Best, cheap .22LR hunting ammo thread

I was at Wal-Mart today and I found boxes of CCI Quiet .22lr for $7.95 each. Each box had 50 rounds in it. Not exactly cheap shooting but still plenty cheap for varminting. They were 40gr. lead round nose bullets with a muzzle velocity of 710fps according to the box. I thought, "What the heck I'll try it."

So I get home and load up a CCI CB Short (29gr. @ 710fps) and fired. Less report than an air rifle and the bullet entered the pine wood block but was still close enough to the surface I could see its rear end yet. Then I loaded and fired from the same gun (a Rossi break action single shot youth .22) the Quiet .22lr and I was amazed! Same quiet report as the CB but the bullet punched through the pine block (one layer of 1.5" thick) and hit the berm behind it. It didn't go very deep into the dirt so I was able to find the bullet (completely deformed) but nonetheless this thing punched through the wood!

I think I just found my new favorite back yard varmint cartridge! Now to wait and see if the rabbits come out to feed on my veggies tonight...
 
That lack of "punch through" is why I use the CB caps for back yard squirrel conrol. I live in a neighborhood of 1 acre lots so I do have to worry about collateral damage. With the CB caps, I worry less about pass-through or riccochet.
 
Since a .22 isn't likely to deform much when it impacts a rabbit I prefer to have as much kinetic energy as possible when the bullet hits the critter. That being the case I personally prefer these heavier bullets travelling at the same speed as the lighter CBs. I agree though that if you have to take into consideration over penetration and ricochet that the CB shorts are better. The shots I take on rabbits though are pretty safe - I'm shooting usually from no further than 25 yards and I'm shooting downward from either a window or my back deck into the garden (soft earth). As such I'm not too concerned about over penetration or ricochet and even if there were a danger my nearest neighbor is a few hundred yards away. Not much danger there as the bullet would run out of energy after a ricochet off soft dirt (and at 700 or so fps) long before it reached my neighbor's property.
 
Hanson I have used the CCI quiet rounds a good bit on squirrels and rabbits around my house and they work good for that. Dont expect much on larger critters though. I dispatched a coon that I caught in a live trap a few days ago. It took 4 shots to the back of the head put him down with the quiets. He only weighed about 10 pounds. After skinning him the rounds only penetrated an inch or so. Hard headed coon for sure.
 
That was one heck of a hard headed coon then! I've dispatched coons with a single shot to the top of the head from my Ruger Single Six loaded with CCI CB Shorts. Its the same load I use when I dispatch feral cats when they get caught up in my traps too.

EDIT added: With the cost of the CCI Quiet .22lr being the same as CCI CB though I'll be loading the Quiet rounds from now on instead of the CB Shorts. The ballistic calculator says the Quiets deliver almost twice as much energy as the CB Shorts.
 
CCI quiets, never seen em. I will have to look for those. If they have twice the energy of CB's, they sound like they are worth the money. Wally mart sells 100 round containers of CB for about $8 here. I would gladly pay $8 for a box of 50 quiets if they pack that much more power.
Thanks for mentioning them guys.
 
Has anyone noticed that A LOT, and I mean most of the major producers stock, is back-ordered at many retail and on-line outfits. Sportsman guide is saying it may be New Years before some blocks of 1000 or so rounds of 22 are in-stock again. Walmart says the same here in So Indiana, CTD has B/O on some too.
Panic-buying, or low production numbers? what's happening to the 22 ammo market?
 
Comparison

Shooting a squirrel with a .22 is comparable to a human getting hit with a 105 howitzer round.
A com hit on either will do the job. I like the Aguila Super Colibri's great little round, very quiet and effective. They are somewhat expensive but if you have a big enough varmint problem to even think about what you are spending on ammo, please invite me over.....sounds like fun!

Just a rather silly and meaningless comparison, carry on.
 
Follow the money on that huge DHS ammo purchase and it might lead you to Minnesota, if I recall the state correctly, where Federal and CCI are made. Could be that those hundreds of millions of backordered JHPs are mucking up the supply chain for the rest of us. Pure speculation.
 
I refuse to buy bulk .22 LR any more. It's all crap. ...especially the Remington stuff. But, it isn't much more money to upgrade to decent ammo that doesn't have the failure rates, accuracy issues, and inconsistencies of the bulk ammo.

I went through 18 different types of .22 LR, before settling on these as the best of the "cheap" (in my firearms).

For hunting:
Federal Champion Target 40 gr Solid (RN) - punches clean holes through stuff like squirrels but expands reasonably in Rabbits and similar animals, and it's decently accurate (~1-1/8" @ 100 yards)

Federal Game-Shock 31 gr HP - great HP, but not quite as accurate as the 40 gr RN (~1.5" @ 100 yards)

ArmsCor 36 gr HP - great HP, but a little dirty (~3/4" @ 100 yards)

I order the ArmsCor and Fed Champion Target loads by the case (5,000 rounds) when they're on sale, and it ends up being cheaper than buying that ridiculously inferior bulk ammo I discussed above. You just need a little more cash up front.
I don't use the 31 gr HP very often, so I just buy it by the brick (500) when it's on sale.
 
