22 LR accuracy

T

TheDutchman19

New member
Ok, here's a loaded question. Assuming you are using good ammo, how accurate can a 22 LR be?

Using Lapua ammo in my bull barrel 10/22 I get 4" groups at 100 yds. The range officer told me that a lot of people are getting sub MOA from their 22 LR. Is this common?
 
Your rifle should be able to shoot better than 4" at 100 yards, and I assuming that you are shooting with a scope. If your shooting with open sights then it depends on how good your eyes are. If I getting 4" groups with open sights I would feel OK, (I'm old). How ever with a scope, 2" groups should be quite easy.
 
Prior to the early 1980's the best smallbore match ammo from England, Germany and the USA would shoot near 1/8 inch at 50 yards and about 1/2 inch at 100 yards. Most of the smallbore records at 100 yards are still held that were set back then or before. But an explosion in the Eley plant in Great Britain made them change their priming mixture chemicals. The other plants did, too.

Since then the most accurate rimfire ammo shoots about 2/10ths inch at 50 yards and about 3/4 inch at 100. Eley and RWS (German) are favorites but once in a while Lapua has a good lot on the market. These dimensions are what the biggest groups will be. Federal Cartridge Company made some very accurate ammo back around 1990, but quite after they would have had to pay 2 to 3 times as much for a batch of powder to make it.

The Russians also had equally accurate ammo but it was only used by the Soviet Bloc countries and they got their share of gold medals with it. After the Iron Curtain came down and in the early 1990's some Russian rimfire match ammo (Olimp and Temp) was imported to the USA for a few years and it was among the best and some thought the best ever. But the Russian Mafia took over the plant a few years later and changed production to AK47 ammo only.

I don't think there's any top-level rimfire match ammo made in the USA today.
 
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I get close to MOA out of my Savage markII at 50 yards. Haven't shot it to 100 yet. I have heard that the 10/22 takes some work to get that kind of group. Some may get it from the box, but most I have talked to have more $ into upgrades than the rifle cost to begin with. New barrel, trigger, stock.....should have just paid more to start with IMO. My 10/22 was barely able to shoot 2 MOA. It was fun but not what I was looking for so I sold it.
 
A good 22LR with a good barrel and good ammo will shoot sub-MOA. My best group is 3/8" 5-shot at 100 yds, but I have shot many, many 3/4" groups at 100 yds with my 22. Of course, factory barrels and cheap ammo do not add up to good accuracy.
 
Something not yet pointed out is that each .22LR gun has its own ammo preference, so the use any ol' match-grade ammo is no guarantee of match-grade performance. My CZ, for instance, loves Eley, likes regular ol' CCI SV and hates anything Lapua. Only your gun knows what's best.
 
I would also like to point out that 22 lr in standard velocity and subsonic loadings has a better reputation at 100 yards than high velocity 22lr ammunition. The transonic velocity range transition does squirrelly things to bullets passing through it, and so some competitors and coaches have noted that if you have a high velocity loading that does really well at 25 or 50, it will likely go to hell at 100 and leave you scratching your head.

Jimro
 
They shoot aspirin at 50 yards at matches here. The best can hit all ten! I shoot them at 25 and that's plenty tough.
 
every 22 I own shoots better than 4" at 100 yds . I have 1 scoped and 1 open sight 10/22 rifle. I get sub moa with the scoped rifle while I get 1 to 2" groups with the open sight one. the quality of yours eyesight my open up your groups more than the quality of your rifle.
 
I've been a rimfire benchrest shooter for about 20 years, but our range isn't .22LR friendly, so have never shot a .22LR bench rifle at 100 yards. The game we shoot is at 50 yards/meters (IR 50/50). The 10 bull is 1/4" and best I've done is to shoot 74 consecutive 10s and a 9, about 1/16" out of the bull on the last shot.

That performance doesn't directly correlate to groups, since each shot is on a different bull and doesn't count sighters, but shows a rifle/ammo combination that was a winner on that particular day.
 
I have 2 ruger 10/22's and a SW Mp15-22. All will hold 1 inch at 50 yards with very little effort on my part. I have taken a shot at 100 yards with them,but with a 22 I don't expect to much.
 
I have a Remington Nylon 66 that will shoot under half inch at 50 yards using SK/Lapua ammo. It is my most accurate semi auto .22 rifle. My sister has one identical and it isn't near the shooter mine is.
 
