CCI Stnd Vel - Cheap and Accurate

Ganderite

Ganderite

CGN Ultra frequent flyer
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Farm south of North Bay
I enjoy shooting and especially enjoy shooting accurately.

That requires some skill/experience on my part; a good rifle and good ammo.

Like the man said, only accurate rifles are interesting.

Over the years I have invested a lot of time in projects trying to make a rifle perform. I can usually get an improvement, and if I don’t, it sure isn’t because I did not try.

Back in the day when I shot small bore target rifle (prone, irone sights) we bought Ely Club for practice and shot Ely Tenex in competition. I don’t recall anyone trying much else in the way of ammo, although the serous guys tried various lots of Tenex to find the best lot for their rifle, and then they would buy a case or two of it.

My “accuracy” rifle is now a Norinco NS-522. With a scope it shoots around 0.60” at 50 yards using SK Plus or CCI SV. I just recently stumbled upon the CCI and was delighted to find ammo that only cost $60 a brick shot very well.

I bought a Ruger 10/22 Target Rifle last week on EE. It also likes the SK Plus and CCI SV and also shoots around 0.60” at 50 yards. This is the first time I ever got any accuracy out of a semi auto rifle, so I am pleased.

So pleased I went back to EE and bought another semi - a Savage A 22. It will arrive on Monday, so on my Wednesday range session I will find out if it shoots, too.

Today I bought two more bricks of the CCI Standard Velocity ammo. The previous ammo I tried was the 50 round cardboard boxes. Today’s ammo is in the plastic 100 round trays.

I saw some discussion here on CGN postulating that the cardboard box ammo is not made by CCI itself, but made for them by someone else. Anything is possible, I guess.
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When I examine the two offerings, I see a difference in the bullets. If all 150 rounds were dumped into a bowel I am confident I could put them all back in the right box. That does not mean a different manufacturer. It just means different lot numbers.

The discussion was that the plastic ammo box ammo shot better. That would be nice, because I am delighted with the 0.60” I am getting from the cardboard box version.

When I picked up the 2 bricks of CC! SV I also picked up a brick of Aguila SV. It is only $45 a brick, so being a cheap guy, I want to check it out. I have seen good reviews on the older Aguila ammo that used Ely priming. This stuff is not Ely primed. Too bad, because I love the distinctive smell of Ely ammo.
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Tomorrow I will shoot 3 10-shot groups of all 3 flavours from both of my rifles. Time and wind permitting, I will also test the SK Plus, as a control.

I will aslo fire a 20 shot string of each through the chrony to check ES and SD. That said, I much prefer to see the group size than the numbers.

Stand by....
 
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Thanks Ganderite! I was reading that same thread about the differences between the two CCI offerings and was hoping to learn more about it. The CCI cardboard SV is shooting an average of .75" at 50yds in my Cooey 39 (now that I've scoped it, but I'm having some major parallax issues which should shrink the groups down some once I've solved it.)
 
Ganderite said:
I saw some discussion here on CGN postulating that the cardboard box ammo is not made by CCI itself, but made for them by someone else. Anything is possible, I guess.

When I examine the two offerings, I see a difference in the bullets. If all 150 rounds were dumped into a bowel I am confident I could put them all back in the right box. That does not mean a different manufacturer. It just means different lot numbers.
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Regarding the comparison of the cardboard boxed rounds and those in the plastic box, what difference(s) are there between the two CCI SV offerings? The bullet itself? The casing?

For readers in general, while CCI Blazer .22LR ammo is said to be made by two different manufacturers, CCI itself and Federal, is there any information that confirms CCI SV is also made by different manufacturers?

According to information from CCI that was posted on RFC a decade ago, at one time Federal did manufacture some CCI SV for CCI but that practice apparently did not continue. Since then, the ammo in the two packages is supposed to be the same. According to the information from CCI, the difference in packaging was for international sales because of different recycling requirements abroad. For the explanation from CCI, see post #15 h t t p s://www.rimfirecentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=357720&highlight=paper

Differences in performance between ammo from the two different packages may be explained if they are from different lots.
 
The 50 round cardboard box stuff shoots the best for my Ruger Mk ll pistol, the plastic 100 round is not too far behind but it may be just lot difference. I have tested more expensive ammo but for the price cci is what I use for practice and matches.
 
