What is your pet ammo in a K22?

[firearmsunlimited]

What is your accuracy ammo (manufacture, load name and bullet weight) shot from your K22?

 

[OIF2]

Either Eley Tenex or RWS R50. Probably a SLIGHT accuracy edge to Tenex.
Bob

 

[richardw]

I do not own a K22. The only 22 I have is an M&P 22 Compact. I shoot only CCI Mini Mag RN and HP. Today I put the 1300th round though it at the range. I have had it since Late March. Never had a failure to feed, fire, or eject. Very dry clean ammo for a 22. The HP has been shown to be one of the few 22 LR bullets to expand out of a pistol. It's worth considering.

 

[jimmyj]

Remington .22LR standard velocity

 

[MichiganScott]

What shoots well in mine may not shoot well in yours. Over the years I have found that normally as the price of LR ammunition goes up so does the accuracy. However, it's hard to prove except off the bench.

 

[arjay]

CCI sv or similar.Golden bullets for just plinking cans

 

[BAM-BAM]

SV for targets or hunting* ........ CCI mini-mags for walking in the woods...... bulk for plinking cans and such!!!!!


* Got to try a bunch to see what your gun "likes" the best.

 

[rockquarry]

I've found CCI standard velocity 40 grain lead generally works quite well in a K22 or other S&W revolvers. However, like most .22 ammo with the exception of the very expensive target stuff, some lots of CCI SV shoot more accurately than other lots. Still, it's usually a much safer bet than other cheaper ammunitions.

 

[Targets Guy]

Remington Golden for punching holes in paper.

 

[38SPL HV]

Remington STD velocity and Winchester T-22s (still have two boxes left)

 

[Rpg]

I use Remington standard velocity exclusively.

I've had great results with this ammo for 50+ years in rifles, semi auto handguns and revolvers.

Never found anything that works better.

 

[ruger 22]

I like the CCI Standard velocity, lead round nose 40 gr. @ 1070fps. Very accurate and not too noisy. As with all 22 lr ammo, I have to brush out the chambers about every 50 shots because they get sticky in my K as well as in my son's 63.

 

[rockquarry]

About fifteen years ago, I was curious about the average accuracy of non-target, non-expensive (the kind most people shoot) .22 LR ammunition. I lined up three handguns and three rifles and twenty-four ammos and fired five, five-shot groups (25 yds. handgun, fifty yards rifle) from a benchrest.

Surprisingly, Winchester 40 grain HV was #1 for accuracy in both rifles and handguns. Last place went to Remington Thunderbolt for rifles and handguns. Of the six Remington ammunitions I tried, all were in the bottom half for accuracy in rifles, and most were in the bottom half for handgun accuracy, though two Remington products were #4 and #5. Remington "Target" was #20 for both rifles and handguns.

CCI standard velocity was #7 in rifles and #12 in handguns; far from outstanding. In the years following that evaluation, I found CCI standard velocity shot better and Winchester HV shot worse. I haven't touched Remington rimfire because of its initial performance, but from comments posted here, sound like it may be much better ammo than what I used.

In fifteen years lots of things change and I doubt my original results would be valid today. I haven't done any evaluations in a while and probably won't, being satisfied with CCI SV. However, if you're serious about this sort of thing, it's interesting to test a bunch of ammos side-by-side in your own guns and then hope the particular lot that really shines in your firearms can be replicated with your next purchase of the same ammunition.

 

[arjay]

CCI sv became my go to ammo about ten years ago for rifle and handguns.Tried some Tac-22 in my rifle last year at 50 yards and it consistently shot tighter groups (1/2") than CCI.Cabelas has dropped the price on it a fair amount.Its definitely worth trying at current prices.

 

[Nevada Ed]

Fifty years ago Winchester was best in my pistols, the other ammo
did not soot as well.
I never got into the higher priced target ammo like Eley back then.

Today I just have a auto and pump 22 rifle, no .22 pistols.
The American 38gr CHP at 1260fps is very accurate in the Winchester M61 pump
but for some reason can not pick it up to eject.

