Best .22LR Ammunition?

mini mags, velositors, stingers, green tag, all good cci ammo. other than federal 510, cci ammo is just about all i use. I have tried just about all ammo out there. I refuse to shoot remington. Winchester has a new hyper-velosity ammo but havent tried it yet. Hoping to soon. The federal 510 bulk packs is very good ammo also.
 
10-96 really hit it. In 22s different guns shoot differently. The same rounds shoot differently in different guns. I'm no expert, but I do know you need to spend some money on a number of different ammos and a couple of days to find out what works best for you. Sure, its a lot of time, effort and money but when you're done its worth it. Then just stock up on what works and you're GTG. If you're lucky a number of rounds will be accurate and some will even be cheap.
 
I tried many types of ammo before I started shooting smallbore silhouette. Wolf match and the Remington Target shot the best for me and the friend I shoot with. It worked very well in the Walther, Kimber and Savage.
 
My Savage likes CCI. It does great things with Stingers, but it also does good things with Mini Mags and Standard Velocity as well. Based on the results, especially from the Stingers, I haven't seen the need to try other brands of ammunition as I seem to have found what works best for me.
 
CCI ammo will work well with most .22s from my experience. My Savage MKII with cheap 4x scope loves federal bulk ammo, last range outing I was consistently hitting empty shotgun shells at 100 yards. Gotta love it when your rifle loves the cheap stuff!:D
 
I have found CCI Velocitors to be accurate and exceptionally deadly out of my Marlin 60. For the otherwise LOTS of range time between me (and my daughter now) I have had good results with American Eagle bulk packs (which are only a lousy 400 rounds). I have had poor results with Remington "Golden Bullets" which have a brass powder coating or something. They sucked though and I won't buy Remington .22 ammo anymore. I just picked up a 525 round box of Federal Champion...we'll see how that does.
 
My experience with Fed Champs is not bad at all. They do pretty well in a good variety of guns. Not true for my Dad in his Marlin. Can't say why they don't feed or cycle while other brands do. I think I'll buy him a new 22. Something must be dented or worn or whatever in his old Marlin semi-auto.
 
CCI Standard Velocity works well for me,,,

I am fortunate in that all five of my .22 semi-auto pistols,,,
Function very well with WalMart Federal Bulk Pack.

But my semi-auto rifles like CCI Standard Velocity a lot better,,,
It's the only ammo that always works well for me,,,
It's just hard to find in my neck of the woods.

It's easier to tell you what all of my .22's will not run with,,,
They do not like the Remington bulk pack ammo at all,,,
In fact none of the Remington ammo works for me.

My single-shot rifles and revolvers do well with anything I feed them,,,
So all that Remington I bought back in the ammo shortage,,,
Gets fed through my wheel guns and single shot rifles.

Aarond
 
Federal spent a vast amount of money on redesigning their match .22 ammo a while back (early 90's IIRC). While I don't buy their match ammo, I'd like to think that they might have utilized some of their findings for their line of standard .22 ammo. [shrug]
 
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Five shots nearly in the same hole at 50 yards from a bench. Unfortunately, nobody seems to have it anymore in my area.

CCI standard velocity is also good stuff. I may have to give Federal match ammo a try but the local stores don't seem to stock it either.
 
Not the same for all guns.

My primary criteria for .22 long rifle ammunition has always been accuracy, not velocity or "killing power.
If that be yours too, then you are going to have to do what we old fools have been doing for years whenever we acquired a new .22. We buy a single box (of 50) of each brand that is available. We would buy standard velocity, which was cheaper then, and usually more accurate than high velocity rounds...this is no longer the case now; they have see that they can get more money if they call it: target ammunition. We would shoot a group or two bench rest style (front and rear rest, off a bench), to determine which ammo the gun shot best...There would always be one brand, if you looked hard enough, that would perform very much better than all others.

Note: If one does not shoot off front and rear bags, from a bench, then "accurate" means nothing.
 
Last year I met Charles Kemp, the 2010 Small Bore Prone National Champ and record holder for that event, and I had to ask him the rookie question “what’s the best ammunition?”. I really should have known better to ask such a stupid question but I received a very definitive “there is no such thing, all ammunition has to be tested in your rifle”

Charles won with one particular lot of Red Box Tennex, he claims he gets consistent 10 shot groups of 0.38” at 100 yards (has to be off a bench) with the stuff.

I am not nearly such a hard holder or excellent wind reader (mind the gusts at Perry!) and I am doing well with Wolf Target match at 50 yards and SK Rifle Match/Wolf Extra match at 100 yards. I am proud to say I shot my first 400 clean at 100 yards this weekend with Wolf Extra Match.

A price of $45.00 and $65.00 a brick of 500 will probably put most shooters off, but it is a lot less compared to $125.00 a brick for Red Box and Midas.
The “serious” shooters around me are using Red Box, Black Box Tennex, and Lapua Midas.
Note: If one does not shoot off front and rear bags, from a bench, then "accurate" means nothing.
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I do not know if I would enjoy Small Bore Benchrest. I understand some shooters never touch their rifle, they just press a bulb which discharges the rifle when wind conditions are right. It is an exacting game, they are shooting inside of me by a large margin, and yet, I don’t care for it.