I use the CCI Quiets rated at 45 foot pounds/...or 710 FPS with a full 40 grain RN. I shoot them out of my 10/22 18.5 inch barrel.
I get them at my gun show for about 37 dollars a brick-(500), though I've seen much higher prices per 50 on the internet.

They seem to do the job quite well, though I keep my shots under 40 yards for the fact that my groups tend to open up rapidly beyond that range with my semi-auto carbine.

All squirrels that I've shot were between 25-35 yards. Majority of shots have been head/ neck area shots, and only one shot was needed.

I was a bit taken by surprise after hearing the bullet thwack against the squirrels head on my first time out with the Quiets. The hit was significantly louder than my rifles muzzle report. Sounded like a minature grenade had set off.:eek:

For jack rabbits I'd recommend minimags because it's very hard to get under 70 yards in on them. They have extremely good hearing and smell so they are quite the challenge and often require long accurate heart lung shots.

I had one experience where a jack was grazing early dawn in some brush about 30 yards from my porch, with the Quiet I aimed for its head while its back was towards me and quickly squeezed off a shot before the thing noticed me or turned. The bullet had landed a bit lower and clipped its spine. Thing jumped high in the air landed on its side and sorta convulsed while squeeling. I ran over, stepped on it's upper chest, then put final shot to the top of its head. This experience showed me that shot placement is paramount and that anything larger than a squirrel- should remind me to consider more power and accuracy.

For squirrels though, this is one great/ low report round- especially if you own a long barreled bolt action .22lr rifle. It would work for jack rabbit 35 yards and under but placement is critical. Ya won't get many chances at those distances. I wouldn't recommend it for distances beyond 40-50 yards depending on the accuracy of the firearm.
 
Last edited:
Mayor Al said:
Has anyone noticed that A LOT, and I mean most of the major producers stock, is back-ordered at many retail and on-line outfits. Sportsman guide is saying it may be New Years before some blocks of 1000 or so rounds of 22 are in-stock again. Walmart says the same here in So Indiana, CTD has B/O on some too.
Panic-buying, or low production numbers? what's happening to the 22 ammo market?
Click to expand...

We are shooting it more. Have you noticed the new emphasis on substituting .22LR for 5.56 in many of the training schools and ranges in the US? New models of AR-22s coming out every year. Police department ammo budgets are shrinking and people like us are practicing with .22LR more. Sales for firearms chambered in .22LR are rising. There has been a rise in demand for .22LR for at least 3 or 4 years now. The good side is we have rediscovered how much fun we used to have with the .22 before we moved up to those manly cartridges. ;)
 
So all of this talk of the effect of .22LR ammo on varmints, has anybody done any testing or research on the CCI Velocitors?
My Marlin 60 likes them and will put 4 out of 5 in the same hole at 100 yards on a calm day!
Just curious if anybody else has messed with them much.
 
Never shot them due to alittle pricey for me. My mod 60 loves golden bullets. Very accurate and still have about 5 bricks left and bought them back when they were still $8.00 a back. That's been awhile back.
 
Velocitors...

At that pricing I'll just shoot my .22WMR for varmints that are too large or too far away for a standard velocity .22lr.
 
Well the Velocitors I purchase were about the same price as Stingers.
To have that much more energy out there at longer distances may be worth it depending on your target.
Just a thought.
Mini mags produced about a three inch group at 100yrds. The bulk ammo I tried didn't really produce a group.

As for WMRs, they are almost twice the price for FMJs. Hornady rounds can easily pass double the price.

So is the Velocitor or just CCI in general y'all don't like?
 
Last edited:
So is the Velocitor or just CCI in general y'all don't like?
Click to expand...

I love CCI - I use a lot of their CB Shorts and now Quiet .22LR rounds.

As for Velocitors I have nothing against them but here at my local Wal-Mart I can get CCI .22WMR for only $4 more than the same amount of Velocitors.

Like I said, at that price, I'd rather use .22WMR for varmints that are too large for a standard .22lr or are a bit too far for it.
 
Thats cool. If it works for you I am all for it.
I have always thought that WMRs were a bit over rated. For the extra $4 a box you get an extra 200 fps. I never felt the small gain justified the extra cost.
But I don't have one so I have no personal personal experiences.
They claim 166 ft lbs of energy for the WMR to the 100 of the Velocitor. I'm not sure how much difference that would make.
As a comparison, the claimed energy of a .223 55gr is 995 ft lbs at 100 yards.

BUT, all of that being said, the title of this thread is "Best, cheap .22LR hunting ammo thread".
So I will get back to the topic.
I would love to hear some reviews of the Velocitor when used on critters. My experience tells me they are accurate, but I have never seen their effect on a varmint.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top