The Rem gold is poor in accuracy but great in the auto.

I miss the auto and woodsman but had other things to do back then and traded them.
They were cool weapons.

 

[Valmet]

Federal Gold Medal 40-gr HV Match in my 1968 mfg Model 17-3.

 

[Wee Hooker]

Wolf Match Target is ( hands down) my favorite target velocity in all my K22's. It's expensive @ $80/500 and hard to get though so I reserve it for match's and such.
CCI Mini mags (40gr) are somewhat more affordable at $50/500 and easier to find. I shoot these if/when I need more Umph (which is rare in a K 22 for me).
Federal Auto Match is a pretty happy compromise for me though. Good accuracy, good consistency, inexpensive ( at $20/325 box) and easy to find. I tend to shoot the Auto Match the most for general plinking/ teaching. It's actually consistent enough that I've dabbled with it in rim-fire silhouette match's. It will take the rams down at 100 yds (from my 6" 617) when I do my part. As an extra benifit, it seems to run good in all my semi auto pistols and rifles too. I laid in 18,000 rounds of it over the last year. I won't get caught short handed on plinking grade fodder again

 

[MajorD]

Based on a lot of years shooting bullseye competition and testing various ammo, for me at my skill level cci standard or eley yellow box with a slight edge to eley in testing but no real change in my average match score when shooting it. Only reason I even tried the eley ( which is normally about close to double the price of the cci ) was a buy one get one 1/2 off sale at dicks sporting goods. Cheap enough to try and my 25 yard test groups shrank about 25% with the eley. I pretty much reserve it for the slow fire stage of the match.
I have never known any Remington product made since the move from Bridgeport to loanoke to shoot well at all in any gun.

 

[chief38]

CCI Std velocity or Mini Mag's (40 grains) depending on what I'm doing. Federal #510 Hi Vel 40 grain in blue box is also very good.

 

[Sylvaticus]

Varies. I never buy target grade, however, even for bullseye competition.

Why?

In the 1980s, a club I was in regularly tested a wide range of .22 standard velocity rounds before we bought ammo in bulk for each year, always using a Ransom Rest. We found the "best" varied year-by-year, and sometimes quite significantly even between lots. The biggest surprise was that the top-performing standard grade regularly bested most or sometimes all of the more expensive target grades we tried, and we saved a lot of cash that way. That choice lot became our bullseye ammunition for practice and competition for that year (and the first part of the next). As we won both team and individual state championships, it obviously worked for us.

I recall that one year, we could not find any ammunition that came up to the level of the standard set during other years. Likewise, a couple of other years, several brands were outstanding.

I can't defend it statistically, but now I simply shoot groups at 25 yards using sandbags using my High Standard, and compare the size of the groups containing 80% of the tightest shots. This seems to throw out some or most of the errors I inevitably introduce, not being a Ransom Rest myself! My results with my HS Military Trophy are about the same as I get from my K-22, fired single-action also from a bagged rest (it was tuned at the factory in the late 1970s). I compare at least five, ten-shot groups on a windless day.

(Gun writer Massad Ayoob does about the same thing, I've learned, taking the best three shots out of a number of five-shot groups to get a quick and dirty estimate of the accuracy potential of a firearm. I seem to recall he found it reasonably approximated Ransom Rest results, and to a greater degree than one might reasonably expect.)

So I suggest trying a selection of brands, then picking up a good supply of whatever works best while being sure to get rhe same brand and lot. If target grade floats your boat, fine. But I am pretty sure the best standard grade will "outshoot" the shooter! (High velocity is another matter, and always seems to sacrifice some accuracy for that additional boost in speed.)

Stored cool and dry, it'll last quite a while. I have some .22 long rifle ammunition (winchester) my older sister used in becoming CT State junior smallbore rifle champion in the early 1950s. Every couple of years I fire a round. It still fires perfectly -it has been stored cool and dry.