I have a Remington 541 custom sporter and with CCI standard velocity ammo it shoots 1/2" @ 100 yds with a scope. I don't shoot as well as some guys with older eyes and wear bifocals.
 
I have 2 CZ 455s that shoot moa at 100 yards with Wolf Match Target. One of them had to be bedded to make it happen. The bedded one will also do it with Federal Auto Match.

Over the years, I have found that rimfires are much more ammo sensitve than centerfires.
 
I could believe that your 10/22 shoots like that if it has a really rough trigger.
Years ago I bought my wife a 10/22 carbine for $ 189 to let her go plinking with me. Out of the box it wouldn't shoot 2 inch groups at 50 yards.
I changed the trigger to a Volquartsen and it shot under 0.6 inches at 50 yards with no other changes.
Yes, the factory trigger was that bad even back in the day.

After my wife complained that my bull barrel Ruger was different than her skinny barrel, I equipped her rifle to a Butler Creek Combo bull barrel and stock (a $146 bargain). It now shoots under 0.5 inches at 50 yards with its favorite 5 ammos.
It shoots just over an inch at 100 yards with an occasional group under 1 inch with the right ammo on a calm day.

In comparison:
I had a Ruger with a Volquartsen trigger and a Butler Creek Match barrel that averaged 0.988 at 100 yards across 3 different ammos and was able to average 0.912 with Wolf Match Target ammo but that was a particularly good lot of MT. It didn't like Eley Match but shot under 1 MOA with Lapua Center-X. Its best group at 100 yards was 0.497. That 10/22 is now my grandson's.

My Kidd 10/22 with a Kidd 20 inch match barrel averages 0.880 at 100 yards for 295 groups across 8 different ammos, 4 of which average under 0.8. Its best average is with Lapua X-Act at 0.712 but that ammo is too expensive to shoot very much. Lapua Center-X averages 0.843. Its best group at 100 yards was 0.305.

My best .22LR at 100 yards is my Cooper 57M that averages 0.836 with a best ammo average of 0.658 with Lapua X-Act and 0.706 with Eley Match, but that is a bolt rifle. Its best group at 100 yards was 0.285. That was the only group under 0.3 inches that I ever shot at 100 yards with a .22LR.
 
I have been shooting Lapua Center X for a while that makes groups about the size of a quarter at 50 yards without a lot of effort. I am shooting a CZ 452 Trainer with a Nikon P22 2-7 scope.

A fellow out at the range was getting out of .22 and I bought most of the ammo he had. Believe it or not, he had some bulk boxes of Federal Match grade ammo. The stuff in the brown boxes.


That ammo shoots every bit as good as the Lapua. I am not sure it is still available. These bulk boxes had been on the shelf a while.

Both those cartridges shoot better than CCI in my rifle.
 
rebs, is 1/2 inch at 100 the smallest groups your 541 does with CCI ammo, an average group size, or the largest ones?
 
My best bench rest group was at 50yds with a M39 Marlin 24" bbl with a williams receiver sight sporting a very small apeture. 5 shots inside 1/2'' with winchester 36gr hp.
 
Awhile ago I set up a steel plate at 125 yards. The plate was the size of a standard business card...2" by 3.5"... I used that size because anything much smaller is hard to anchor, suspended via a thin cable. I used bulk ammo---Federal 750, Remington G-Bullet, & Winchester 333. I shot stock 10-22, a Marlin 60, & a Marlin Bolt action Target 980V. I used large scopes on each rifle and shot into a sand hill berm, so that I could see the strikes. I anticipated that the Federal 750's would offer the best accuracy....I was mistaken. The G-bullets were by far, better. With the 980V I hit the plate 90% of the time...with the Marlin 60 and the 10-22...about 50%. Surprisingly the G-bullets shot the most accurately out of all three guns. The Marlin 60 shot with excellent accurarcy...but I was surprised that the 10-22 with its std stock barrel did very well too! After that episode I walked away with a lot more respect for my 10-22.

With the semi-auto rifles, the Federals jammed them up the most (FTE)... Also tried some Remington Thunderbolts...but not for long---their accuracy was the worst by far.
 
My Kimber Classic 22 bolt gun from Yonkers, New York, came with a factory 5 shot group card: of .238 at 50 yards.

The wind can have a significant group size effect on 22's at 100 yards.
 
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