Good Day At The Range

Jboutfishn

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While the Safety & Instruction manual note Remington Thunderbolt ammo as "not recommended" the price of a 500 pack was to good to pass up. ($20)

I had a Luepold 2.5 X 9 scope not being used so I mounted it on my MP15-22, and off to the range. Sighting in was easy and I covered a 3 shot group with a quarter at 50 yards. This was with the "cheap ammo". I ran through 100 rounds without an issue. I have a brick of CCI Mini Mags so I tried some of the Hi $$ recommended ammo. All groups were twice as large. Hmmmmm.Looking for another deal on the cheap stuff, :rolleyes: thought I'd share.
 
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Interesting post, next time, shoot at least 10 rounds per target.
If the gun and ammo can print quarter size groups @50 yards, it can do it all day long.
Thats why I perfer to shoot at least 10 rounds per target if Im doing an accuracy check.
Interesting to hear that the Thunderbolt ammo did well accuracy wise. Thanks for the info.
 
While the Safety & Instruction manual note Remington Thunderbolt ammo as "not recommended" the price of a 500 pack was to good to pass up. ($20)

I had a Luepold 2.5 X 9 scope not being used so I mounted it on my MP15-22, and off to the range. Sighting in was easy and I covered a 3 shot group with a quarter at 50 yards. This was with the "cheap ammo". I ran through 100 rounds without an issue. I have a brick of CCI Mini Mags so I tried some of the Hi $$ recommended ammo. All groups were twice as large. Hmmmmm.Looking for another deal on the cheap stuff, :rolleyes: thought I'd share.

Don't know why S&W would recommend one not use Remington Thunderbolts in the 15-22. Perhaps there have been reports of problems? I have used Remington Thunderbolt .22 LR ammo for many years with good results. It has always been perfect in function and firing. Accuracy in my Ruger 77-22 has been very good... 10 shot groups at 50 yds. were always around 1.0 inches. With care at 100 yds. I've had groups average less than 2.0 inches for 10 shots. That is of course firing off a very good solid rest w/ sandbags, etc.

Three shot quarter sized groups at 50 yds. is very good, especially when shooting outdoors having to deal with the vagaries of wind, temperature, etc. I am giving a lot of thought to trying to find a good scope that will work well on my 15-22. I just haven't yet decided how I want to proceed.

Different types of ammo will give varying results on target. I've been firing the above mentioned Ruger 77-22 since 1983. One summer I spent many hours with that rifle and a large variety of .22 LR ammo. Some high dollar ammo gave very good results, which I expected. Some of my best 100 yd. targets were shot with... Winchester T-22's and Remington Thunderbolts. Until it go lost during one of our moves to a new pastoral appointment, I had a target shot that summer where that little Ruger put 5 rounds of Rem. Thunderbolts into 7/8 of a inch at 100 yds. using a V1-4x Weaver scope with the little 20mm objective lens.

Doubtless you will find that while high quality .22 LR ammo is more consistent, not uncommonly the results with selected lots of even bargain brand .22 LR ammo can often be remarkable. If and when .22 LR ammo availability and price return to a more normal level, you would likely find it very rewarding to gather up as broad a selection of ammo as possible and spend some time evaluating just which brands and bullet weights and styles your rifle prefers. Once you isolate two or three particular types, note the lot numbers and then go buy as much of those particular lots as you can afford. Use the very best ammo for more serious shooting such as matches and hunting. Use the less than stellar performing ammo for practice. JMHO. Sincerely. brucev.
 
Bruce:

The recommendations are several years old and came about from user reports while S&W was dealing with a design fault resulting in out of battery firings. There is no evidence that S&W actually ran tests on the various brands of ammo. The majority of the ammo in use today is not even mentioned in the manual.
 
All good feedback. My MP15-22 is a performance Center model, and the scope I mounted on it is a spare from my M70 416 Rem Mag. I used Leupold see through aluminum rings. When we have some still weather, I will go to work with the 10 shot groups to see what I can do. I have good days, bad days and days like today. Maybe I did not give the CCI Mini Mags a fair shot as I went to them after 200 rounds of 45ACP, working on trigger control.
 
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