Copper Coated .22 vs Bare Lead

[Shootist00]

I have had great luck with these Aguila "Super Extra." Full power with a strange smell. Just got another case a couple hours ago. Joe

Aguila 22 Long Rifle Ammunition 38 Grain Copper Plated Hollow Point - 1B220335

Aguila 22 Long Rifle Ammunition 38 Grain Copper Plated Hollow Point - 1B220335 ammo for sale at TargetSportsUSA.com. Enjoy free shipping on bulk 22LR|^||^|

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I've been shooting the Aguila 38gr HP bought in bulk, 2K cases, 4 500 round boxes, for over 2 years in all my 22LR firearms. They work fine except for my 50+ year old Win 69A bolt action rifle. Very accurate out of that rifle but a bitch to eject. Probably the bolt extractor lugs.

 

[MTC(SS)Ret]

in some cases the plating is a must for reliable function.
In all cases, a new 22 is a lot of work.
You will need to gather samples of any and all ammo you can find, and see what runs in it.in the case of a recent acquisition, it's best so far is Aguilla HV followed by CCI blazer as a close second.
Winchesters hyper velocity seems to win the enhanced performance category.
of course, the offerings of Lapua, SK and Eley will be the next test string. but for most casual applications... she's a cheap date. and that's a bonus

I've also had good luck with the Aguila HV in pistols and rifles. Not quite as accurate as stuff like SK, Eley, etc but for less than half the price I agree it's a bonus.

 

[Eddie Southgate]

Good lube and bullet fit makes lead as clean shooting as copper washed.

 

[pharmer]

......... Very accurate out of that rifle but a bitch to eject. Probably the bolt extractor lugs.

This 34-1 has charge holes that cartridges fall into and fully seat. Ejection after a few cylinderfuls is impossible without rapping on the rod. I do believe the pressure is higher than normal causing them to stick. $.02. Joe

 

[rockquarry]

This 34-1 has charge holes that cartridges fall into and fully seat. Ejection after a few cylinderfuls is impossible without rapping on the rod. I do believe the pressure is higher than normal causing them to stick. $.02. Joe

Not high pressure ammo, but tight cylinder chambers, a common problem with many S&W .22s. Not all ammos will do this, but most will. You can have the cylinder chambers reamed out or do it yourself. I've never bothered but perhaps I should.

 

[crasig]

Is the copper coated .22 ammo less likely to leave lead in the barrel than uncoated rounds?

It was my understanding - the above is why it was made, I use it whenever possible, with good results. Especially the "Stinger Hollow Points"

 

[GnarlsR2]

It was my understanding - the above is why it was made, I use it whenever possible, with good results. Especially the "Stinger Hollow Points"

Since the coefficient of friction of lead is much higher than copper, a copper plated bullet should move faster and deposit less material in the barrel, right?

 

[rockquarry]

Since the coefficient of friction of lead is much higher than copper, a copper plated bullet should move faster and deposit less material in the barrel, right?

Not necessarily. Seems like bore dimensions, bore uniformity, lack of machine marks, and overall smoothness would be greater contributing factors.

 

[GBray]

I shoot over a dozen 22s regularly, most suppressed these days. Velocity is the most important issue as to accuracy and it varies greatly by barrel length. My studies and others have shown that 1/3 of the time, the cheapest bulk ammo will provide smaller groups than match ammo, point is every gun is different and you must find the velocity/weight combo that comes out of your gun and choose the ammo that works best for that gun, regardless of price or brand.

In handguns velocity is always low. In every gun if the bullet starts supersonic and then falls subsonic, there is a possibility of yaw and accuracy dies. So you want the bullet to be either supersonic or subsonic from your gun to the target.

In all handguns we have found the Stinger the most accurate bar none. I think it is because of higher velocity which is consistent in that round. The cost twice as much but worth it in my view.

I am a CCI fan and buy lots of their mini mag or highest velocity ammo. I buy the suppressor rated slow stuff too, for shooting rats and such. It is just fine.

For general shooting and hunting my choice is the Remington Golden Bullet a known standard for half a century.

As a CCW instructor going back 29 years, I bought lots of cheap bulk ammo and find for shooting targets, it really does not matter. I cannot tell that copper coated helps or not. Cleaning lead out of handguns is not a big deal, it is trivial. And shooting 25 yards and under you simply do not see much difference in accuracy. With target guns you may. But not any regular handgun and we have a dozen or so.

