Shortage of .22 LR, Next best thing to CCI?

[OutdoorNewfie]

Purchased an M&P .22 not too long ago. Bought up 400 rounds of CCI Mini-Mag along with it but that is long gone. Looks like the .22 LR Shortage is affecting us up here in Canada too (eh.) Since CCI is very hard to come by, what would be the best thing to run through it at the range?

Here is what i've tried and doesn't work.
Winchester Super X
Winchester Bulk Packs (333 and 555)

I Have had good results with:
Remington Yellow Jackets
Remington Viper

Here is what I cannot come by ANYWHERE, including Cabelas.
Blazer
Any Federal

What are your opinions on:
Remington Golden Bullet 1400 round bucket?
As well as Remington Thunderbolt?

These are the easiest to come by in my province, any opinions are very welcome

 

[05CarbonDRZ]

Remington Thunderbolt's are GARBAGE,Just my .02.The bullets are very loose and rotate freely and feel like they can be pulled out by hand.They are also horribly dirty and have a lot of under powered rounds as well as duds.

 

[CharlesWA]

I've had OK luck with recent (purchased last 6-12 months) boxes of Golden Bullets (5xx/box). That said, all that was said about the Thunderbolts above applies. Dirty and loose bullet (though I haven't had one actually come out in the box). I think the Golden Bullets may be higher velocity than the Thunderbolts.

Be sure your gun is clean and free of shipping grease as well as any other grease. I tried Tetra grease on it at one point and some of my ammo that's usually OK was having issues (both my M&P 22 and 15-22). Any of the usual lighter CLP type liquid should be ok. It will be a bit more tolerant as it breaks in more as well.

 

[bad2006z71]

My buddy just bought an MOE 15-22 and has had nothing but trouble out of the 2 555 packs of winchester.

The 2 525 packs of federals we put through it were flawless.

I have no idea the 1,000's of rounds though my 15-22, but those Winchester were the only thing to choke my 15-22. I have never tried Remington in it, since they are usually **** ammo.

 

[jhawk19]

Remington Thunderbolt's are GARBAGE,Just my .02.

Have to disagree. I use these and not had any failure to ejects or problems firing. I have had both failure to ejects and firing issues with Winchester...a lot...1 or 2 out of 12 rounds in my mags fail to eject. No problem with the Thunderbolts or Golden Bullets.

 

[arjay]

Ive used the golden bullets in a pair of Rugers,a Smith&Wesson and a Remington with maybe two misfires out of 400 rounds.Its not target ammo,but it's fine for plinking at 25 and not too bad at 50 yards.

 

[agksimon]

Remington Golden is one of the few lower cost rounds that will reliably cycle the M&P22's that I've seen, including mine. It's dirtier than the Mini-Mags, but not as bad as the Thunderbolts. Standard deviation is somewhat higher than Mini-Mags, so the group sizes are bigger. It runs about 60% of the cost of Mini-Mags.

 

[shlike]

Have to disagree. I use these and not had any failure to ejects or problems firing. I have had both failure to ejects and firing issues with Winchester...a lot...1 or 2 out of 12 rounds in my mags fail to eject. No problem with the Thunderbolts or Golden Bullets.

I have to agree with this. I just finished going through 2 bricks of Thunderbolts without a single problem. I do agree, however, that they are dirtier than most but I clean my gun after every range trip ( I usually fire app. 200 rounds in my M&P 22 per range trip), so that isn't an issue for me.

In a perfect world I would only use CCI stingers or mini-mags, but given the current un-availability of .22 ammo, you have to shoot what you can get.

 

[Smitty357]

Remington Golden Bullets and Thunderbolts are garbage most of the time. It honestly depends on the box u get at the time. I've had some good and some bad. But more bad than what i've had good. I honestly wouldnt even give them to my worst enemies.

Now days i strictly use CCI for my 15-22. I can walk in wal-mart and buy them by the 100rd sleeves just about every day. I still have about 6 of the 375rd boxes of CCI mini-mag (for a rainy day). Here lately ive mostly just been shooting the 100rd sleeves of standard velocity or mini-mags.

Plus the CCI doesnt leave the weapon near as dirty as those Remington GB or Thunderbolts. Granted rim fire is still dirty, but there's a big difference in just how dirty it gets with particular ammo.

 

[Duster340]

Have to disagree. I use these and not had any failure to ejects or problems firing. No problem with the Thunderbolts or Golden Bullets.

I too have had excellent results with the Thunderbolts. My daughter and I just finished up a brick through a Ruger Mark2 w/o a single issue.

