22lr Remington Thunderbolt

Promo stands for> promotional ammo. Which is cheaply made ammo usually sold in large bulk quantity having a 20-30% discounted price below retail. I've enclosed a previously commented TFLF thread discussing promo shot-shells ammo for your reading on what some other member disclosed about its~~ manufacturing. Not 22 ammo but I'm sure small bore promo ammo does have its short comings in its manufacturing also.

http://thefiringline.com/forums/archive/index.php?t-129584.html
 
I just sent in my Ruger 22/45 for repair. After shooting about 80 rounds of the stuff, the barrel became clogged and the crown of the barrel damaged. The bullets were tumbling out of the barrel and hitting the target making elongated, torn holes rather than round.
I'm leaving a box of 500 at my local range for whoever wants them, I sure don't.
 
I don't know either. The crown is jagged coming from the inside to the outside. I have sent the gun in to Ruger for inspection/repair. I'll be interested in what they say.
 
There are numerous reviews indicating how bad this ammo is. I found a you tube, showing exactly what happened to me.

search you tube: Ruger MKIII 22/45 with BAD Remington Thunderbolt .22lr ammo.
 
I just polished off nearly 2000 round of RTB and I'm glad to see it gone. It's easily the worst ammo that goes through my 22's. It's inconsistent in terms of accuracy and reliability but it's still .22 ammo and I'll continue to buy. I buy pretty any .22 ammo I see, even the CCI quite stuff that does not cycle in any of my rifles or pistols.
 
I (and my daughter) just went through 100 rounds of Thunderbolts yesterday, 8 rounds at a time without any problems.
 
my $0.02

I clean my guns after shooting so even if they are dirty cartridges, it doesn't bother me that much. As for accuracy, that sounds like a good excuse for my lousy shooting, lol.

I've had decent experience with Thunderbolts in my GSG 1911 .22 and bought a crate of 10,000 rounds last year. I've only gone through about 500 of them, but no real issues. Conversely, I've had terrible experience with Winchester in the GSG as well as a couple of the range target pistols so won't buy Winny's any more.
 
Wow, some of these comments are pretty surprising. Sure it's unreliable and dirty (what .22 ammo isn't) but crown damage and giving away bricks of the stuff?
 
Shot some today

I'm lucky that I have a lot of 22 LR. Several different brands. But I've been following this thread lately so I decided to try the thunder duds today. 85 rounds through a dirty MP 15/22 and other than one nosediving into the feed ramp it was flawless. My target looked like I was patterning buckshot but heck I ain't the best shot so we will chalk that up to the user. By all means you who are disgusted by this ammo please leave it on the shelves for the less picky among us to shoot. Good day.
 
With 22LR ammo that has a history of a high failure rate, I tend to only shoot them in manually operating guns (non-semi auto) so I can easily eject the bad one and move on. Used to try to fire them again for a different primer strike location, but I don't bother much with that anymore.

I do have duds, but I am not that concerned about them in manual action rifles and revolvers. This is with older ammo that has a history of duds.
 
I'm rather surprised by a lot of the comments. I went through 100 rounds over the weekend and had zero issues. They all went bang and they all hit what I was aiming at. Don't know if it matters or not but both boxes were from the 1990s. Maybe they just made then better back then?
 
They all went bang and they all hit what I was aiming at. Don't know if it matters or not but both boxes were from the 1990s. Maybe they just made then better back then?
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I've also had OK luck with boxes of old Thunderbolts. They do seem to be significantly better than the Thunderduds being produced today.
 
I bought 1000 rounds of it. And no I'm not a horder but my box of the white box winchester ammo was almost empty which by the way really sucks I got about a 65% success rate of those winchester actually going off I hope I have better luck with the thunderbolts. I bought them because it was the first time I saw 550 round packs of ammo for under 25 since I bought that box of winchesters. Tell you how long ago I bought those winchesters was back when you could go to Walmart and find ammo and it was only 12 bucks.
 
It seems Im the only person on Earth that does not have failure to fire from .22 ammo . I have shot countless thousands over the last 40 plus years and seldom do I remember having one not to fire . There was some Federals that came out in the late 1970's and were cheaper than most other brands that would come apart and have a dude from time to time . Some Winchesters around the same time that were similar and would foul some firearms till they wouldnt work . Other than that I do not get failure to fire from any .22 ammo . I would add that most of the .22 I have shot in the past 30 years have been Remington Gold Bullet and CCI Mini Mag .
 
Not my favorite ammo, but as long as it is available, I shoot a fair bit of it with very small failure rate (one or two rounds per one hundred). And 75% of those mis-fires will go off if given a second chance.
 
I'm rather surprised by a lot of the comments. I went through 100 rounds over the weekend and had zero issues. They all went bang and they all hit what I was aiming at. Don't know if it matters or not but both boxes were from the 1990s. Maybe they just made then better back then?
Click to expand...

FTFs in .22 rim fire ammo was actually extremely rare back in the 1960's and 1970's, almost unheard of as a matter of fact. But, there was no such thing as cheap ammo back then.
Yes, in 1968, a box of .22 LR retailed for about 79 cents, but 79 cents in 1968 money = $5.30 cents in 2014 money. If you are willing to spend that amount on .22 ammo, you can still buy accurate .22 ammo that goes bang every time.
 
B.L.E. wrote: Yes, in 1968, a box of .22 LR retailed for about 79 cents, but 79 cents in 1968 money = $5.30 cents in 2014 money.
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Funny thing is CDNN is selling bricks of Thunderbolt for $49.88 and Golden for $54.88 a brick. Pretty much right in line with your stated price point. That said, please explain then why the quality of Remington has been so poor for the last decade?
 
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