Below is some tentative information relating to the difficulty of finding good .22LR match ammo.
When it comes to getting a good lot of ammo it's a gamble. On average, most lots of non-entry level .22LR match ammo -- for example Lapua varieties such as Center X and Midas + as opposed to SK varieties -- will shoot similarly. That is to say the majority of CX shoots the same way. Some lots, of course, will be better and some worse. Shooters test to find the better ones and identify the ones that are disappointing.
To illustrate, in 2022 I had six different lots of Center X of which I had a brick each. Despite some variation in results from one range session to the next because of unidentical conditions and ammo variation within the lots, five of the six produced results that were close enough to make virtually the same. One lot stood out as clearly different. (See the table below.)
Note that the following 2022 100 yard results represent a relatively small sample size, with only 20 ten-shot groups (200 rounds) for each lot. Each lot is identified by the last three digits of the lot number.
The odds of finding the stand out, better lots don't seem to be good. In 2021 when I began collecting 100 yard results (see the table below), I had in quantity two different lots of Center X. CX lot 253 produced significantly better results than lot 061.
(I had tested these two and several other CX lots in late 2021 in cold and windy conditions and bought in quantity the two I hoped were best. The disparity between the two is an indictment of my testing, illustrating the dangers of testing inadequately and in poor conditions.)
Out of the eight lots of CX I tested in 2021 -2022, only one was what might be considered better than the others, and that was CX 253 (which except for a single brick I have remaining must be long gone from dealers shelves).
I have results from last shooting season (2023) for three newer CX lots manufactured in 2022. I haven't collated the data. Suffice it to say that two of the three were similar to the the majority of the 2022 CX results. The third was very disappointing. A friend who had these same lots texted me from his range to show his results. When I saw how poor his results were with the CX he just shot, I asked him if it was the same lot as the one I had that was poor. It was.
The bottom line is that most lots of match ammo are likely to give similar results, but some will be poor and perhaps one (or two) will be good. In Canada we don't get enough different lots of match ammo to have good chances of getting many really good ones.
