What do those comparisons ultimately show?
Oh, oh, oh!! Pick me! Pick me! They show what that rifle, with those lots of ammo, under the atmospheric conditions of the day (indoors) were capable of at that moment in time. They offer very little in transferable data towards anyone else's rifle, even if they were able to acquire the same lots of ammo. The testers stated no effort was made to tune the rifle for any of the tested ammo, thereby invalidating some poorer results generated with "high quality/expensive" ammo. A yet untested variable for those is tuning, results may have been able to have been significantly improved. One can therefore infer (and confirm through their own testing), that cost of ammo can, at times, have little bearing on the results generated, particularly if one is making no effort to use a tuner.
I've shot nearly every variety of the highest end match ammo, and several lots of each. I've never come across a lot/variety yet that has never produced a group or a few in excess of 1/2" at 50 yards, over the course of shooting the brick or two that I bought of that ammo. I can confidently state that good lots of SK ammo, for a mid-level price, will produce the majority of their groups sub 1/2", and my best luck has been with Biathlon Sport for the last two lots of it I've received. If 20 groups in a row sub 1/2" (none of them in the 0.4's) aren't considered "consistent", then I have lost my patience for dealing with pedants. Ehh... not trolling for an argument here, and no, not every single group of SK Biathlon I've ever shot has been sub 1/2", those couple outliers don't disqualify it from being considered "consistent", though.
Also with another rifle, pencil barreled Walther KKJ-T, 10 in a row sub 1/2"
First off I want to say 1/2” is not a sure thing. Even with a good gun,ammo,rest combination. I’ve shot lots of small groups but 5-5rd groups on same target takes a lot of consistency. If you or the gun are not up to it ammo might not make that much difference.
Just reread this sounds kind of negative. It can and in fact is, lots of fun to ring out all you can with what you have. Good luck
5X5 1/2" at 50 yards is easy. So easy to shoot, it is boring. The challenge is not in the execution of the shooting performance, but in getting the rifle/ammo up to the task. A key component of rimfire accuracy is appropriate use of a tuner. I shake my head every time I attempt to shoot a naked barrel rifle for accuracy anymore these days. To further complicate matters, I have little faith in the quality of factory made barrels (as even a couple Anschütz made barrels I've had were not satisfactory). I see far too many people falsely place blame upon themselves, while lacking the technical know-how to determine it is actually the rifle (barrel) at fault. Or, they are simply not versed in testing a wide variety of ammo and utilizing tricks such as shimming/pressure bedding the barrel to get it to perform well without a tuner.
Here is 40 in a row sub 1/2", with 3 varieties of ammo, and two lots of one variety.
Here's another 20 in a row
19 in a row (different rifle)
1/2" ain't no thang.
Best cheap ammo I've found is BBM High Velocity, made by RWS (and presumably just rebranded RWS Semi-Auto).
There's 38/40 groups sub 1/2" at 50 yards for $4.99/box/50. I challenge everyone to produce a better performance-cost ratio. Of course, YMMV with this ammo. I have a high quality Lilja barrel and use a tuner, you might have a good barrel but if it ain't tuned, who knows if it'll shoot this ammo naked.
. Will Center X and the like do better . Yes . But , I think it's unfair to suggest that CCI SV simply can't do it because it clearly can ( in the right rifle ) .
