IBI CZ 455 Barrel - What Ammo

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fljp2002

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Fellows

Have on order a IBI barrel for my CZ 455.

Now with the ammo shortages these days, I am looking at sites that have various ammo avail but before I pull the credit card out, I am wondering if the collective have any experience/knowledge on Prefered ammo In IBI barrel.

Thanks
 
fljp2002 said:
Fellows

Have on order a IBI barrel for my CZ 455.

Now with the ammo shortages these days, I am looking at sites that have various ammo avail but before I pull the credit card out, I am wondering if the collective have any experience/knowledge on Prefered ammo In IBI barrel.

Thanks
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Have you communicated with IBI directly yet and see what their rimfire chamber was designed around? I'd suggest that be your first step to narrow your options then start LOT testing that brand ammo.

My Lilja barrel was deigned around the Eley EPS ammo. I decided to LOT test the Remington/Eley Match ammo and found a LOT that my barrel like and bought up 10K of that. Now I have 9K left because I was testing headspace and barrel tuner. I settled on a headspaced to 0.040" and no barrel tuner.
 
IBI barrels do well with SK ammo but every barrel is different.

Mine particularly likes SK rifle match but it’s pretty scarce right now.
 
The question of what will this barrel shoot well can't be answered by suggesting a particular kind of .22LR ammo.

No make or variety of .22LR ammo shoots the same out of a good barrel. Here "make" refers to the manufacturer, such as Eley, Lapua, or SK. "Variety" refers to the name on the box -- e.g. Tenex (Eley) or Center X (Lapua), or SK Rifle Match (SK).

All match ammo is made in batches called lots. Lots can vary in how they perform. Some will be above average, some below, and even those between will not all be indistinguishable from each other.
 
The following is made as food for thought, not as a prescription of what to do.

When really serious about getting the best performance possible, it might be a good idea to consider the availability of good ammo when deciding whether to chamber for a particular make of ammo. Do you chose the ease of getting a certain chamber or the availability of good ammo?

To illustrate with an example, at this time according to many anecdotal reports, it seems Eley isn't currently producing ammo that's always up to standards. In addition to reports on BR forums that Eley "isn't as good as it's been in the past" kind of thing, there's this very recent report by a UK shooting club's "chief armorer" posted in RFC
[QUOTE="Discontinued]
Many British small-bore clubs returned large batches of Eley due to QC issues, and my club are thinking of doing the same, we get around 1-2 duds a box with Eley club

As chief armorer for my club we have also decided to ditch Eley when our club armoury runs out, as it is killing it for our newcomers, I can see the light going out of their eyes when they get 2 duds in a row. Although it does teach good range discipline, waiting 20 seconds before opening the bolt, (in case of a hang fire)

Our club has gotten so fed up with Eley, they kindly asked me to find a reasonably priced replacement, Which is why I settled on RWS Target rifle, SK is **** good ammo but I noticed at 50 yards the odd flyer in every box RWS just doesn't do that,. The only Eley I would bother with is Tennex and at £12:50 a box its not too bad for low round count shooting like prone or 3p
[/QUOTE]
See post #18 here h ttps://www.rimfirecentral.com/threads/rws-target-rifle-chrono-data.1252198/#post-12752751

For anyone wondering, according to experienced BR shooters posting on BR forums, Lapua is providing more top performing lots of ammo than Eley. Late last fall, for example, it was reported that 18 of the top 20 shooters were using Lapua, two Eley, at the IR 50/50 Indoor Nationals in the US. For further details, see post #1 here h ttp://benchrest.com/showthread.php?104498-Ammo&

At the same time, it's worth noting that many ammo brand-specific chambers are in fact also able to shoot other brands of ammo well.

In any event, it's also important to remember that choosing an ammo-specific chamber doesn't mean that all ammo of that brand will shoot well. Ammo selection for best performance will still involve comparing how different lots shoot. An Eley chamber doesn't make all lots of Eley shoot well, nor does a Lapua chamber do this for Lapua ammos.
 
I ran an ibi on a CZ for a while, it shot sk standard (yellow) and target (orange) the best for me. After 100 yards, the lapua seemed to be a bit more consistent

My rifle had a, 52D? chamber (kinda gibberish to me), in a way it was a pain, as it wouldn’t eject many lower end brands of ammo. When my kid got behind it, it made for quite expensive shooting lol.
 
Decker9 said:
My rifle had a, 52D? chamber (kinda gibberish to me), in a way it was a pain, as it wouldn’t eject many lower end brands of ammo. When my kid got behind it, it made for quite expensive shooting lol.
Click to expand...

Many different chamberings have been developed outside of either CIP or SAAMI specifications. (CIP specs are used by most European manufacturers, while SAAMI is used by most North American factory made firearms.)

Your chamber, as horseman2 notes, is the Win 52 D chamber, which has a very short chamber length. This means that when chambered the bullets of .22LR cartridges engage the rifling more than in other chambers. This is what may contribute to extraction difficulty.

CIP and SAAMI ammunition specifications both require a maximum casing length of 15.57mm or 0.6129". More inexpensive .22LR ammo case length will often be at the extreme dimensions allowed by specs because they are manufactured to tolerances that aren't as "tight" as those used in .22LR match ammo production. In other words, less expensive, non-match .22LR ammo will experience more difficulty in extraction than match ammos.

Below are the reamer specifications for some .22LR chambers. Note that there is a range of chamber lengths and diameters and that the shortest or tightest isn't necessarily associated with producing the best accuracy. As horseman says, discuss the options with the barrel manufacturer.

In any case, regardless of which match chamber choice is made, what is most important when it comes to accuracy will be ammo selection by means of testing different lots.

 
horseman2 said:
Can the chamber not be cut for a specific ammo . . . Eley Match is what my Lilja is cut to in the Remington 40XB.
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I suppose "cut for a specific ammo" is somewhat ambiguous, what does that really mean? The size of the case must be within SAAMI or CIP standards, so you're talking about splitting hairs as far as dimensions go. How tight the fit is around the case, chamber taper or straight wall, leade angle are elements that don't necessarily translate to a specific ammo. What is more varied among brands, even lots for that matter, is the width of the driving band on the bullet. Thusly, it is not so much a matter of the reamer type used, but how deep the gunsmith cuts the chamber with respect to the amount of bullet engraving that will result. A chamber cut x.###" deep will engrave brand A 0.###" and brand B 0.###". Heavy engraving is considered ideal for benchrest rifles, while being undesirable in hunting rifles given the need to extract unfired rounds. If a chamber is cut to engrave a certain brand a certain amount (within the tolerance of lot variance), does that preclude a different brand from performing well in this chamber if it engraves more (or less) than the setup brand?
 
A balance for me was federal auto match. it gave me 5 shot groups typically around 1.5” at 100 and was one of the few types that didn’t give me extraction issues. Running. a CZ 457 with the IBI. I didn’t bother SK or lapua because at the time it wasn’t available and my local shop had a case of the auto match i snagged.
 
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