22 ammo, what do you use

First topic message reminder :

What do you use, and do you just load it or do you weigh, sort or check rim thickness to get the best accuracy?
Im in the testing stage, trying cci sv, cci pistol match, wolf match, sk jaged and some eley club and lapua pistol match.

I shot a 834 with Aguila Golden Eagle. I also used this for a season cause I just started and havn't had one alibi yet knock on wood.

I read somewhere that sorting rim thickness is a waste of time unless your shooting rifle.

Don Tunstall wrote:I read somewhere that sorting rim thickness is a waste of time unless your shooting rifle.

Ive found if you sort into close thickness it reduces flyers, on cheap ammo.

DavidR,
I rim tested a lot of bulk packaged Winchester Dynapoints about ten years ago on a Ransom rest. It was a good lot of Dynapoints that held 1 1/2" @ 50 yards from my Ruger MKII 5 1/2" and Hi Standard with LSP bbl.

I rim gauged a carton of them. Then shot 30 shot groups of the same rim # out of the same magazine as well as a blind standard group where the rounds were picked out of every group and loaded so no 2 rounds of the same thickness were next to each other.

Suffice it to say, it was a tedious way to spend an evening rim gauging because the groups didn't change. They remained 1 1/2" (+- 1/16").

I can't speak for any change in rifle performance from personal experience, however the guy I borrowed the rim gauge from loved it for sorting out his 22 rifle silhouette ammo. I also can't speak for how it may work for other brands, now I test the lot of whatever I'm using and if it shoots 1 1/2" or less and is dependable I'll shoot it. At Expert level I'm not shooting up to the gun/ammo potential as it is. Any 6's, 7's, 8's, or 9's aren't the fault of the combination, they can be directly attributed to the loose nut on the trigger.

fwiw

PS: you mentioned something I had thought of too. that is the elimination of the extra thick or thin rims that might lead to either fliers or a dud. I was always going to gauge my dud's to see if they were extra thin, but of course that will wait for another time.

Ive only rim tested cci paperbox and got good results, some of the rounds were nearly .3 grains lighter than the others, these would surely have been fliers IMO. This is just one more thing to try to improve groups, maybe it helps you maybe not, maybe its just a mental thing, knowing your ammo is consistent maybe makes you more confidant in shooting it.???

CCI SV and SK Standard Pistol

I have been using the paper blue box CCI SV. But today from a new brick I had two rounds in one box that were light and did not cycle. Over all the box was still as accurate as previous blue box. I switched to my stash of UM1. Dang Federal for quitting making the good stuff.

Have 2 M41's one with a Clark and one with a Buly and both function best with CCI SV.

Jack H wrote:I have been using the paper blue box CCI SV. But today from a new brick I had two rounds in one box that were light and did not cycle. Over all the box was still as accurate as previous blue box. I switched to my stash of UM1. Dang Federal for quitting making the good stuff.

Federal still makes good 22 ammo, 711b and one type of upper grade

I have just bench tested my new case of CCI plastic box and it groups noticeably better than the paper at 50 ft indoors.

However....I discovered that the plastic thingy inside is now in two halves as opposed to the one piece/100 rounds of the old stuff. Annoying because not dealing with the 50 round plastic thingy that tends to fall out after the first 30 rounds is one of the reasons why I decided to spend extra on the plastic. Eh.

I have only opened one box so far but there seems to be less wax on it. The paper stuff seems to have a lump of wax on the side of the bullet on the outside row, you tip it upside down and 8 to 10 rounds don't fall out of the plastic because of the little lump on the side of the bullet.

DavidR wrote:

Jack H wrote:I have been using the paper blue box CCI SV. But today from a new brick I had two rounds in one box that were light and did not cycle. Over all the box was still as accurate as previous blue box. I switched to my stash of UM1. Dang Federal for quitting making the good stuff.

Federal still makes good 22 ammo, 711b and one type of upper grade

I have always found that dollar/accuracy was better with the CCI std than federal, ie comparably priced lost of cci shot better than the same price point in the Federal line.

Currently with the ammo runs from all the stores, I'm just happy to see a box for sale anywhere at this point. Its getting difficult for a new shooter to build up a cache of ammo when the prices are through the roof. I've got plenty of primers and powder and lead for Centerfire and the 45 portion of the matches but finding quality 22LR has been very difficult this spring.

I shoot a Pardini and it is picky as far as ammo that fits in the magazine and does not get stuck. I try and stick to SK or Wolf. My long time favorite Fed 711b does not seem to be consistently manufactured with the same OAL since I had problems with the last lot I purchased. I only shoot 10x or some ammo that has tested good in my pistol at 50 yds.

How much time to spend sorting your ammo should be related to what and how you shoot. If you are only shooting 50' you can just about all ammo will perform good but you want to make sure what you buy is going to function 100% all of the time. I understand people have a budget and if they are ok having more alibi's then that is great. But you have to set your expectations correctly. I want to be 100% sure my guns functions all the time. I stay away from ammo that has more duds and does not feed correctly. If you cannot trust your gear you will not be able to focus on shooting 10's.

As your ability improves from MK to HM your expectations on quality of ammo should improve. A MK will not see the benefit of using top of the line ammo as a HM may.

Bottom line fine ammo that works 100% and test ammo that shoots groups sizes at 50 yds in line with your ability and expectations. Something does have to be said that if you are shooting ammo that gets you 1-1/2" groups as 50 yds regardless of your ability you will know anytime you have a bad shot it will more than likely be you and not your gear.

I had terrible experiences with 2 different lots of CCI std vel at the last 2 league matches. I have bought and shot cases of this stuff in the paper boxes over the past 3 years and never had an issue with the dark blue box stuff. The silver box stuff is junk, IMHO. Last week it was like I had a single shot Pardini which makes rapid fire a real challenge. It destroyed my scores(could not even get off all 60 shots). I have been grabbing every brick I could find for the last 2 months and have a bunch of different lots. Last night I took 1 box from each of 7 different lots and did some testing. 3 of the seven lots are usable for slow fire practice at best! The other 4 lots functioned perfectly. I used 6 different magazines with 5 rounds in each. The bad lots have up to 4 in 10 malfunctions. I found oversized rounds and light loads.
Other shooters at our club have had similar issues. One guy took some ammo to a smith who found that 40% of the rounds were oversized.

While at the range tonight another guy who shoots on the same team was complaining about flyers and malfunctions with his CCI SV. I checked the lot and showed him my list of good and bad lots that I have identified. Sure enough his lot was one of the ones I had labeled as essentially unusable.
He decided to bench rest the gun at 50' and compare the bad CCI to a box of sk standard plus he had. What an eye opener! The CCI looked like it was shot 1 handed while the SK just ate a ragged hole in the center. Seriously, a 3" 20 shot pattern versus a 3/4" 20 shot group .

Please post on here, or a new thread your list of good and bad cci sv lot numbers. It may be useful to other shooters.

thanks

Many swear by CCI SV, but ive found it to be less accurate than most other brands of sv, now that its in short supply, might be time to borrow from friends and do some testing to see what might shoot better.