Disappointed with CCI Standard Velocity

First topic message reminder :

What that the chances of one squib and two misfires in timed fire with CCI SV?

One hundred percent![img]

I purchased a case of this ammunition in 2018/2019 when prices appeared to hit a bottom. Maybe it is panic era (2016) ammunition, no date codes that I can see.
 
I fired my first string TF no problems, all rounds fired and ejected normally. Then, first round, second stage, a stove pipe. The round failed to eject, probably a low powered round, and was jammed between the top strap and the next round to feed. This is where that top strap  becomes a source of un reliability and it is not needed in pistols with optical sights. You cannot clear the malfunction without dropping the magazine, and I had to use my needle nosed leather to pull the rounds out. This is not something that you can clear by racking and tapping.  As you can imagine, I dropped a minimum of twenty points due to un reliable ammunition. Actually it was more, I pointed round five downrange and pulled the trigger, because I assumed my pistol had a broken firing pin and I was down for the match. That round went bang, but it only hit the berm. 

 
Rounds three and four of the alibi string are pictured, they failed to fire, I extracted the things and kept on going, but having a misfire, and two failures to ignite made me think that I had firing pin problems. Not so, was able to finish the rest of the 22LR match without a malfunction.
 
I took these rounds to the next match and tried to fire them in my Ruger MKII. That pistol has a more robust firing mechanism than the M41, and even though repeatedly chambering and ejecting the rounds, they did not ignite. You can see the indents. Between two pistols, these rounds should have fired.

 
I have not sectioned the cases, but I suspect, there is no primer cake in the rims. Given the multiple strikes, if there was primer cake in the rim, I should have experienced ignition at some point. This is horrible quality control.
 
This seems to be a common problem with these inexpensive rounds, a number of competitor's I have talked to have many cartridge malfunctions with CCI SV.



You get what you pay for.

The military has a specification for 22LR.  MIL-C-70600

http://everyspec.com/MIL-SPECS/MIL-SPECS-MIL-C/MIL-C-70600_56577/

In that they have qualification and lot acceptance criteria.  I cannot fathom a reason for an ammunition manufacturer NOT to follow this for every lot made.

zanemoseley wrote:We're talking about bulk ammo here guys. My guess is you could test 10 lots each of paper and plastic box and would get a variety of results. Has anyone emailed CCI to see what they say?

I thought that "bulk" meant those cartons full of loose rounds.

Boxed ammo is *supposed* to be different and higher quality and higher accuracy. But I have learned to DESPISE "supposed to" and "should" over the years.

Buying boxed ammo in carton or case "bulk" quantities merely gives us a larger lot to deal with that is from the same production lot.

Your "guess" about different production lots is correct within its vagueness of what "a variety of results" means. Our real-world experiences here are that the "variety of results" of lots within a specific brand and product line track the same level of quality from year to year. Those differences test out to a level of predictability which drives us to buy the same product line again. This thread is about reliability and accuracy falling outside the prior level of performance. Not unheard of for one occasional lot of brand/line XYZ. Disappointing and unacceptable when it becomes a very large proportion of production lots over time--like the reports on orange stripe CCI SV.

I don't have any of that orange stripe stuff but hesitate to take a chance on CCI SV for a while. My ammo budget generally allows buying only a carton or two at a time, so I want to make it count.

There is no secret about lot to lot variance in 22 ammo. If one is not aware check out the accuracy testing service offered by Eley and Lapua. 
https://www.killoughshootingsports.com/content/6-eley-range

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxqXqV67__4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jOWQSetTU4&t=42s

If you’ve ever seen a video of or have ever been inside a cartridge plant you’ll understand what ‘bulk” means.  The average “lot” size is about a days production.  For CCI,that is probably close to 1 million rounds.  A typical bullseye shooter maybe shoots 10000 per year.  

So when a batch becomes problematic, about all they can do is replace it.

[quote="Wobbley states:-"]The average “lot” size is about a days production.  For CCI, that is probably close to 1 million rounds. [/quote]

An illuminating comment, for sure. Not sure whether that means several calibers on numerous production lines within the one huge plant, but that would make sense. This is a WAG, but let us say there is the capacity in USA to produce 1 million rounds of 22LR per day in the USA, plus probably at least the same overseas (Mexico, Eastern Europe, Asia), a lot of which is usually exported to USA.

So, my WAG is that there could be 2 million rounds of 22LR available in the USA each day if everyone is in full production. So, allowing for COVID impact on staffing, distancing, etc., let us say 200 production days this year, total 400 million rounds.

What is typical consumption? Another WAG - 50 million gun owners in USA? But most of them surely are not regular shooters and not all own/shoot 22LR. Say half of them shoot 100 rounds of 22LR per year average. And have bought or would like to buy a brick, 500 rounds, since the start of COVID. 

That is a demand of 12,500 MILLION rounds. WOW! No wonder there is a shortage!!!

All of this is just my WAG - but the numbers become mind boggling very quickly!

The capacity worldwide for 22 rim fire is 2.5 Billion rounds per year.   

Now if 80% is us consumption and CCI has 40% of that market...

In my experience CCI SV 0032  100pack plastic box ammo is consistently superior to CCI SV 0035 50pack paper box ammo at 50 yds.

I have not found CCI Green Tag any better than 0032 SV.
CCI Pistol Match is slightly superior to 0032 at 50 yds.

CCI SV 50 pack 0035, CCI SV 100pack 0032, CMP ELY 500Pack Bulk and SK Standard Plus are some of the best value, quality ammo I have found. I am sure there are others.