At to rifles. If you want to make hits at 100 yards on critters, the Stinger is once again my choice. A second is the Remington Wasp I think, velocity matters more than anything in rifles shooting out to 100 yards. At 25 yards, it really does not matter, shoot the cheap stuff. In rifles the yaw is only a problem with low velocity ammo. It should start at 1.250 fps - 1.600 or so for Stingers and other high velocity ammo and stay about subsonic out to your target. Some of the brands may start supersonic and then drop shortly after they leave the barrel, and cause accuracy issues. But that is rare. We all have old 22s that will shoot anything at any distance pretty well and ammo does not matter much. Again, every gun is different. When barrels are longer as in older rifles, they all tend to stabilize the bullets well and accuracy is just fine.

Bottom line. It only matters much in shorter barrels, handguns. Stingers and other high velocity rounds will do better in short barrels. Plating does not matter in my opinion. And brand and cost is meaningless, because every gun is different. My 2 cents.

I do not know the elevation where you do most of you shooting. Where I shoot, elevation ~200 ft MSL and all standard velocity ammo is subsonic. I test standard velocity first for accuracy and velocity consistency, and then if necessary test suppressor. I rarely, if ever, find suppressor specific ammo at the same or lower price than standard velocity.

 

[jkingrph]

At .22LR velocities it does not matter much. First correct me if I am wrong, but the copper washed bullets still have a lube applied. If you use a quality bullet that is well lubed there should be no problem. Years ago when in college, so I could afford to shoot my 30-06 I got a mold and starter casting .30 cal bullets. I kept velocities low in the 1200-1500 fps range, used a good lubricant in the grease groove, My bullet was a 200 gr with one grease groove. some smaller bullets had 6-8 grease grooves. I never had any problems with leading. Now another thing my bullets had about a 10% tin content so were much harder than .22LR bullets. More recently I have cast for and loaded black powder loads for a 45-70. THe bullets are much softer with much less tin, a couple of grease grooves and I use a grease wad, a disk of grease under the bullet with a card wad between the powder and that grease wad, to keep black powder fouling soft and help prevent leading, again no leading.
I think for leading you have to have enough heat both from burning powder and friction between the bullet and barrel. In a .22lr you usually do not have that, maybe in some of the newer ultra high velocity loads, but I have never tried those,

I have been using a lot of GECO ammo lately, the version labeled optimum for bolt action rifles. It has a plain lead bullet with a slick, greasy feeling lube.

 

[gunbarrel]

Back in the 90's, NRA bullseye pistol shooters loved Remington blue label std. velocity ammo. Not only was it accurate and precise, but because QC was excellent, and cycled very well in High Standard target pistols with tight chambers.

HV ammo with copper-washed bullets (Winchester was very popular among plinkers) were relegated to hunting and informal shooting (i.e. soda and beer cans

Then, someone started importing "Hansen" brand .22 LR SV ammo from obscure Yugoslavia. To everyone's amazement, this CHEAP ammo shot like a house afire in our target guns, although the powder was filthy and left your hands black after a match. This went on for a few short years, and then they stopped importing it. Year later I found out that it was made by none other than Prvi Partizan.

.22's are funny. In the end, it all depends with what your gun likes; sometimes it shoots the best groups with the cheapest, bulk .22 HV Wally World ammo. BTW, as an aside, in some Latinamerican countries where some shooting is allowed, the .22 LR calber (which is a mouthful in English to say it in Spanish) are called *balita U," or "little U" bullets. This goes back to the letter "U" (for "Union Metallic" which merged with Remington many moons ago) imprinted on the bottom of the casing.

Serious Bench Rest rifle shooters will talk to a supplier and get a brick of different lots of the same brand ammo. And when they find a lot that shoots the best, they'll buy a case of 5,000.

One more thing. Many new shooters use the words accuracy when they mean "precision." There is a difference. HTH.

 

[bph9]

Here is something interesting I found out last week.

Remington Thunderbird ammo has a bad reputation for unreliability but I found out something good about it. Although Remington is so oversize it will not even fit into my Shilen match barrel it fits like a glove into my Ruger 10/22 with its standard size chamber. I shot the Remington next to Federal Automatch which is deliberately made undersize because Federal knows the average guy does not often clean his gun enough which can result in jams. Due to the Federal ammo being undersize the accuracy looked like I used a shotgun on the target but the oversize Remington ammo lined the bullet up with the bore and I was amazed at the accuracy. Now do not misunderstand me the Remington ammo often misfires and has many undersize charges resulting in bloopers and muffled shots. But when the Remington ammo actually goes off I got very good groups with it. I guess I can use reliable Federal Automatch and get lousy accuracy or use unreliable Remington ammo and get good accuracy. I must pick my poison and learn to live with it.