Lot numbers with the Plastic trays and the cardboard boxes would be meaningless.
When I asked CCI about the significance of the lot numbers on the plastic trays it only means something to them.
CCI in Idaho manufactures around 4,000,000 rounds per day. That is a combination of everything and anything.
One RFC the discussion did conclude that any rifle may have a preference but the last I read most shooters preferred the plastic tray.
I have run CCI MiniMags and SV over a Chrony and when velocities are consistent so is accuracy.
MiniMags with a spread of 4 and 9 fps would produce 1" groups at 100 yards. Same for SV but the moment the spread exceeded 15 the accuracy was lost too.
MiniMags RN labelled as 1235 fps were closer to 1200 and HP showing 1260 were closer to 1300 fps.
Low spreads will be seen when shooting 5-round groups . . . ten-round groups is another story.
That flyer with Eley Match is generally a drop in velocity.

PS. Waiting for your results . . . may have to run some CCI SV through the Coopers.
 
I'm curious for your results as well, I started out with CCI std velocity and pleasantly surprised ever since, have also lately used SK std+ and also very consistent. Using an old Anschutz 1411 and a CZ 455 varmint and both pretty accurate at our 52 yard indoor range and the occasional trip to a 100 yard outdoor. The anschutz is probably about 10% tighter than the CZ single feeding and getting down to the odd 1/4" group with mostly 1/2 to a bit over indoors.
Have bought some expensive stuff and its consistent but not always good, will keep trying.
 
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I get the same results as yourself and also get great groups with the CCI subsonic HP ammo in 100rd plastic container.
Real accurate in my Cooey 82 and Shultz Larsen 77. My Norinco 522 loves those and Lapua SK but is best with RWS rifle match.
 
horseman2 said:
Lot numbers with the Plastic trays and the cardboard boxes would be meaningless.
When I asked CCI about the significance of the lot numbers on the plastic trays it only means something to them.
CCI in Idaho manufactures around 4,000,000 rounds per day. That is a combination of everything and anything.
One RFC the discussion did conclude that any rifle may have a preference but the last I read most shooters preferred the plastic tray.
I have run CCI MiniMags and SV over a Chrony and when velocities are consistent so is accuracy.
MiniMags with a spread of 4 and 9 fps would produce 1" groups at 100 yards. Same for SV but the moment the spread exceeded 15 the accuracy was lost too.
MiniMags RN labelled as 1235 fps were closer to 1200 and HP showing 1260 were closer to 1300 fps.
Low spreads will be seen when shooting 5-round groups . . . ten-round groups is another story.
That flyer with Eley Match is generally a drop in velocity.
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Is there contradiction above?

If lot numbers are meaningless in terms of ammo performance (and they well might be when CCI produces much more each day than any match ammo maker) that would imply that there would be little if any variation in performance between different lots of the same variety. In other words, all lots of a given flavour would perform similarly.

At the same time it's suggested that some CCI ammo (Mini-Mags and SV) has consistent velocity -- or small ES -- over a chrony. Yet a single random box of CCI SV ammo can easily have an ES of of 80 - 90 fps, while Mini-Mags are typically little better if at all. Without some lots being notably better than others, when five rounds are selected at random from a box of CCI SV or Mini-Mags, would it not require a very lucky combination indeed for them to have a very small ES under 15 fps?

On a more general note, for a video of how CCI makes its ammo, see h ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rCZHG_eEak&feature=youtu.be
 
OK. I went to the range today and am not happy with the results. Conditions were good, so I expected the typical good groups I had got in the past from my SK Plus and the CCI 50 round cardboard box.

Groups were larger.

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I suspect that I have discovered that it is time to clean this rifle. It has about 300 rounds through it since the last cleaning. So I will clean and repeat.

I used to work in R & D at the CIL ammo plant. We made over 1 million 22 LR every day, including match, Stnd, and HV. The match ammo that failed he accuracy test got packaged as Canuck Stnd Vel. Anyone who happened to buy that lot got very good ammo.

I was told (repeatedly) the results had to be "statistically valid". That is, anyone running the same test at a later date would get a similar result. This is why I shoot 10 shot groups. A 5 shot group does not mean much. The "flyer" could go into the group instead of out of it. 10 shot groups mean something. And 5 10-shot groups produces a result you can use.

