Some good advice a knowledgeable friend once gave me follows. If you are wondering how good your .22 is, invest in some good target ammo, perhaps a box of two different brands. If it is a good gun, it should shoot well with that ammo, or at least one of them. If it shoots well with that, then it is worthwhile to try other brands and types of cheaper ammo to determine what affordable ammo it likes. That advice made good sense to me.
I don't know enough of the statistics to say what you should shoot. I like to shoot five 10-shot groups at 50 yards in good conditions. You have to be aware of the wind with .22LR, even at 50 yards. You also need to be really careful to avoid parallax, either with head position, or better yet, a scope that can adjust it out. If your groups are uniform and relatively large, the rifle doesn't like that ammo. If your groups are small with a few that "expand" the group, say 2/10 shots, that may be attributed to ammo inconsistency. You likely won't have many flyers at all with the good target ammo.
Five 10-shot groups is pretty tough sledding. I'd bet a lot of claimed '1/2" rifles' won't hold that average under those criteria, even with good ammo, but I could be wrong. I expect some of the super target guns will hold up.
The guys that really understand what is going on don't use group size, but rather "Average to Center"(ATC). It is more trouble, but if you read up on it, it makes a lot of sense.
