Norma 22lr Extra Long Range

I think the early labels were a misprint. Seems to all be the higher velocity since then.
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Makes sense--it was hitting a foot or more above the other ammo I was shooting--I was like "holy moley--they must be using some kind of magic sauce in the design to get that kind of improvement.":) I have other 22lr ammos that are well above supersonic but have never had good results with consistency with any of them. Some of them push the boundaries of what a 22lr really is and can blow apart when used in a tight match chamber.
 
They also made some amazing rifles to shoot it. I can't remember the model number off the top of my head; but a friend found one in a family home attic that was rusted and molded over; it had a straight push-feed bolt type arrangement with a peep sight built in. I approached it as a lost-cause lark that was probably ruined but managed to get it cleaned and oiled pretty well. If I recall correctly it dated to around the WW2 era. I shot it at 50 yds using the peep sight and I was amazed how well it shot.
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Sounds like the Remington Model 34 that I recently picked up. Doesn't look good. Is extremely gooey, gritty, and nasty. Bore looked red and chunky.
I ran a bore snake through it and got the biggest rust cloud I have seen from a rifle bore in a long time (possibly all time).

Shoots fine.
(But still needs a serious cleaning.)
 
Sounds like the Remington Model 34 that I recently picked up. Doesn't look good. Is extremely gooey, gritty, and nasty. Bore looked red and chunky.
I ran a bore snake through it and got the biggest rust cloud I have seen from a rifle bore in a long time (possibly all time).
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That's probably it, though for some reason I remember it as being a straight-feed kind of bolt. I offered my friend money for it and he refused (after, of course, I did all the work on it for free LOL).
 
Correction: I was mistaken. I thought this was happening at our practice matches *and* our regular matches. But it is only the practice matches. (A week ago.) So, I'll have some time to test this Norma ammo a bit before the real thing next month.

It isn't actually all that long. A distance had to be set at the beginning of the season (June), and 300 yards was chosen as a compromise, just in case we had to change to the alternate venue where that is the maximum possible range.
So, 300 yards.

Two formats, depending upon time available:
Primary: Five 10-round strings, fired in a rotation with other shooters. $10 buy-in per string. Best single string score is used for the day's scoring, and overall total is used for season scoring. Unlimited mulligans for $10 each. But the last string fired is the one that counts for the day's score. (I do not know how they're handling mulligans for season scoring, nor do I really care.)

Alternate, time limited: One to three 10-round strings for $10 buy-in. Buy as many mulligans as you want, until the MD cuts you off.

.22 LR only
Or air guns that meet NRL22 rules.

It was planned to be 10" round plates, but some of our better shooters showed that that size was too easy during testing. (Not me. )

Must call your target and hit to move on. But you do not have to move on. If you miss, you go back to the previous target.
8" target. 1 pt
6" target. 2 pts
4" target. 3 pts
Max possible is 27 points per string, I believe, and 135 pts for primary format daily total.

Highest score so far is 10, set in June, with an air gun that just stuck to the 8" target.
(Some of our guys should be able to get close to 20 pts, but June and July stages were very windy.)

Day-of the stage, the final round has two shooters 'racing' on two sets of plates, to be the first to hit the smallest target they can. But a miss sends you back to the 8" plate and you *must* fire all 10 shots. I still don't understand those rules fully, but it was set up to allow some strategy - like a dueling tree.
The same head-to-head format will be used for the season finale in December or January.

I've shot the targets and shot at that distance plenty of times; but I missed two months and I am just not that good (and always using questionable gear). So I will likely not be in the season finale. But I still want to have some fun with a small chance of winning a pot.
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Don't even try it. It's even worse than the internet would lead you to believe.
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It was such a nice day here that I decided to go out and do some 22lr shooting--and the bonus was the longer range was opened--so I decided to try your challenge at 300 yds, I had two 8" targets and one 6" target. They were stapled to a target borad that is 16" wide; so that's cheating I guess if you guys are limited to a plate the size of the challenge target. When I started out it was blowing much harder than I would normally even contemplate shooting 22lr this long, it was a quartering headwind from about 2 o'clock at 15 mph. The first two hundred yards of the shooting lane was between two tree lines, so that mitigated the effects of the wind, but the last 100 yards were fully exposed to the wind. I started with the Norma Kinzal stuff since I figured the extra velocity would possibly be some advantage--it wasn't, I think it was at least 15 shots before I even connected with the target. What I found was that even a modulation in the velocity of a gust was enough to completely miss the target windage from either the left or right side--so I never really knew what an actual good POA was. I tried twice with 10 shots but to no avail, the shots missing the 8" target altogether about 80% of the time. Way beyond my abilities.

Next I tried Eley Ultra Extreme. Because of it's different velocity I shot a few to find the range since Norma's is much faster. It did much better, but as the evening wore on the winds dropped to around 7 to 10 and that made a huge difference for me. I thought at first it was a pretty crappy group, 8 of 10 shots scored inside the 8" target--as it turned out it was the best score of the evening.