 

[ColoCoug]

Get rid of How? Just shoot it. Why would you even think of getting rid of perfectly good 22LR ammo. I can guaranty all of it can shoot better, be more accurate, than you can.

Yep! I have about 1600 rounds of .22 LR that came from a friend's estate. It's all at least 30 years old. It's mostly "American Eagle" brand which I've never heard of, but I will certainly use it and enjoy it. It's probably all a lot more accurate than my eyes and hands are.

 

[GnarlsR2]

Back in the 90's, NRA bullseye pistol shooters loved Remington blue label std. velocity ammo. Not only was it accurate and precise, but because QC was excellent, and cycled very well in High Standard target pistols with tight chambers.

HV ammo with copper-washed bullets (Winchester was very popular among plinkers) were relegated to hunting and informal shooting (i.e. soda and beer cans

Then, someone started importing "Hansen" brand .22 LR SV ammo from obscure Yugoslavia. To everyone's amazement, this CHEAP ammo shot like a house afire in our target guns, although the powder was filthy and left your hands black after a match. This went on for a few short years, and then they stopped importing it. Year later I found out that it was made by none other than Prvi Partizan.

.22's are funny. In the end, it all depends with what your gun likes; sometimes it shoots the best groups with the cheapest, bulk .22 HV Wally World ammo. BTW, as an aside, in some Latinamerican countries where some shooting is allowed, the .22 LR calber (which is a mouthful in English to say it in Spanish) are called *balita U," or "little U" bullets. This goes back to the letter "U" (for "Union Metallic" which merged with Remington many moons ago) imprinted on the bottom of the casing.

Serious Bench Rest rifle shooters will talk to a supplier and get a brick of different lots of the same brand ammo. And when they find a lot that shoots the best, they'll buy a case of 5,000.

One more thing. Many new shooters use the words accuracy when they mean "precision." There is a difference. HTH.

View attachment 783812View attachment 783813

gunbarrel,

Lots of great info!!

I love the graphic explanation!

Thank you.

 

[bph9]

At .22LR velocities it does not matter much. First correct me if I am wrong, but the copper washed bullets still have a lube applied. If you use a quality bullet that is well lubed there should be no problem. Years ago when in college, so I could afford to shoot my 30-06 I got a mold and starter casting .30 cal bullets. I kept velocities low in the 1200-1500 fps range, used a good lubricant in the grease groove, My bullet was a 200 gr with one grease groove. some smaller bullets had 6-8 grease grooves. I never had any problems with leading. Now another thing my bullets had about a 10% tin content so were much harder than .22LR bullets. More recently I have cast for and loaded black powder loads for a 45-70. THe bullets are much softer with much less tin, a couple of grease grooves and I use a grease wad, a disk of grease under the bullet with a card wad between the powder and that grease wad, to keep black powder fouling soft and help prevent leading, again no leading.
I think for leading you have to have enough heat both from burning powder and friction between the bullet and barrel. In a .22lr you usually do not have that, maybe in some of the newer ultra high velocity loads, but I have never tried those,

I have been using a lot of GECO ammo lately, the version labeled optimum for bolt action rifles. It has a plain lead bullet with a slick, greasy feeling lube.

Leading is caused by shooting an undersized bullet. It's often not the base of the bullet that causes the leading but the gas escaping around the circumference of the undersize bullet as it travels down the bore of the barrel.

Disregard the crap you read by no nothing gun writers about using a bullet that is bore size or 1 thousandth over, rather shoot the biggest oversize lead bullet you can lay your hands on assuming that the cartridge will still fit into the chamber. No barrel is of uniform diameter, they do not exist, as all barrels have loose and tight spots, even hand lapped custom barrels. Some factory barrels are so bad you can even feel the loose and tight spots by pushing an oversize cotton dry patch down the bore with your cleaning rod.

Years ago I bought a .44 magnum and got leading so bad you could not see the rifling after a few shots. I was lucky my revolver did not blow sky high. I tried everything until I observed that factory lead ammo which is almost pure soft lead with only about 3% antimony added to it gave me almost zero leading. So what was wrong with my hardcast handloads? It was the fact that the bullets were slightly undersize in relation to the bore diameter and short of having an expensive custom made oversize bullet mold made I quit using fast burning pistol powder like Bullseye and Unique and went to a slower burning powder which included both 2400 and 4227 which gave me cooler burning because it does not burn so quickly and I was able to use more powder creating enough pressure to obturate the lead bullet. The result with my original hard cast bullets (still the same diameter) resulted in very little leading,. In other words the hard cast bullet was expanding in diameter on firing and the bigger powder charge and cooler burning powder did the trick.

