22 ammunition - better or worse than years ago?

[jrothWA]

Mid-70's college buddy and I ...

would traipse over to a closed dump at a state campground, after checking in with the office, we walk over with about four boxes each and have FUN.
Cost then was about 1.29 for Federal Hi-power,think cci mini-mags were .85 cents for 50(?) from Holiday gas store.

Don't recall any mis-fires at that time.

Fast forward to 90's and was a NRA Certified Jr. rifle coach and the mis-fires were very pronounced.

Remington (anything) wasstrictly a joke, varying reports, dirty bores, Winchester T22 was too dry or too waxy and fail to extract.

 

[Sparks1957]

And anybody that thinks we make this stuff up, just do a simple search.

OK, OK... maybe it is true. All I know is that I have not that much difficulty personally, and I shoot a lot of .22

 

[B.N.Real]

Definitely worse.

No surprise really given the do everything cheap as possible business model all American business schools have promoted for the last two decades.

 

[jhenry]

I rarely have had any missfires either. Even with bulk Federal stuff from Walmart (which incidentally shoots quite well in my old Ruger Standard Model).

 

[Yung.gunr]

I honestly don't remember any duds when I was a kid, but that wasn't nearly as long ago as some of you gentlemen (yes, that's my way of calling you old).

Anyway...when I was a kid we shot them so fast I don't know if we would have even noticed if it didn't go off. I've never had a centerfire that was a dud and only 1-5 rimfires that were duds in my adult years (only a couple adult years) (yes again calling you old).

Haha.... I joke.. serious though..

Based on the ratio of rimfire to centerfire that I shoot I would say I'm due for a dud centerfire soon. I think the math would work out to be about .06% of my rimfires are duds. Based on how little I pay for my rimfires, I'm ok with that percentage.

 

[jhgreasemonkey]

I would say it's way better than 20 years ago when I started buying my own .22lr ammo. I remember more frequent misfires and dirtier burning ammo. With exeption of the CCI ammo which was the premium available locally at the time. The bulk federal I use now is way better than the bulk ammo I was using by winchester and remington back then. That's what was available at the time. I want to say it was the winchester wildcats and remington thunderbolts. With the bulk federal ammo I buy now I never get misfires and it burns way cleaner. I also use the hornady stuff available these days and with the cool new bullets it's fantastic. CCI is still great too. Maby it's not better when comparing the exact same loads of yesterday but there seems to be way better choices and quality now.

 

[ltc444]

Interesting timing on this thread.

Was rummaging through my footlocker and found an unopened box of Federals I purchased around 1978 at the Warrensburg MO Wal Mart. I know this because the Price Sticker was still on the box and that was the last time I purchased Ammo at that Wal Mart.

We ran that box through My Ruger MK II without a single misfire.

When we changed to a new batch of Federal bulk pack. The first three were duds. In total we shot 300 rounds through three different Ruger Mk II and III pistols and two rifles, a marlin and a Ruger 10/22.

With the new ammo we averaged 3 duds per 50 rounds. O duds with the old ammo.

 

[Stevie-Ray]

When we changed to a new batch of Federal bulk pack. The first three were duds. In total we shot 300 rounds through three different Ruger Mk II and III pistols and two rifles, a marlin and a Ruger 10/22.

With the new ammo we averaged 3 duds per 50 rounds. O duds with the old ammo.

Was it the brown box Fed or the blue? Seems to be a regional thing is why I ask. If you search this subject you'll probably find that in my area the blue box is better than the brown. Other areas find the opposite is true. And that's just Federal. I've had no problems with Remington GBs and others report that it is their absolute worst for failures. I've had luck with the Winchesters also, whereas other areas claim crap.

 

[Cornbread]

I purchased 3 of the Remington bulk packs a year or so ago there will be 3 to 5 out of a 100 that wont fire. I have found you can rotate the dud about a ¼ turn and most will go bang some you have to turn again. Buy doing this they have all eventually went bang.. Conclusion cheap not getting the primer mixture even around the rim or just not enough of it.. Tiring Winchester 555 pack next.. Retired spend a ½ day to get it to go off … Stubborn an Hard Headed !!!! Fixed Income = Cheap 22s Just like when you were a kid!!

 

[bamaranger]

rem golden bullet

I settled on Rm bulk pack "golden bullet" for most of my GP .22 shooting 15-20 years ago. Its competitors, Win and Federal, at the time yielded frequent FTF and mild reports.

I banged away with Wally World bulk packs all that time........but lately the Rems have been disappointing.

Currently, I am considering CCI, but their a tad more money.

 

[Pathfinder45]

1971 vs now.

