2025 100 yard .22LR discussion thread

Last week it was too windy in my area for shooting at 100. This morning it was better so I went out for my fifth range trip of the season. I was testing Center X today, all from the same lot.

Over the chronograph it is very good. Of the four boxes I shot, two had an ES values in the mid-20 fps range with SD figures in the mid-5s. The largest ES was 30 fps. By chrony numbers alone this ammo should shoot well, but that's not necessarily how it works out. It certainly didn't today.

One of the targets was interesting for its illustration of how ammo MV doesn't always relate to POI. The example shown below is not affected, at least not significantly, by any of the intermittent breezes that occurred.

The ten shots had a spread of 1058.3 fps to 1079.8 fps, and ES of 21.5 fps. The round with the lowest POI was not nearly the slowest of the ten, with six rounds being slower.

This group was not unique in the MV/POI inconsistency. The inconsistent relationship between MV and POI is seen frequently. Fortunately some lots are better than others. It also happens at 50 yards but is much more obvious at 100.


 
Conditions were good for 100 yard .22LR shooting this morning. I had a different rifle and shot some of the same CX referred to previously as well as some Midas +.

The problem of an irregular relationship between MV and POI can happen with any grade of ammo, even Midas. Below is an example that shows little if any effect of wind. The ten shots had a relatively small ES of just over 13 fps, but the vertical spread was about 1.75".

When ammo behaves this way it's impossible for the shooter to mitigate the results. There's nothing that can be done to prevent it.

 
grauhanen said:
Conditions were good for 100 yard .22LR shooting this morning. I had a different rifle and shot some of the same CX referred to previously as well as some Midas +.

The problem of an irregular relationship between MV and POI can happen with any grade of ammo, even Midas. Below is an example that shows little if any effect of wind. The ten shots had a relatively small ES of just over 13 fps, but the vertical spread was about 1.75".

When ammo behaves this way it's impossible for the shooter to mitigate the results. There's nothing that can be done to prevent it.

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You can use a suitable tuner.
 
Well, your idea of a suitable tuner might differ from mine. Where the shots hit and the velocities you've listed do not jive with a rifle that has a good tune for that distance. I suspect the barrel might be near a direction change, which isn't good. It would be interesting to run such a target through my tune correlation program to see how shot elevation and muzzle velocity actually relate to each other. That requires matching up each hole and muzzle velocity figure for all shots, though. Or as many shots as possible, anyway. Did you keep track of all shots, or just the handful you've already indicated? The more, the better. When I'm testing this I use practice ARA targets with one shot per bull so keeping track of hole/velocity is easier. But as long as you've got a lot of holes matched with velocities it doesn't matter. And that'll tell you rather definitively whether or not the barrel is moving in a fashion that approaches the ideal or not. Not like the target isn't already telling you that it probably isn't, though. But having some data that can actually help you pin down what the problem likely is certainly doesn't hurt.
 
Shorty, not counting foulers, I track all the shots I take at 100 yards. Unlike an optical chronograph, the new, small Doppler chronies are literally seconds to set up. I use a preprinted scoring sheet (a facsimile of the target itself) to plot POI and MV. Of course it's not always possible to know exactly where each round in a ten shot group goes -- for example some may go in previous holes or you just don't see it with certainty. But if I need to know I can view a video record (it takes little time and effort to put a camera on a tripod and place it near the targets).

As a general observation, shooters often assume that the match ammo rounds for which they've paid well will go where they should -- if only mother nature or shooter error or rifle shortcoming were not at fault. To be sure, wind is not always easily accounted for or the absence of air movement as real as flags might suggest. Shooters do screw up, and it is not impossible that otherwise good rifles sometimes have random behaviours that interfere with what should happen.

But it seems incontrovertible that with wind, shooter error, and unknown rifle problems aside, .22LR match ammo is not so perfect that all rounds will go where MV alone predicts.

From this morning another example -- this with another rifle shooting Center X.



The same rifle, shooting the same ammo (same lot, same box), not 15 minutes earlier, shot the group shown below.

 
rar said:
very nice shooting Grauhanen. What ammo are you using.
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A short while ago this question was asked in the Challenge thread, which is for challenge entries only.

From my post today in the 100 Yard Challenge today

grauhanen said:
The rifle is an Anschutz 54.30 with a Starik tuner that may or may not have helped. The scope is a Sightron SIII 45X and the ammo was Midas+.
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I've been shooting this lot for a few weeks. It has a flyer or two in each box, sometimes more. Today I had a couple of good boxes. The lot of Midas that produced the target shown averaged under .880" for ten groups. It was a pleasant surprise have fewer errant rounds today.
 
