First time out

[UK15-22]

Managed to get out with the rifle this afternoon. Went to a local farm that i shoot on that has a good natural range and backstop. Its around 85 yards long.

I only have 2 brands of ammunition at the moment both subsonic hollow points. RWS and winchester super x.

The weather isn't good today. Its wet and windy. I would have estimated winds at 10-12 mph. Local forecast says 18.

Any way, i only fired around 50 rounds of each brand. The RWS would eject spent case and load new round but every now and then didnt push the bolt back enough to cock the hammer. winchester cycled and fired all rounds but still wasnt pushing the bolt far enough back to hold the bolt back after the last round, however it was cocking the hammer and re setting the trigger.

So, on to the shooting. I put a NCstar mk III 3-9x42 (i know its cheap but its around £1200 for an ACOG or £500 for an EOTech over here!) on the rifle and spent a few rounds dialing in. Then i fired 20 rounds at 1 second intervals. Discounting a few wild shots i look to have got a 3.5" spread @ 85 yards.

Not a bad little shooter i think. I will buy a couple more brands of ammo and try and get a nice day to shoot then report again.

Thanks for reading
- Leigh

 

[CrazyFingers]

Avoid subsonic ammunition. Stick with the recommended ammunition on the list in your owner's manual.

 

[Blackbeard]

UK!

Here's an excerpt from the S&W Owner's Manual:

Through our testing, Smith & Wesson has also found that there are several brands and types of .22LR ammunition that do not perform consistently or reliably. Consequently, Smith & Wesson
DOES NOT RECOMMEND that the following brands or types of
.22LR ammunition be used in your M&P15-22 rifle:

• Remington Golden Bullet • Remington Thunderbolt
• Remington Target 22 • Winchester Wildcat
• Any and all sub-sonic brands and types

FYI, I use the Win 555 Bulk Pack, 36gr HP, 1280 FPS. They work great and load every time!

Question: Before you fired your new Rifle, did you give it a thorough cleaning, to get all of the Factory Gunk out of the Barrel, and off of the Bolt?

Hope this info helps!

Cheers!

BB

 

[UK15-22]

Hi
Thanks for the replies.

Blackbeard, yes the rifle was cleaned before use.

I read the manual when i first picked up my rifle yesterday. Unfortunately the only ammunition i have at this time is subsonic hollow points as i used my old .22 for rabbit shooting around farms and livestock in the daytime and at night with a suppressor. All my local gun dealers stock subsonic ammo as most rimfire shooters over here use suppressors. Havnt seen much standard velocity ammo. i have noticed my local dealer stocks remington yellow jackets. I believe these are hyper velocity? I will be speaking to my gun dealer over the weekend and i will see if he can get in some standard velocity ammo for me. Due to UK firearm law we cannot buy ammunition over the internet and have it delivered to our home. We have to buy it face to face from a registered firearms dealer and it all goes down on our firearm certificate. Also we have restrictions on the amount of ammo we can hold and purchase.

 

[tacticool22]

Welcome. Now hide your credit cards.
These are amazingly fun rifles to shoot.
You can have silencers, but have to limit the number of rounds?

 

[86nine51]

Golden bullets

Forgot about the recommendations on ammo in the manual. Had my M&P 15-22A1 out to the range today and fed it 200 rounds of Remington Golden Bullets. Seemed to be good accuracy and not one failure. I usually use CCI MiniMags. Sometimes use Winchester 333 or 555 bulk when I'm feeling cheap. I had the Remingtons to use in my Ruger MKIII and GSG 1911 pistols which are not very picky about their ammo. I'll keep using these boxes I bought and see if they cause any problems. Costs a little over $.03 per round.

 

[UK15-22]

Tacticool22

Yes ive got a silencer for each of my rifles .17HMR .22 and .22-250. Wasnt an issue getting any of them. The silencers themselves are treated as firearms under our law and so we have to apply for them in the same way.

Yes we are limited on the number of rounds. Currently i can only hold 1100 rounds of .22lr and buy 1000 at any one time. All purchases are written down on our certificate. I could ask to hold more but to be honest that suits me fine at the moment. You are talking around £70 for 1000 rounds where i live.

I believe professional shooters usually hold 5000 rounds or so. This allows them to buy a large numbers from the same batch to get consistency?