It's all about the ammo--

H4831

H4831

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There have been several threads on here about how accurate are the low priced 22 cartridges. But here goes one more.
Myself, friends, grand sons and grand daughter, have done considerable testing on low cost 22 ammunition, with several high quality rifles, including, but not limited to, two Brno's, a new CZ, 2 diferent Winchester 69A rifles and a Weatherby Model XXll, all equipped with good scopes.
We have kept targets, all fired at 50 yards, and records. As far as I'm concerned, some concrete conclusions can be reached.

1) There is a great variation in the accuracy of the different brands. Five shot groups at 50 yards varried from brands A, B and C fairly regularily making less than half inch groups.
Brand J made about 2 inch groups at 50 yards and the others fell in between.

2) Every brand of ammunition performed the same in every rifle. This is what I feel is significant. Look at the targets shot with a certain brand of ammunition and every group will be very similar, regardless what rifle it was fired in.
I think this completely disproves the CGN myth that you have to see what your rifle "likes."
Good rifles shoot accurately with good ammunition and poorly with poor ammunition

3) There was virtually no difference in the quality of the shooting, regardless which one of us did the shooting, with good rests on a table.
Our grand daughter made the best over all group, but it would take more shooting by us all, to prove she was actually best.

4) Of the quality rifles I mentioned, one could not distinguish any one as being the most accurate!
Again, it would take a lot more shooting to prove, but I made the best group with an ancient Winchester 69A.
And I just sold it, have to pack it up tomorrow!!!!!!!!!
Here is a couple of sample targets. The one on the left is mine and the one on the right is Kamlooky's.
On the right target, right side centre, is the result of me giving Kamlooky a clip of Winchester Wild Cat, with him making a circle around the two inch group they made, before shooting another brand of five on the target.
On my left target, bottom left, is the result of five shorts, which all went high. Kamlooky loaded me up with shorts! Can't trust anybody.
The mark between the two bottom squares on the left target, is a glance from one fired at a target on the ground at 25.
22shooting001_zps1533ce7d.jpg
 
American Eagle did a find job in most we shot.
The hateful Winchester 555 also performed well.
Blazer made tight groups, but there seemed to be a foul
in a five shot group.
I had a few in my new CZ 452 that made the bolt stiff to close.
Not sure what this was all about.
My 69A don't seem to have taste buds for them either.
Winchester Wildcats kept us in good humor.
What a pile of crud those were.
 
Good, so the guns didn't make much difference, how did the cheap brands of ammo rank?

Your picture is a bit small to read all the scribbles. ;)
 
Left six go like this, H4831's shooting:

top left = Winchester 555.......... top right = A E ( American Eagle )

middle left = Imperial High Power.. middle right = A E ( American Eagle )

bottom left = Shorts ( Winchester ? ) bottom right = Blazer

Right six are Looky's shooting:

top left = Winchester 555 top right = PMC

middle left = American Eagle middle right = Winchester Wildcat

bottom left = Imperial High Power bottom right = not shot at yet... :)


The worst ammo there was the Winchester Wildcat.
As much as some folks don't care for the Winchester 555, it worked
well.
Most of my 22's group well with this stuff.
The American Eagle is great ammo.
Blazer I buy only for the cheapness of it.
Accuracy isn't that great and I really question the quality
of the manufacture's finess.
Some I think are fat and don't chamber that easily.
Need to figure this out.
Could be the bullets are a bit bigger in diameter causing
stiff bolt closing.
 
I have tested several different varieties of ammunition in my Anschutz 1408,my Anschutz 1907 Repeater, my Volquartsen, as well as a Remington 541S , and several CZ rifles. In every case, the difference in accuracy was significant, with the cheaper bulk ammunition often printing groups twice as large, or larger, than low to mid priced target loads. Most of my rifles do very well with SK Standard Plus, and the Volquartsem prefers RWS Championship Edition. Of the cheaper loads, American Eagle did reasonably well in most of the rifles, and the Winchester Wildcats were the worst of all of the loads tested.
 
Fiocchi SV has always been a good cheapie for me at around $30/500.
Also CCI SV is a decent standby. Going to try the CCI SS next time I do a serious range session.

I've always wondered why nobody makes a 42-45gr .22lr round. I know they make the SSS 60gr, but they require a different twist barrel. Something with just a little more BC travelling subsonic would make a killer round.

-Grant
 
My kind of science for sure.

I do have to point out, when I talk/type of ammo a rifle likes, it's usually a semi. My fussiest eating semi is an older Cooey 64. There is some ammo that it just won't cycle...

Neat comparison made though. As you've described, there is certainly a consistency in performance demonstrated.
 