I know Leuchtkafer has done some work to reprofile firing pins on the CZ457 to achieve more consistent primer strikes by preventing the entire edge of the rim being crushed.

Has anyone else attempted this and found success?

I seem to have an issue with Eley ammo specifically (frustratingly expensive rounds like match and tenex from several different lots) where I'm getting a fail to fire every 100 rounds or so. Ejecting the round, rotating it and trying again always makes it go off on the second attempt. Throws me off my game when it happens in the middle of a bench relay. I never have this issue with cheaper 22lr or Lapua match ammo... very annoying.

If it can solve my occasional fail-to-fires it might be worth a try to break out the hand files.9.
 
Always interesting to find out what ammo a firearm manufacturer uses for development testing, because they’re tuning that combination to work perfectly. Yes, they’re probably testing a range of ammunition but one is going to be their predominant go-to and odds are a customer will have minimal grief using the same.
 
barthammer said:
I know Leuchtkafer has done some work to reprofile firing pins on the CZ457 to achieve more consistent primer strikes by preventing the entire edge of the rim being crushed.

Has anyone else attempted this and found success?

I seem to have an issue with Eley ammo specifically (frustratingly expensive rounds like match and tenex from several different lots) where I'm getting a fail to fire every 100 rounds or so. Ejecting the round, rotating it and trying again always makes it go off on the second attempt. Throws me off my game when it happens in the middle of a bench relay. I never have this issue with cheaper 22lr or Lapua match ammo... very annoying.

If it can solve my occasional fail-to-fires it might be worth a try to break out the hand files.9.
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Not with a 457 but with two 455's.
Using a Lansky course stone, every few strokes showed improvement, with both rifles.
When I was entirely inside the rim it was time to quit although with one misfire, a few judicious taps with a hammer flattened it out a bit and the problem (if there was one) was Resolved.
 
barthammer said:
I know Leuchtkafer has done some work to reprofile firing pins on the CZ457 to achieve more consistent primer strikes by preventing the entire edge of the rim being crushed.

Has anyone else attempted this and found success?

I seem to have an issue with Eley ammo specifically (frustratingly expensive rounds like match and tenex from several different lots) where I'm getting a fail to fire every 100 rounds or so. Ejecting the round, rotating it and trying again always makes it go off on the second attempt. Throws me off my game when it happens in the middle of a bench relay. I never have this issue with cheaper 22lr or Lapua match ammo... very annoying.

If it can solve my occasional fail-to-fires it might be worth a try to break out the hand files.9.
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https://web.archive.org/web/20090105174726/http://www.snipersparadise.com/tsmag/june2004.htm
 
It was calm this morning, with just a few flag movements and fluttering to indicate occasional air movement. When I shot I noticed smoke from the barrel drift very slowly to the left.

I used the same lot of Midas that I had good fortune with just yesterday. Today it shot well, giving a sub-.800" twenty ten-shot group average (as it did yesterday).

What was interesting today was the smallest ten-shot group I have seen (at least this season).



The ten round ES was just over 30 fps, which is perhaps a little more than might be expected.



On another target with the same ammo, the first bull was unusual. It was very unlike the others. It was interesting that, like the group above, it too had a ten-round ES of just over 30 fps.

Beneath the targets is the rifle I used today.






 
OkayShooter said:
I think this topic has been beaten beyond pulp.

Rimfire ammo is dice roll, it's inconsistent and not all guns like the same ammo. You'll never get 100s across the board. Go out, shoot and enjoy. Dont worry about the 20% you cannot change.
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indeed it has over think everything different different gun different day bore size on the rifle tight or a bit over size on and on and on
simply shoot your group and post it if you have one that counts then try and duplicate it a few more times if you actually duplicate it a few more time then you may be able to draw some conclusions if not then it is what it is
 
Thats awesome to get twenty ten shot groups that averaged under 0,800" !!! Thats some damn fine shooting and obviously a great lot for that rifle tuner combination. Congrats and what is the size of that bughole on the bottom right corner. I always find someone commenting about a thread they dont like, to be rather humerous, Just move on if you think its stupid or beaten to death or whatever. Instead use the spare time for some basic writing skills that most learned in grade school!! Just sayin
 
This morning it was cool at 5 degrees Celsius and still foggy enough at first to make seeing the target at 100 a bit of a challenge. It soon cleared. Most importantly, it was very calm -- at least for a while. The first bull was encouraging. The fourth was perhaps the best I've seen.

The four ten-shot group average was under .650".



The rifle was my 54.30, shown below.


 
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