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Winds dropped even more as it started getting darker, I knew I was in conditions that R-100 could excel at having shot under 1.5 MOA with it at 300 yards before in calm conditions. Surprisingly, I only managed 6 of the eight shots into an 8" target.

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Lastly, I tried Tenex since it had already bested the Ultra stuff easily at closer ranges to 170 yards--I was a bit flustered when I only managed 3 out of 10 shots into the 6" target.

I could see if I entered a contest like that and it was real windy I could end up emptying an entire box without hitting anything.:o
 

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That is fantastic shooting.
I know it feels terrible to have so many misses in the wind, because our 'standard' conditions are 10+ mph quartering wind (which swirls down the berms).
But that is great. I am quite impressed.

I thought I was happy on Saturday, when I ended up using a borrowed rifle (Bergara BMR w/ Athlon Heras 4-20x) and feeding it untested ammo (Eley Club), and I managed to get second-* and third-round* impacts on our 375 yard 10" gong - followed by a miss and 6 more impacts. *(My 6th and 7th shots of the day.)
But the wind was "dead" at the time - only about a 5 MoA wind hold. (That's nothing on our range, and it was really consistent.)

Your shooting is more impressive to me.
Long range .22 LR is frustrating. But fun.
 
That is fantastic shooting.
I know it feels terrible to have so many misses in the wind, because our 'standard' conditions are 10+ mph quartering wind (which swirls down the berms).
But that is great. I am quite impressed.

I thought I was happy on Saturday, when I ended up using a borrowed rifle (Bergara BMR w/ Athlon Heras 4-20x) and feeding it untested ammo (Eley Club), and I managed to get second-* and third-round* impacts on our 375 yard 10" gong - followed by a miss and 6 more impacts. *(My 6th and 7th shots of the day.)
But the wind was "dead" at the time - only about a 5 MoA wind hold. (That's nothing on our range, and it was really consistent.)

Your shooting is more impressive to me.
Long range .22 LR is frustrating. But fun.
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Appreciate the compliments--but I had a whole lot of misses before I finally connected--I know myself and if I had to shoot a hanging gong that was 8" in diameter I could potentially miss with every shot in anything over 10 mph wind. Because of the exaggerated arc of the bullet trajectory at that kind of distance as well as the windage displacement it's even harder to know where the bullet actually passes relative to the target even when you spot the impact near the target after taking the shot.

The biggest disappointment about the Norma stuff for me so far is that since it hasn't shown any real stellar results out of my CZ rifles I can't really take advantage of the extra elevation adjustment range its faster velocity conveys.

Your early hits at a greater range are more impressive to me and saves ammo too. I could see this pursuit getting real expensive real fast. When I shoot at anything over 200 yards--especially if there is wind--I also use a big backing board so I can more easily see the actual displacement of the bullet impact from POA.

I used a Burris XTR II 5 x 25 on this outing--but my Leupold Mark 5 HD 7 x 35 is my precsion scope par excellance but it is sitting on my 30 BR build awaiting to see if I can ever figure out how to load a cartridge for it. :rolleyes::D

PS--I'm looking forward to a day with calmer conditions to see if the Eley Ultra really does outperform Tenex at this kind of distance; if so it would be the first new Johnny-come-lately that actually does offer something meaningful in comparison to long-established premium stuff in my experience.
 
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Thanks for the kind words. But I also have almost 18 months worth of misses on that same target. Lots of time to learn how to read it, learn how to approach it, learn how the wind swirls down the berm next to it, dial in my ballistic calculator, and get experience with many different rifles and ammunition. And there's a berm right behind it.

Long range misses are one of the hardest parts of the NRL22X and PRS22 matches.
Snow presents its own problems in the winter. But, the rest of the year...
If there is no backstop or berm within about 5 feet of the target, it can be very difficult to tell if you're low, or shooting over and the extreme angle of the trajectory is just making it seem like a low impact. -- Especially when you're unfamiliar with the range. (Or natural terrain surrounding the range, in most cases for those matches in this region.)

I hope to take the ELR ammo out next week and see what it does during the (traditionally) hottest week of the year. If it does show any different performance, I'll get some to save for January/February and see what it does in the cold.
 
FYI--I just received a message from Eley that they are issuing a recall for the very lot number that appears to be the primary production batch imported into the US and which I have; 3124-30072.

There is no safety issue involved--but apparently some dissatisfying performance issues vs expectations. Maybe they should rename it.:D
 
Update: I received notice from Eley that they confirmed my lot info and they subsequently gave me a choice of replacement bullets--pretty much anything they make in 22lr--except the ultra stuff. I naturally chose Tenex and the replacement stuff was promptly sent by Killough Shooting Sports which is I believe Eley's US-based professional service center.
 
I just revisited the link that they gave me for the recall (via email, from the link that you provided), and it was different.
It previously asked for pictures of the product, the lot number, and a dozen more data points.
But now it just asked me for a receipt and what I wanted as a replacement.

Tenex on the way.
 
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