.22 Thunderbolt Remington

My 10/22 eats nothing but economy bulk packs from Walmart, including the Thunderbolt, and it RARELY is an issue. Lots of plinking fun for very little cahs. Yesterday, I fired 200 rounds of Thunderbolt and had one dud. I can live with that.
 
My favorite plinking ammo for several years was Winchester Dynapoint, but the cost has nearly doubled in the past three years, so I don't buy it anymore. Federal Bulk Pak has been poor, but the Champion Semi-auto is pretty darned good and we've used it at the indoor range with good success.

Wildcats are dirty, but fairly accurate in my rifles.

Match chambers don't seem to shoot bulk and high-speed ammo as well as the looser chambers. I don't know why.

Fiocchi Biathlon is fantastic in most of my rifles, especially my Rem 504, but it's a bit pricy for plinking. The 504 has gotten 3/10" groups with it at 50 yards. It's also death on squirrels.

Picher
 
I wouldnt bother with any ammunition made by remington... dont like the stuff... i roll my own rifle ammunition, my shotgun ammunition comes from federal as a rule and i only shoot CCI Mini-mags in my .22s
 
We're sure seeing a wide variation on the reports of Remington quality. I used to shoot it years ago and didn't have a problem with it. Now in the same gun it's the worst ammo I've ever fired by a long shot. I couldn't believe how bad it was. Every round had a different charge. I had at least one dud out of every 10 rounds and it often failed to eject because it wasn't powerful enough to cycle my Marlin Model 60. And wow was it dirty. I couldn't believe Remington would sell such rotten ammo but they did.

Again I've shot it in the past (I'm talking more than a decade ago) and didn't have any problems. I think Remington must be producing the stuff in different factories or something. That might explain why some people have no problems and actually like it and others can't stand it. It'd be interesting to compare where people are that have good luck or bad luck. It could be that some areas are serviced by certain factories and others by other factories. It could be a matter of where the ammo is bought too. Maybe Wally World stuff is better or worse though I don't remember ever seeing it in Wally World.

I've been shooting either the Federal Bulk stuff or Minimags for a long time. But lately I can't even find the Federal locally. None of the local Walmarts even have it. That's why I ended up trying the Remington. I won't try it again. I like the accuracy of the Winchester Dynapoints I've been shooting but they have some inconsistent loads too. It's not nearly as bad as the Remington but sometimes they have failed to cycle.

I've never had problems with my 60 in the past unless it just got so dirty it wouldn't cycle. I had to do an extreme job of cleaning after the Thunderbolts I bought but I thought I got it clean. Maybe it isn't as clean as I thought and that's causing the Winchester not to cycle. I need to buy another brick of good ammo or at least get 100 Minimags to make sure my gun hasn't been affected.
 
Just as an update I cleaned the Model 60 again today after shooting nothing but the Winchester Dynapoints. It was horribly dirty for not having shot more than 2/3 of a brick. I haven't been shooting my .22's as much lately. I've been shooting my Savage and my SKS and my pistols. I guess I just didn't notice how bad it was getting. I tried shooting it this afternoon and it had 3 misfeeds out of 28 rounds so I thought I would clean it to see if that was the problem. I didn't get it cleaned well before dark because it was terribly dirty. I guess I won't get to see if it cycles better until tomorrow.

I don't know what the deal is with .22 ammo. This is the 2nd brick in a row that's been ridiculously dirty. I thought the Winchester shot really well and I liked it until I started having problems. I had cleaned the 60 really well after finishing off the brick of Thunderbolts so I know it was the Dynapoints that fouled things up so bad. The barrel was horrible from copper but the powder must be just awful.

I might have to start ordering Federal stuff online even if it costs an extra $10 a brick to pay net prices and get it shipped. I can never find it cheap online and that's before the shipping charge. I might go ahead and get CCI's if I'm going to be spending that much money for a brick anyway.

This is getting ridiculous.
 
I'm with you.

I gave up and just started buying CCI ammo. It takes away all the headaches of misfires and having to use 4 cleaning rods to get the lead out of the barrel.
 
What's suppose to be the difference between the Thunderbolt and the Golden by Rem? Also, when referring to dirty, are you talking about lead fouling in the barrel or powder blow back in the action?
 
You will pretty much always get lead fouling in the barrel if you don't use jacketed shells. Some shells are worse than others I suppose but not like the difference in powder. There are many different types of powder that can be used and some of it has a lot of residue. I always clean the barrel after I shoot because you can get copper in the barrel the same as lead. But in a .22 I sometimes don't clean the blowback area because the powder can sometimes be clean enough that it isn't necessary. Other times you really need to clean the powder residue after every 10 shots. That's about what I think of Remington stuff. This Winchester stuff I'm shooting now isn't a whole lot better. It has some variation in the loads too.

Maybe all ammo quality has dropped recently. I know I've never seen Winchester ammo be as dirty as these Dynapoints except for the infamous Winclean ammo they sold for handguns a few years ago. If you shot two rounds of that stuff you had to clean everything inside your gun from the barrel to the inside of the mags. That's the worst stuff I've ever seen. And they had the nerve to call it Win"clean". What a joke! I suppose the idea was that it didn't have any lead or heavy metals in the primers but the stuff was incredibly hard on a gun because whatever it was they were using fouled a gun faster than anything I've ever seen.
 
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Thunderbolts Rock

Here it is four years later and I must say "THUNDERBOLTS" Rocks:}

My Remington Model 552 Speedmaster eats Thunderbolts like tick-tacks

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Wow, a zombie thread. :D

My daughter and I shot about 200 rounds of Thunderbolt in a Ruger Mk I yesterday. We had no problems and she tore the bullseye out of the target with them.
 
My Remington 552 speed aster eats the thunder bolts well to. My mini revolver also shoots them accurately to. They hold up to the mags on accuracy. I had not one misfire out of a box of 50 during the session. I bought the value pack. I guess luck of the draw or the weapon.
 
On my "gawd-knows-how-manyth" brick/milk carton of them still the best functioning round in my 10-22 & the most accurate as well.

I honestly forget when I bought this 10-22, but it was a while back. I remember being PO'd because the MSRP went up to $89 from $95 the Friday & I bought it on the Sat.
 
I have a little more than a brick of it and only use it in my single shot bolt action rifle and my H&R 922 revolver. Those two guns will eat anything make them go bang when other guns won't and the accuracy is good enough out to 50 yards to be usable for plinking or small game.
 
I shot some the "new and improved" Remington Golden bullet yesterday, out of my 10/22.....it was 100%. No duds and decent accuracy, I think its far improved over the old stuff. It comes in boxes of 225 for 10 bucks at Wally world.
 
I've shot thunder bolts several semi auto and bolt rifles, semi pistol and revolver with out a hiccup. Grew up shooting Rem thunderbolts:confused:....still do. My 22/45 eats them, my buckmark LOVES them and my western field bolt gun shoots out the X on slow fire targets at 50 yards with them. I also really like CCI though. The ONLY .22 I will NEVER buy or shoot again is the 550round bulk pack Federal...worthless crap:mad:
 
4 years have seen a lot of change in the .22 LR market....

I won't touch Thunderbolts with a 10 foot pole, now.

Remington cut too many corners, and lowered their quality standards too far. Bulk pack, or not... Golden Bullets, Thunderbolts, Cyclones, etc. are all crap now. (And Federal isn't much better.)

The only Remington .22 LR I currently shoot, are some tins of Golden Bullets from 1977. They are consistent, reliable, and accurate. ...a world away from what Remington is currently churning out.
 
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