If you have a quality ammo, say SK or Ely Match, it may or may not group well in a particular rifle. This is not a quality issue, it is just a luck of the draw preference issue. My 2 accurate rifles both shoot well with this particular brick of SK Plus. I should go back to Tenda and see if I can buy some more of this lot number.

If you have poor quality ammo, the occasional group might be good. If your testing is not big enough, you can be lead astray. I ran a 20 shot string of each ammo through my chrony. This is a test of general quality. As it happens, the chrony results mirrors exactly my 50 yard group results. The best ammo shot the best.

20 shot test

SK Plus

Average 1043 Extreme Spread 26 Stnd Deviation 7

CCI 50

Av 1051 ES 56 SD 13


CCI 100

Av 1053 ES 49 SD 12


Aguila Stnd Vel

Av 1105 ES 60 SD 15


Federal BYOB (Bring Your Own Bucket - Federal bulk ammo, swept from the factory floor and the end of the shift)

Av 1217 ES 77 SD 16


My past experience with this rifle was that of all the ammo I tested, SK Plus was always very good and usually the best. It is $10 ammo (for 50).

I was surprised and pleased when the CCI SV shot the same. It is $5 ammo. Based on only 20 groups, I would have guessed that the SK was very slightly better. I intend to practice with CCI SV and compete with SK+

At 100 yards the low ES of the SK+ ammo would probably show up as a better group than the CCI. But at 50 yards I can't see much difference. (I am referring to past tests. Not today's dirty barrel test.)


As for the difference between the 50 round box and the 100 round box, the chony indicates almost identical results. These are two different lots of the same ammo made by the same company. If you try the two versions and one shoots better than the other, it is just an issue of one lot being better in your rifle. If you find a lot your rifle likes - stock up. I bought 1500 rounds yesterday and now that I see the results, I will buy another 3 bricks. And I better buy a couple more bricks of SP Plus, too.

As for the federal BYOB, it is crap. Shoots poorly in 4 rifles and 2 pistols.
 
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My experience with the Ruger 1022 mostly mirrors Ganderite's. My 1022 is an old one, made in 1979 and has a standard sporter barrel. The only thing I've done to "accurize" it is to put a shim under the barrel at the forend and torqued the action screw to about 12 in/lb. It did put a decent scope on it, a Vortex Diamondback Tactical. CCI Standard velocity, either 100 round trays or 50 round cardboard box types group around 1" at 50y as do the CCI Blazers. They are my practice ammo. For competitions I found Eley Club shoots most accurate and consistent and gives me around 0.5" or bit more at 50y. I use this setup at the ORPS matches and found that it works quite well in the factory class. It's not accurate enough for the 2" gong at 100y/m to hit reliably but I don't care, even guys with a 1MOA or better rig have a devil of a time hitting that one. After all, it's only one of many targets that are in the game. IMHO, it's the shooter that is the weakest link anyway. As long as the rifle/ammo combination is capable of 1-1.5MOA, I feel I'm good to go for these matches. Anyway, thanks everyone for sharing your experiences here.

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Hey Ganderite, for .22 how far out is your crony? and/or how far would you recommend for shooting crony brand with distance from muzzle specifically for .22?
 
Armourall said:
What weights work best? I've only ever used the cardboard box Standard so I'm curious. Thanks in advance!
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I think at one time I tried a few weights shot as groups consecutively to compare performance. I don't recall seeing any major gains on one weight vs another. But the main thing is to know that the next round will be a lot more like the last round you shot, than it would have been if you just shot unsorted ammo.

It sorted into something of a bell curve, with most of the samples in the middle weights and fewer samples of the more extreme high and low weights. But the extreme weights were way, way out there, with a surprisingly large extreme spread from lightest to heaviest.
 
DBeato said:
Hey Ganderite, for .22 how far out is your crony? and/or how far would you recommend for shooting crony brand with distance from muzzle specifically for .22?
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This test was at about 10 feet.

For a big pistol I use 15 feet and a big rifle I use 20 feet.

Muzzle blast can screw up results, although a 22 could probably be shot at 5 feet and be ok/
 
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