The human element is the largest error factor once you get off the bench and it is rewarding when after years of working at it, you see improved results.
National Champ Charles Kemp and his highly modified Win 52D
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I hate to burst your bubble, but no matter what ammo you use in a "factory" Marlin 60, it won't shoot 1" at 100 yards, unless it's a 1 in a million rifle. You're wasting your money if you don't have a match barrel and chamber, bedding job, trigger job, and a probably a 20X or higher scope. Worse than that, you're wasting precious ammo that others need for high-level match shooting and helping to raise the cost of it for all of us.

So much for the negativity. Now for the recommendations:

1. Shoot CCI Standard Velocity, Wolf Match Extra, Eley Target, and Fiocchi Target. If you can group under 1/2" at 50 yards with any of them, try that brand at 100 yards. If you can't, and are really serious about this, consider doing work on your rifle as mentioned above, or trading it for a good bolt-action that has a match barrel and chamber. Anschutz 64 is probably the best bet at relatively low cost. The Savage MK II heavy barrel with Accutrigger is an alternative. The reason for 50 yards is that it's a standard .22 LR match distance. Shooting at 100 yards is highly dependant on wind and mirage that can drive rimfire shooters crazy. Better rifles can shoot about 1 1/2".

(I don't know what my custom benchrest 40X will do at 100 yards and don't really care, because I'll probably never shoot a match at that distance, but I'd be very surprised if it didn't shoot twice as well as any Mod. 60 Marlin in the world.)
 
Worse than that, you're wasting precious ammo that others need for high-level match shooting and helping to raise the cost of it for all of us.
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??? How does that work? What I always unnerstood about Supply and Demand was that the more of a product that was in demand, being bought, and being consumed & replaced- the more of a tendency it had to encourage greater production and lower pricing.

And, I'd never tell a fellow shooter he's wasting precious ammo. If a shooter is doing something constructive/productive, learning something, enjoying something, and being a good steward to the sport- How's that wasting? I shoot Conventional Pistol/Bullseye and I don't overly worry about my supply of prefered ammo drying up. And I especially don't have bad dreams about plinkers plinking away at their hearts content.
 
Note: If one does not shoot off front and rear bags, from a bench, then "accurate" means nothing.
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"I do not know if I would enjoy Small Bore Bench-rest. I understand some shooters never touch their rifle, they just press a bulb which discharges the rifle when wind conditions are right. It is an exacting game, they are shooting inside of me by a large margin, and yet, I don’t care for it."

You misunderstood what I was trying to convey. I talked about using bench rest technique to test the available ammo to find the "most accurate" in a particular rifle. Standing on one's hind legs shooting at a target will not indicate anything useful as far as accuracy goes. Although I have a bench-rest enclosed in a yard barn(can shoot rain or shine), and 100 yard range on my property, it is for the purpose of testing hand loads and in the case of .22 rim fire, the available ammo.

Once that "magic" .22 ammo is found, then one can do his usual .22 sport without worry about the accuracy of the ammo.
 
Once that "magic" .22 ammo is found, then one can do his usual .22 sport without worry about the accuracy of the ammo.
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I can agree with that. I tested my small bore ammunition over sandbags, decided it shot well enough. Maybe if I buy a case of Black Box Tennex I will test again, but maybe not.
 
I'm not going to argue over what is better for what, because, like the others said, every gun is going to like something different. I have a 90+ year old Savage bolt action, and she'll shoot ANYTHING I put in there. Even rounds that FTF'd in either of my friends' semi-autos. I've been using Remington Golden Bullets, and lately Winchester JHPs in it, and they've both been fine. The lead solids often left more residue in my barrel, and I got tired of cleaning it so often.

One thing I'll mention, is that one of my regular shooting buddies has a Stevens semi-auto (identical to the Savage 64F), and the ONLY ammo that doesn't jam up every fourth shot, is Federal AutoMatch. I'm not entirely sure what's really different about them, but whatever Federal did works like a charm. They feed perfectly and fire every time.

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What I always unnerstood about Supply and Demand was that the more of a product that was in demand, being bought, and being consumed & replaced- the more of a tendency it had to encourage greater production and lower pricing.
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High quality match ammo is made on a very limited basis, on smaller machines, by skilled workpeople. Only so much is made and as it's cost has risen 100% in the past few years (from about $8 to about $16 a box. Some of the increase is due to the slumping dollar, but with the Euro in decline, prices of ammo made in Britain, Germany, and Finland, etc., keep rising!

The supply is pretty much set, so with demand, prices rise!!! A case of Eley is $1,600, which is what I paid for my used match rifle. It's kind of insane.

So, though it's everyone's right to blow off $16/box (50) ammo shooting rats or in rifles that can't shoot better than 3/4" at 50 yards, no matter what ammo. I merely suggest that it be used more sparingly and for more serious work. Such ammo often won't shoot better, sometimes not as well as CCI SV in non-match semi-auto chambers.
 
22 Ammo

+1 on the CCI Standard Velocity. It shoots well in most guns, and is reliable. If you want something a bit more pricey, try the CCI Green Tag... when you can find it. It's select lots of the standard velocity CCI.

You're going to have to find the "right" ammo for you. I was pleasantly surprised by CCI 40 grain Blazers... clean, reliable, accurate and CHEAP:D. It may or may not work for you. Also surprising was the Aguila gold box 40 grain plated round nose. Relatively inexpensive and very accurate in my S&W 41.
 
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