There are always a few cases laying around at my club, left by slobs. Sometimes a live dud is left laying around, too. I check the make of these to satisfy my curiosity. So far every one of these has a big "W" on it.
I haven't tried all the brands lately in my .22, but so far the American Eagles are matching the results in this thread. Wish they'd pack 50, not 40, in the box. Wish far fewer manufacturers made CRAP ammo these days. I'll stick with AE for now.
 
My testing, which I plainly state is of the low priced ammunition only, has gone on for more than a year, with Looky joining in at least three times, plus considerable input from family members.
As of now, American Eagle are a hair better than either CCI Blazer, or the Winchester 333 or 555, depending on what box they come out of, but apparently the same hollow point cartridge.
I had some older, big boxes, of Winchester Expert, 36 grain hollow point, which shot the same and may be the same, as the newer Winchester 333 or 555.
But there are still so many to test. Almost all the testing so far has been with the high velocity type, while accurate 22 ammunition has always been associated with the standard, 1100 fps variety.
The older, but not old, IVI Imperial high velocity are among the mediocre type we can rule out, but well ahead of WildCat.
The high velocity Federal Lightning were close to the top. Looky had some standard velocity Federal that worked well for him. I still haven't been able to get the standard velocity CCI to test.
 
Here's a target of that same day shooting with H4831.
This is quite common with the Blazer ammo.
Setting up a nice group and shazzam.......flier....



Some of the pick up sticks we were shooting.
By far my bestest is the CZ452.
I left the little gal at home, should of brought her.
The 69A which is the next bestest to play with.... :)

 
When at gun shows, I look for Russian 22lr target ammo. I am shooting some today in my BSA No 2. Laquered steel cases, very accurate stuff.
Why would the ammo companies spend time on making cheap 22 ammo shoot?
I used to shoot different brands in a Walther bolt action, very accurate rifle, to see what was best and I found out the hyper velocities terrible for accuracy, and Remington Target very accurate indeed as also anything out of Europe.
I found that all brands of 22 magnum ammo to be horrible for accuracy
 
H4831 I have found Blazer to be a little toughter to chamber in all my bolts guns and find I often get 1 or 2 fliers in each group. My old FV-SR shot 1 tiny cloverleaf group with Blazer while most groups were tight 3 or 4 shots with 1 or 2 fliers. You can feel a little resistance as the last little bit of the round chambers that I do not notice with any other brand. For cheap plinking its great stuff but for accuracy its out. Now if one of my local shops would come to their senses and bring in CCI SV...
 
supernova said:
H4831 I have found Blazer to be a little toughter to chamber in all my bolts guns and find I often get 1 or 2 fliers in each group. My old FV-SR shot 1 tiny cloverleaf group with Blazer while most groups were tight 3 or 4 shots with 1 or 2 fliers. You can feel a little resistance as the last little bit of the round chambers that I do not notice with any other brand. For cheap plinking its great stuff but for accuracy its out. Now if one of my local shops would come to their senses and bring in CCI SV...
Click to expand...

You and Looky are likely right on the flyer bit. I often got a flyer, also, but I kept blaming myself.
When my Blazers are gone I won't buy anymore, anyway, because I have now found there are better ones out there.
 
Have you determined where in the shot string the flyer(s) occur and second if they do occur with the frequency stated are the groups within the expectation for the $$ of the ammo? If they are, then you've found the Grail !:)
If not then you need to find a Grail of a rarer metal!
I think for the average plinker the groups are good. cheers!
 
I have the better part of a case of Blazer ammo that was manufactured soon after this ammo was released by CCI.
It does not display the "flyer" tendency mentioned on here by Looky and others.

For "relatively" inexpensive ammo, I like Lapua Super Club, [NLA], RWS target rifle,
Eley sport or practice.

For the "cheapy" stuff it is hard to beat AE, Winchester 555 or 333.

Believe it or not, I have about 4 bricks of PMC Zapper HV that was made before they started copper plating it.
This stuff is so accurate in one of my 541 T rifles, that I won a 100 meter match with it.
It is accurate in every rifle I have tried. Go figure, HV stuff yet!!

Eagleye.
 
Excellent work on the testing. About 6 months back I did some testing from low grade up to eley match grade ammo and got some pretty good results. I did all my testing in a CIL 190 (Anschutz match 64 action) with a 25moa rail and bushnell elite 4200 2.5-10x40. A short while after that a buddy of mine bought a savage .22 with laminated stock and stainless spiral fluted barrel. We did the exact same testing at the same range under very similar conditions and our guns definitely have a different appetite for ammo. For example the winchester bulk looked like I was throwing it at the target and out of his savage were grouping 3/4-1". There were some that both rifles liked, but for almost 1/2 of the 15 or 16 tested the results were quite different. I too had good results with Blazers (aside from the occasional flyer) and I'll definitely continue to use them for plinking but the flyers (1in20 ish for me) would definitely keep me from using them in a competition.
 
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