 

[GypsmJim]

I'm on the ant- Remington anything bandwagon. Even with the .22 crisis, if you gave me thunderbolts for free I wouldn't take them. That **** will never be put into any firearm that I paid good money for. That opinion goes back as far as about 1993.

 

[OutdoorNewfie]

Appreciate all the info. Can't buy the boxes of golden bullets in Newfoundland, Canada. Can only buy the 1400 round buckets for 90 bucks (give or take a few bucks, depending where you go) I just don't wanna waste the money and the ammo end up being garbage or my M&P 22 pistol not liking it keep the opinions coming!!

 

[jhawk19]

I'm on the ant- Remington anything bandwagon. Even with the .22 crisis, if you gave me thunderbolts for free I wouldn't take them.

Send them to me!!

Appreciate all the info. Can't buy the boxes of golden bullets in Newfoundland, Canada. Can only buy the 1400 round buckets for 90 bucks (give or take a few bucks, depending where you go) I just don't wanna waste the money and the ammo end up being garbage or my M&P 22 pistol not liking it keep the opinions coming!!

I'm an NRA Instructor and I use the 1400 round buckets. When I took my training class, that's what the teaching instructor used as well. We agreed that we've never experienced any issues compared to that of Winchester and Federal.

 

[Dlister70]

When I first got my M&P 22, the Winchester 333 boxes had about a 30% fail rate (fail to eject and fail to feed mostly, with a few fail to fire). After about 2100 rounds, it's down to around 8-10% fail. Either I'm getting better batches or the gun is getting used to them.

The best bulk ammo that I've tried has been the Federal bulk red boxes of 550, but if Remington golden bullets is easy to get, you might as well try them. I did just pick up some of the 225 boxes of golden bullets today, so I'll be trying those on the next range trip. From everything I've heard (here and other forums), they fire just fine, but you have to clean the gun after each range trip (I do that anyway, so I'm fine with that).

 

[Rick_A]

Federal Champion.

'Nuff said.

 

[Louchia]

I find that the M&P 22 has little problem with any ammo. I do agree with others, stay away from Thunderbolt. It is VERY dirty and leads up the barrel. Next to CCI mini mags I find
Blazer reliable and clean. I've used Win. wild cat, American eagle, Fed Game-Shock, PMC Zapper, Fed Auto-Match, Aguila( a little dirty and smokey and smell funny),all being pretty reliable. CCI standard velocity, which is really sub sonic, will cycle the M&P 22. S&W advises to stay away from hyper velocity.

 

[gnystrom]

Interesting to see all the different responses. I work as a RSO at a range. Overall I see, with all models of 22 handguns, Remington Golden appears to give the most failures to fire.

That said, with 22 ammo still hard to find, I pick up anything I can, and deal with the issues each brand causes. Keep a 22rifle or revolver around to shoot what gives your semi a problem.

 

[Jayhawkhuntclub]

My buddy just bought an MOE 15-22 and has had nothing but trouble out of the 2 555 packs of winchester.

That most likely has to do with the bullet profile and not the quality of the ammo. It's okay ammo. But I've have trouble feeding certain autos with it.

To the original poster: In the words of BTO: "Any love is good love." Take what you can get. By that I mean, you can't be too picky about 22 LR right now. At least here you can't. I've only seen 1 box since Memorial Day last year. And that box was a 50 count for $17.99 (match ammo).

 

[Dlister70]

I just got back from the range and I shot two kinds of ammo I haven't shot before.

Remington golden bullets: 100 rounds fired, no issues at all. Good accuracy too!

Winchester M22 (black box): 100 rounds fired. I had five fail to feed, one fail to fire (after two attempts with good rim strikes), and one round I didn't even try to to fire because the lead bullet was badly dented.

I had a lot of issues with Winchester white box, but I had heard that the M22 was of better quality. After 100 rounds, I am unconvinced. Hopefully things improve since I picked up 2000 rounds of this stuff. Maybe I can get someone to trade me a bucket of Remington golden for 1500 rounds of M22?

When I cleaned my M&P 22, it was probably the dirtiest that I've seen it after only 200 rounds fired. I'm not sure which ammo was to blame for the fouling, but I'm pretty confident that the gold dust can be blamed on the Remington. . But again, since I clean after every range trip, I'm not that concerned with dirty ammo.. I just want it to feed and go boom reliably, and the Remington did that, but the Winchester didn't.

 

[OutdoorNewfie]

Looks like I am going to have to pick up some Golden bullet and give it a try. Worst case scenario is that the pistol won't like it and I'll just sell it again. I appreciate all the info and opinions