22 long rifle ammunition

[SSShooter]

Kurt - if you would weight-sort Norma Match & the Federal HV Match you would likely remove those flyers.
My results with weigh-sorting are that Center-X sorts into one large group with two much smaller side groups. Federal Gold Medal Match (not HV) sorts into two larger center groups with two smaller side groups and Norma Match does the same. I sort into 0.1gr groups.

[horsefly]

Good morning, Folks,

Y'all are talking about shooting 22s at 200 yds and what happens to bullets on the way. In one session, I shot green tag against Wolf Match Extra at 100 and at 200. All groups were ten shots. The wolf shot almost exactly one inch at 100 and the green tag shot almost exactly 2 inches at 100. I had just shot a match with green tag and done poorly. Why I had to use it is another sad story.

This rifle was a 52d Winchester with Redfield Olympic sights. Shooting was just after sunrise on a still summer day.

Things got interesting at 200. All the wolf shot into two inches and six green tags shot into four inches. This is what you would expect if they shot proportionately at 200. But, there were four green tags that were outside of expectation. Except for those four rounds, all groups were round and evenly distributed.

The four errant green tags were distributed three to five inches outside of their expected four inch group.

The conclusion I draw is that some of the green tag ammo was decaying somewhere after one hundred and before two hundred. Some green tags held together all the way to 200 while some others went to hell on the way. I wish I could repeat the shooting at longer range to see what happens there. I feel that there would be more and more errant green tags as the distance increased. With the 22s described here, I only shot one ten shot group of each ammo at 200. That is a very small sample but it answered the question I asked.

Actually, this mirrors my experience trying to shoot the sharp nosed Lyman 480 grain bullet at rams. Those loads were good out to the turkeys and then Bill Gates couldn't have bought a ram with that bullet.

So I believe that ammunition decays after a particular distance while other goes farther before it finally does, too. In the reference case, green tag just started giving up first.

Y'all be good;

horsefly

[Kurt]

Glenn,

I never have weight my .22 rounds but for the heck of it I will once to just see what the difference will be.

I think most of the flyers are me sending them out for recon I just cant hold like I used to.That one flyer with the Norma was me that was because I kept it out of the group. That CPA had a very light trigger at that time and it would let off with a soft touch.
The Fed HV groups are typical at close or long range.

[Don McDowell]

This 22 ammo thing is a real hoot, when you start looking into to what brand a rifle likes.
My wife's lowall is a real challenge, it absolutely will spray and pray anything Lapua or SK. Then there's the Norma TAC, off the bench at 25 yards, it's not uncommon for her and that rifle to shoot a 125 out of 125 on the 50 ft. Schuetzen target, it does well to the turkeys sort of decent on the rams but it's not unheard of to see bullet side profiles on the rams when setting them back on the rail.
Luckily both her rifle and mine get along good with Eley Target.
Neither rifle cares much for RWS.
My rifle will shoot Remington target and Winchester t 22 decent enough, but the inconsistency of those relegate it to trigger time stuff.
Nothing will outshoot Norma match in my CPA with the Douglas barrel.

[Kurt]

I think the reason my CPA .22 shoots so well is because of this Douglas 1" steel bar it has

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[Don McDowell]

Carols rifle has a flimsy little 2 weight barrel on it.

[Glen Ring]

Kurt

Aaron farmer with the NRA shot BPCR at Raton a couple of years ago. It was all new to him and who he shot with showed him about using a blow tube.

Come 22 bpcr time my smart alec wife walked up to him and she started talking to him like a Grandmother to Grandson.." You have your Rifle ?'...you have your 22 ammo?..you have water?..and then she handed him a straw and said " here's your blow tube, now you're all set" and walked away!! Two minutes later we heard the laughter from his group and he knew he'd been had!

Shooting should be fun..and sending out recon bullets is something I have done for years!!

[mdeland]

I'm finding my ole beat up, glass scared trigger digit can't even feel a really fine set trigger any more. I need about a pound of resistance in trigger weight to have any real control.
The thing about .22 ammo is once you find a good batch there's no guaranty the next will shoot the same . My Badger barreled Dan Theodore chambered Hywall likes SK the best so far. It has managed ten inside a minute at 100 yards a time or two when I do my part and remember to reset the scope after each shot. I find 6-8 no trouble under a minute quite regularly but will often get one or two out side the minute mark by a bit. This of course with a .22 LR can be caused by a gentle puff of wind one did not account for.

[mdeland]

I also wonder if .22 heeled bullet design is really conducive to shooting much over 100 yards regardless of the barrel it is launched from.

[mdeland]

In my first post I'm referring to 10 shot groups!

[Maj. Forrest Smith]

Most of the new made .22 barrels now days (Green Mountain, Douglas, Barlien, Shilen and etc...) are capable of doing well down range if the chamber has been cut in correctly, installed correctly on the action and the shooter does his part. But for the life of me, I can find no rhyme or reason why one barrel can like one brand/lot of ammo over the next one. I have come to the feeling you can take 10 of the same brand barrels, use the same .22 chamber reamer on them and each one would like a different brand/lot of .22 ammo. We have to do testing of different lots of ammo and see what works best. The problem again now days, you buy a test run of several different ammos from a supplier and before you get a chance to do a good testing on them, the supplier runs out of the ammo you need.

[SSShooter]

John - ain't that the truth. If you can find decent ammo you can afford in the first place.

[martinibelgian]

of the issues is that most people when testing do not take into account the lubricant left in the barrel from the previous ammunitions shot, it does play a major role in accuracy. It could also give you wrong information as to the ammunition tested, which is 1 reason how you come to such different conclusions.
And that's not only with the .22lr, it can also happen with other stuff. Once had it happen with a .22 Hornet, 1st shooting H&N Hi-speed bullets (which have a coating), and then factory S&B. The S&B always shot lousy, but the 1st 7 shots after the H&N bullets provided stellar accuracy, which then gradually degraded to the usual lousy level.

[SSShooter]

Most 'scientifically' done tests with 22LR ammo have concluded it takes 8rds, or more, to season the bore when changing ammo/lubricants.

[Glen Ring]

We shot both 1885 22s at 100 meters using Norma Tac. . It took several rounds for Jeanne's barrel ( both of ours are shilen ratchet rifled barrels) to settle down..but at 100 meters both guns were WELL under an inch. Norma tac is HALF the price of RWS R-50, and for local/club matches seems to be accurate enough. We'll still shoot R-50 at the bigger matches though. Tomorrow we shoot Mike Bassets's match at our range...we'll see how the rounds perform at 200 meters.