Garand with no problems, it grouped well with no miss feeds or miss fires. The Centurion was a little less than $20.00 per brick. I had never seen this brand before, I'm going back for more.

[scuzzy]

Ammo. This has been a big issue with me at previous Appleseed shoots. Ain't nothing like getting good shots and then having some failures that keep you from getting a 210. I haven't shot 22's much in my life until recently. Just got my own 22 Ruger a few weeks ago. Used a lot of loaners at two previous Appleseeds and had nothing but problems while using the Federal I had bought with me.

After I got my Ruger I  got a few rounds of just about every type of 22 known to man from a friend and tried  them all. What did I see? Well, older Winchester (and I mean old) and Remington worked very good. Winchester was most accurate with very few flyers. Federal, well it depends on which batch it is. Some good, some very bad. I saw some ammo where I would have a good group and then a round about 2 to 3 inches off the others. I went to bench rest to eliminate wobble and the same thing would happen.

It appears that quality control is very lacking these days according to some old timers that have done a lot more 22 shooting than I have.

The Aguila shot very well for me. Winchester DynaPoint was the best, but I never see it around. I had dug up an old box about 8-10 years old. CCI is good stuff but who can afford it. CCI does make the Blazer brand which I got for $20 for 500. I used this last week. Only one malfunction out of 500 and the flyers were probably due to me.

What is worse is that there is a limited selection to choose from in my area. You basically get whatever the store has in stock. I guess it boils down to is get what you can and do the best you can.

[Earl]

What is around, isn't a lot right now. About a month ago I was really looking for just a brick to test a new rifle, and they just weren't lying around waiting for my money. In about four days I found three different types, haven't fired them enough to recommend anything, but do stock up with what works best for your rifle, or the next surge at the counters is going to leave you wishing you had taken up archery.