We didn't have all these hyper-velocity options to choose from back then. Remington was proud of their front-runner, "Golden-Bullet", while Winchester's lead-man was Super-X. Federal's were cheap junk in our view back then and I think they are quite good today. And then there was the other kid on the block: Mini-Mags! They were the first to have those marvelous hard plastic 100-packs. And why do you think they called them Mini-Mags? 'Cuz they advertised them as delivering well over 1,300 fps with thicker brass ahead of the rim to contain higher pressures than the comparatively pedestrian offerings of their competition. Now, however, the Mini has lost its Mag. They only claim 1,280 fps; the same as Super-X was back then. In my view, they aren't nearly as good as they used to be. I believe what CCI and Remington have done is let quality slide on their one-time flag-ships as they have both since come out with more exiting developments like Viper and Stinger and such. Right now, I'm generally disappointed with Mini-Mags in one firearm and very dissatisfied with Remington Golden Bullets in all firearms. I've had so many misfires with Remington 22LR products of current production it's not even funny. Winchester has also played the discount-22-ammo game and has made some cheap stuff that will not hold a candle to their products of 40 years ago. In my experience though, it hasn't been as bad as what some of the other players have done. And their Super-X line may possibly be better than ever; they've upped the velocity to what, "Mini-Mags", used to be. The absolute best 22 ammo I have ever used is Western XPERT standard velocity from 40 years ago that I used to pay 67 cents for in the yellow box with red and blue XPERT logo. I happen to have 3 or 4 well-kept boxes I was happy to pay $3 for at the gun show recently. Winchester has this, "Super-X 22LR Subsonic", that while not cheap, is so far quite promising. A this point, for premium 22 ammo I want Winchester. For inexpensive but reliable bulk ammo, the bluish Federal 525 pack gets my full confidence with the Winchester copper-plated bulk pack a close 2nd. So, while some things have gotten a lot better than they were; nothing has beaten the best from 40 years ago; and a lot has gone to the dogs.

 

[SauerGrapes]

We were just talking about this at the club today. What got us satrted was the fact that I was shooting some Remington bulk ammo. In one 10round mag, I had 7 duds. I shot 100rds of 22 today and had 17 duds.

I don't care if it's a $1 a box or $5 a box. If your going to sell me 550 rounds of ammo, I want them to go BANG!
I started shooting 22's in the mid 60's. I never remember having such poor results with even the cheapest ammo.

I've bought my last box of Remington ammo.

 

[igousigloo]

Back in the 50's when I did most of me 22 shooting, I do not remember any duds. Might have had some but it was not something that left a mark. About four years ago during an ammo shortage, I bought about 8 boxes of 550 Remington Golden Bullets at Walmart. During the shooting of those I had one or two duds in every 10 shot Magazine. Also during that time I had purchased a couple of boxes of 525 Remington Golden Bullets from Dunham's. I had no duds from those boxes. I also purchased a case of Federal Champion. I have had no dud's from the Federal Champion. I have had a couple with a lighter pop, and not cycled the action but no duds.

 

[Sparks1957]

CCI makes a good, reliable product. I'm done buying cheaper .22 ammo.

It fires every time, and cycles my semiauto pistols without a hitch. Sure, it costs more, but I don't get frustrated with the results which is worth a lot.

 

[Hal]

CCI makes a good, reliable product. I'm done buying cheaper .22 ammo.

Interesting......

CCI runs ~ $.05 per round.
It's fairly easy to get the cost of a .38 spl reload down to ~ $.07 a round.

Perhaps the idea of the .22lr as an inexpensive practice round has gone the way of the wind.

 

[Sparks1957]

you may be right... but I still find shooting .22 a lot of fun

 

[DeeDubya]

I burned through thousands of rounds (short, long and long rifle) on the farm in the 60's and 70's and don't recall a failure with mostly Remington, some Federal and a few boxes of WW and CCI. In the 80's I was shooting WW T-22 (standard vel) in my Rem 541S with total confidence. From what I hear, that kind of reliability doesn't exist today.

 

[johnbt]

I've been through cases of Wolf Match Target and Match Extra without one single problem. And no problems at all with any kind of Lapua or Eley.

Notice that none of them are bulk packed loss leader promotional ammo.

 

[22-rimfire]

When I was a kid, I liked "golden bullets" and the copper washed Federals. There were a few duds with the Remingtons, but it was not common. Honestly, I didn't even see any significant difference between regular Remington Golden Bullets and the Thunderbolts. I started buying Thunderbolts as they were more commonly put on sale. The price then was $5.00/brick. CCI was the high end ammunition!

There were no bulk packs. The only loose packed ammunition I can remember are the Remingtons that they packaged in the tin cans special for the holidays.

Today, the Remingtons' seem to have more FTF's than Federals. I seldom buy Winchester 22LR ammo. Have a couple bulk packs. I keep about 10 bulk packs around for ammo testing and plinking with family.

Of the American 22 ammo, CCI's seem to be the most consistant in terms of ignition. Golden Bullets actually shoot fairly well for high velocity ammo for me.

 

[aaalaska]

As a kid in the 60's I went through a lot of 22's, a no fire was rare, very rare. today any of the bulk pack 22's I expect several no fires at least. Yes the quality is way down. The price was .49 for 50 back then, at 20$+ per box of 500 or so it would seem the quality should be at least equal.