What's acceptable FTF on inexpensive .22lr?

[ImprovedModel56Fan]

Just for the record, CCI stands for Cascade Cartridge, Inc.

I don't think that fps suffers from indeterminate meaning in quite the way that FTF does.

H&R, of course, stands for Harrington & (and) Richardson.

 

[bigwheelzip]

If your FTF means Fail to Feed, then my semi-auto starts having issues after it gets dirty, at approx. 100 rds.
If your FTF means Fail to Fire, I've had one in the last 300 rds.

Using CCI Mini-Mags.

 

[LittleCooner]

In my part of the world, you have to be paid by someone to take Thunderbolts off their hands. Junk is not a correct description for Thunderbolts, they are far, far worse that junk. You can give ammo away, except for Thunderbolt, then you have to pay so much per brick to the guy taking them away. only ammo know to man to have this bad of a reputation.

 

[Backlighting]

I should have stated that by FTF I mean failure to fire. My apologies.

 

[scattershot]

That wouldn't be acceptable to me. Unfortunately, junk .22 ammo seems to be the norm these days. I think it will get better, now that the ammo companies are catching up somewhat, but until then I'm sticking to MiniMags. Never had a problem with them.

 

[rockquarry]

When I shot Thunderbolt some years ago, I tried a total of six Remington .22 LR ammos, a brick of each. Besides Thunderbolt, they included: Remington HV, Remington HV HP, Remington Target, Remington Cyclone HP, and Remington Subsonic HP. All shot more accurately than Thunderbolt, but some, not by much. This is for information only and I'm not sure it would be at all relevant today. I have no idea if these Remington .22 ammos are even in current production.

 

[patrickd]

You get what you pay for in .22 ammo just like everything else.

 

[foxtail]

I should have stated that by FTF I mean failure to fire. My apologies.

When I read the title, I thought you were looking for a good price on a Face To Face purchase. What is the going rate.

 

[hangnoose]

UNACCEPTABLE

Thunderbolts are cheap junk, goldens are worse. They will function for a while (maybe longer) in some guns than others. Just holding some goldens in your hand will leave that gold faerie dust in your hand that EVENTUALLY jammed up the bolt on my 15-22 & required a full bolt strip to solve the problem. The rest of the gun looked perfectly clean, but a bolt strip every so often with any ammo "should" keep it running 100%. The brand/type of semi auto matters.

 

[dmar]

Remington makes some really bad bulk .22 ammo, it's really shameful that they put out such a lousy product. Thunderbolt is dirty, not very accurate, and not very consistent, Golden Bullet the same. That said, I got a few buckets of Golden Bullets during the shortage to keep my son on the trigger, as well as Thunderbolts that I've had for a while, and we have not experienced that rate of duds, not even close... Just a guess, but maybe one dud every couple/few hundred rounds, maybe...

I mainly shoot CCI standard velocity, Aguilla, and Federal, and have had good results. For competition I've had great luck with Eley Tennex and Match, and even Wolf. I bought a case of Wolf years ago, and it is very consistent and accurate. At the time, it was a great value, but much more expensive these days...

For less expensive fodder, Blazer and Federals have been very good... The Blazer has been surprisingly good in many of my rifles. I know some people don't care for it, but this cheap (had bought a bunch prior to the "Great Shortage") Blazer really performs well for me, maybe I got a good lot of it...? Winchester Wildcats have been not so great (but better than Remington), and Winchester Super X and Target has been ok. As always, YMMV.

 

[AzShooter]

I've tried a lot of brands of .22 ammo and a few have very poor reliability, I can't stand 1 out of 100 rounds that doesn't eject or fire. For matches I like CCI Mini Mags. 100% reliability. Also Federal AutoMatch and CCI Blazer.

In my Ruger Mark III and IV I use the high velocity ammo. It will guarantee that the bolt will eject the cases. I find thes brands to be clean too. Important for when I'm shooting my revolver.

 

[springer99]

I've been running in my semi-auto Thunderbolts and Golden Bullets for the last few weeks and find about 1 out of 15-20 rounds are ftf. Is this normal? What's your experience?

IME, good 22RF ammo shouldn't experience more than 1-3 FTF in 500 rounds. Anything above that is either an ammo or gun problem. First thing I'd do is try different ammo to rule out the gun. CCI standard velocity is the "gold standard" for performance quality in my area.

Inexpensive/bulk 22LR ammo is notorious for having quality issues; that's why they price it the way they do. I'm convinced that the mfg. batch test each lot for meeting quality standards and the lots that don't, become bulk. For them it beats scrapping 10's of thousands of rounds, but we end up getting stuck with the junk.

 

[DocB]

I guess the solution is, don't use inexpensive ammo. Life's too short.

 

[shouldazagged]

If that's the state of .22LR ammo manufacturing these days, I'm more convinced than ever that it's a poor choice for self defense.

In all the years I shot .22 rifles I never once had a failure. That was almost all Remington stuff. It was also years ago.

 

[Targets Guy]

I don't use Thunderbolts any more. Goldens I've never had a problem with.

Thunderbolts leave more than they receive.

free upload

 

[rockquarry]

The original poster asks for "acceptable failure to fire" with cheap .22 LR ammo. Maybe I'm missing the point here as many responders have their own perfectly acceptable approximate figures as to failure rates.

I shoot only CCI Standard Velocity in a number of handguns and rifles. I buy it by the case of 5,000 from Target Sports and have for a good while; no shipping cost and no tax.

A few months back I had one round that didn't fire with the first pull of the trigger in a handgun. Worked the second time. In an all the years I have used this stuff, that was the first time I recall such an incident and I've been using it in fifteen, maybe twenty guns. I can't attribute the initial failure to the gun or ammo, because I simply don't know.

This hasn't exactly shaken my faith in CCI SV as I recently bought another case, but the fact that it happened at all really surprised me. Since no one knows exactly what their failure rate is, I'll join the crowd and estimate mine as one in several thousand. That's one too many.

 

[Troystat]

I never heard of a failure to fire with 22 ammo until the 2000's seems like quality control has slipped since I was younger

 

[VaTom]

Gave away the bulk box of Thunderbolts I bought a couple of years ago during the "shortage" after numerous duds. Never bought any since then. CCI, Federal, Winchester SuperX, Blazer have all been good. Prefer CCI when available. Use HV in semi-automatics and standard velocity in revolvers.

 

[littleriver1]

I remember reading several Threads and post in the past on 22 lr saying it is not wise to use 22lr rounds that are less than 1250 Feet per Second in certain guns. Referring to the design of the barrel lining I learned not to use uncoated lead 22lr rounds in certain guns that I may or may not own. I also learned the hard way why Thunderbolts are hated. However I also learned how to remove extreme lead when I used thunderbolts.

 

[Lee's Landing Billy]

I get to see a lot of ammo shot here. A can full of .22 that doesn't go off. Of all the thousands shot here I have NEVER seen anything with CCI not go bang, never. I have a Folgers coffee can about 2/3 full of centerfire that didn't go off. Almost all of those can be traced to a striker fired gun of some sort. Adding an external hammer to the mix will usually fix the problem. At least that's what we see here. When those hammers go WOP it is followed by a bang.