I also noticed that when shooting cast bullets with gas checks which prevented the base from being distorted the gas check did not prevent leading in the .44 magnum at all because the bullet was undersize and the powder used was fast burning Bullseye.

In rifles I got no increase in leading by not using gas checks when the bullet was oversize in relation to the rifle's bore but the gas check did give me better accuracy because it prevented the base of the lead bullet from being distorted by burning powder. In pistols with their lower powder charges as compared to rifles gas checks were never necessary and I did try them in the .44 magnum when I was having so much trouble with leading and the gas checks did nothing to prevent the leading. As far as accuracy I never noticed any increase in accuracy when using gas checks which was quite the opposite of using them in rifle bullets.

I forgot to mention I generally size my cast bullets 3 thousandths oversize of bore.

By the way I shot my first cast lead bullet handload in 1968 out of a Browning High Power because even back then jacketed bullets were so much more expensive to use than a cast lead bullet. And a properly made cast bullet will shoot every bit as accurate as a jacketed bullet. If they did not NRA Bullseye competition shooters would never have used them for decades and long before any of us now living were even born.

 

[GnarlsR2]

Leading is caused by shooting an undersized bullet. It's often not the base of the bullet that causes the leading but the gas escaping around the circumference of the undersize bullet as it travels down the bore of the barrel.

Disregard the crap you read by no nothing gun writers about using a bullet that is bore size or 1 thousandth over, rather shoot the biggest oversize lead bullet you can lay your hands on assuming that the cartridge will still fit into the chamber. No barrel is of uniform diameter, they do not exist, as all barrels have loose and tight spots, even hand lapped custom barrels. Some factory barrels are so bad you can even feel the loose and tight spots by pushing an oversize cotton dry patch down the bore with your cleaning rod.

Years ago I bought a .44 magnum and got leading so bad you could not see the rifling after a few shots. I was lucky my revolver did not blow sky high. I tried everything until I observed that factory lead ammo which is almost pure soft lead with only about 3% antimony added to it gave me almost zero leading. So what was wrong with my hardcast handloads? It was the fact that the bullets were slightly undersize in relation to the bore diameter and short of having an expensive custom made oversize bullet mold made I quit using fast burning pistol powder like Bullseye and Unique and went to a slower burning powder which included both 2400 and 4227 which gave me cooler burning because it does not burn so quickly and I was able to use more powder creating enough pressure to obturate the lead bullet. The result with my original hard cast bullets (still the same diameter) resulted in very little leading,. In other words the hard cast bullet was expanding in diameter on firing and the bigger powder charge and cooler burning powder did the trick.

I also noticed that when shooting cast bullets with gas checks which prevented the base from being distorted the gas check did not prevent leading in the .44 magnum at all because the bullet was undersize and the powder used was fast burning Bullseye.

In rifles I got no increase in leading by not using gas checks when the bullet was oversize in relation to the rifle's bore but the gas check did give me better accuracy because it prevented the base of the lead bullet from being distorted by burning powder. In pistols with their lower powder charges as compared to rifles gas checks were never necessary and I did try them in the .44 magnum when I was having so much trouble with leading and the gas checks did nothing to prevent the leading. As far as accuracy I never noticed any increase in accuracy when using gas checks which was quite the opposite of using them in rifle bullets.

By the way I shot my first cast lead bullet handload in 1968 out of a Browning High Power because even back then jacketed bullets were so much more expensive to use than a cast lead bullet. And a properly made cast bullet will shoot every bit as accurate as a jacketed bullet. If they did not NRA Bullseye competition shooters would never have used them for decades and long before any of us now living were even born.

Wow... very interesting information.

Thank you.

I did have to Google "obturate".

[h4][/h4]

 

[GnarlsR2]

It's interesting that the Ruger Mark IV has a twist rate of 1:16" RH.

 

[venomballistics]

I've also had good luck with the Aguila HV in pistols and rifles. Not quite as accurate as stuff like SK, Eley, etc but for less than half the price I agree it's a bonus.

exactly ... and that's why it's currently my "good Nuff Stuff" and will likely remain in that role even after a super premium offering should emerge to be significantly superior.
The point is to have fun with it and enjoy it.
Quite frankly, I would be shocked if any of them surpassed my 223 handloads, but none the less, the work will be done

 

[Squib_Load]

Consider fire lapping with heavy subsonic rounds.

 

[GBray]

Since the coefficient of friction of lead is much higher than copper, a copper plated bullet should move faster and deposit less material in the barrel, right?

I believe the copper plating is thinner than the land/groove depth, which should mean the copper plating is cut and most likely scrubbed from the bullet early in its trip down the barrel.