Over the course of the last year with the unavailability of lots of different types of ammo especially .22 LR I decided i had to open my door up to some new brands. Ive been very concentrated on shooting Rimfires because of their inexpensive nature and overall cheap fun.
I live in a northern state in which spring summer and fall is the only time to shoot outdoors comfortably. This past winter i spent scrounging the depths of the earth to find ammo to stockpile especially .22 LR. I Found Alot and have spent the better part of the summer studying them.
Here's the list which consists of mostly bulk packs from your large retail stores.
1. Federal 525 bulk pack
2. Federal automatch 325
3. Remington 225 golden bullet
4. Winchester 555 White box bulk
5. Winchester M-22 1000 round
6. CCI Tactical 375 bulk pack
Most of us i believe know the technical data associated with these brands so i won't get into it. I really wanted to include blazer but i couldn't get my hands on enough of it.
Let me start off by saying im an average guy and an average shooter. I really don't want to get into any huge debates about ammo, my guns, or my skills.
For my little test i used my two favorite rifles, S&W MP 15-22 and a Ruger 10-22. Both of these rifles are equipped with TRS-25 red dots. I decided to us these two cause i feel they are the most popular and amongst the smoothest running .22 semi-auto rifles out there.
The results were almost identical for both rifles so i will just share the 15-22s results.
I decided to just shoot a half a brick through each gun for function and dirtyness first. If i dont like a way a particular ammo ran i would not use it for accuracy testing. Both rifles were clean to start. The results were as follows.
1. Federal 525 bulk pack
very clean and 2 duds
2. Federal automatch 325
very clean. About 6 FTEs
3. Remington 225 golden bullet
Dirty and a wide variation of different sounds when fired.
4. Winchester 555 White box bulk
very dirty and a few jams and duds actually gummed up the barrel up so bad i couldn't use a bore snake.
5. Winchester M-22 1000 round
Dirty and broken bullets in
bottom of the box.
6. CCI Tactical 375 bulk pack
very clean and 3 FTFs in ruger.
Based on my results this far i decided only 3 would make it to accuracy testing. They are....
Federal bulk pack
Federal Automatch
CCI Tactical
All shots were fired at my backyard range at 65ft with me laying prone and the grip of the gun rested.
I started with federal automatch. I wasn't impressed at all with the results. I adjusted the red dot a couple clicks until i hit center target then I ran 2 magazines.
1 more adjustment and then another 25 rounds
Another adjustment and another 25 rounds
At this point i was fed up with the amount of fliers so it was on to the next. I will be selling my remaining 9 boxes of this on here so keep an eye out if your interested. It just doesn't work in my two rifles.
Next was the Federal value pack. I ran one magazine and the results were similar to the automatch. Previous to this year i had fairly good results with this ammo. Not sure what happened just couldn't get any consistency no matter how much i adjusted.
Finally was the CCI Tactical. I was surprised after every 3-4 shots when i looked through my binoculars and saw how well it was hitting compared to the others.
After 1 adjustment
In conclusion I've always known CCI was the best and now i think im going to shoot it exclusively. Its clean, accurate, and consistent and worth every extra penny.
Thanks for reading and feel free to share your thoughts.