Pretty disappointed with Geco .22 match

B

BerdanSS

New member
Went to the range today, beautiful day for it considering the weather we've had. Hit almost 60 today. I took my relatively new (to me) Mossberg 44US and a good assortment of ammo. The main type of which was Geco 40gr LRN Match, the supposedly "bolt action optimized" rounds. I've been dying to try this stuff. Quite disappointed with it to say the least, especially due to the price tag it came with.



This was the best group of the day with the "match grade" geco.

7 Rounds, 50 yards standing unsupported. Rifle was equipped with the S-130 rear target sight and using the lolly-pop front pin, no sling was used.

you'll note there are only 6 rounds on paper. one was completely off target. the black target below is a mix of the geco and miss. old ammo.

Now at first I chalked this up to either myself, or the MURDEROUS cross wind we had across the range. but after that string, I loaded 5 rounds of 38gr plated HP Winchester bulk pack and shot this:

5 rounds


Followed by this

Full 7 round magazine


And this, two consecutive 5 round strings.

the flyer is with the 2nd string fired on the right.

last one of the day with Winchester.
 
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It did not make a good first impression with me. Not shooting 3-7 inches at 50 yards. Even with the 12-22 MPH cross winds registered by the range, I was shooting 2" standing unsupported with the Winchester bulk-pack. I picked up a 220rnd box of it on the way to the range at a LGS, for darn near the same I paid for a SINGLE 50rnd box of the geco.

All in all good for me I guess, that my rifle likes cheap ammo over the "premium" stuff :) But still disappointed with the geco. I did however shoot a 50 yard single hole 5 round group with some eley subsonics.
 
"50 yards standing unsupported"
You weren't "testing" your rifle or ammo. You were displaying your skill(or lack of).
 
Reminds me of Aguila "SuperMax" - that stuff sucked!

"50 yards standing unsupported"
You weren't "testing" your rifle or ammo. You were displaying your skill(or lack of).
Click to expand...

Maybe; maybe not. Depends. If the rifle is already previously tested, and his skills are already previously tested, and thus two legs of the stool are known quantities, roughly, then this could indeed have been a test of the third leg -the ammo. I.e. if you know that with 5 brands of ammo, you always hit within 2" with that setup (rifle, distance, format), then that ammo does materially worse, then you can know it's the ammo, not you or the rifle.
 
I shoot bench rest .22 rimfire. I really have no idea how ammo quality could be effectively judged shooting freehand. I personally shoot so bad free handed that I could not tell you the difference between Eley and Wildcats shooting them off. On the bench, one is 1/4" at 50 yards and the other is about 1 1/2".
 
"Maybe; maybe not. Depends. If the rifle is already previously tested, and his skills are already previously tested, and thus two legs of the stool are known quantities, roughly, then this could indeed have been a test of the third leg -the ammo. I.e. if you know that with 5 brands of ammo, you always hit within 2" with that setup (rifle, distance, format), then that ammo does materially worse, then you can know it's the ammo, not you or the rifle."
I disagree. Everyone has a bad day now and then but sandbags don't. At one time, I could tell the difference in accuracy between 1/2" capable ammo and 2" capable ammo while shooting offhand, but that was 40 years ago.
 
Also, the Geco ammo is nice but not really match grade. It might just not be a good fit. Buy a box of Tenex, get a good rest, and then look what your rifle can do.
We did a "buy a box of everything" test with a couple of 10/22 and an Anschutz, the 10/22s went from 3" 5-shot groups with bulk ammo to less than 1" with the Remington by Eley (about $11/box), no real improvement with the really good stuff; the Anschutz from 2" with bulk to 1/4" with Tenex. Like every loading experiment, you need to try more than a couple loads to find the best for your rifle.
 
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