Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires Thunderbolt Quality?

Has it improved with recent production?

I know that for awhile it was considered crap, and I'm aware of at least one manufacturer that warned against using it in their guns.

Paul

As far as I'm concerned, it's still crap. I avoid it for use in autos.

Always has been and always will be... Hint..

IME it's still inconsistent.
Shoots OK in bolts, single shots, etc., when it will go off.
Sometimes you have to turn the cartridge to get the primer compound to work.
Not reliable enough to consistently cycle semi-autos.

In general, I'd still rate it as crap............................

i still have probably 20 bricks of the stuff from 10-15 years ago. i used to get it for $5.99/br on sale and would pick up 2 or 3 at a pop for plinking out of my semi's. it was good for 2-3 FTF's per mag. but for 6 bucks a brick i wasn't too worried.

It's always varied alot from lot to lot. Some lots are terrible with lots of duds and squibs and some lots ain't too bad. I bought two bricks of it last summer when .22 ammo was almost impossible to find. Shot one brick of it so far and only had two duds out of the whole brick. It was also pretty accurate for cheap plinking ammo and would consistently group 5 shots under 3/4" at 50 yards from a couple of my rifles.

Kept Thunderbolts too long and they would not function in the semi-autos, bolt actions and used them up in a revolver.

GARBAGE!

i don't shoot them out of my revolvers. they leave sheets of lead in the barrel and start keyholing after a few cylinder fulls. on my ruger's anyway. my s&w's only get federal or goldens.

crap

For what it's worth-

Out of Ruger American I did not have a FTF or squib in about 250 rounds.

The WORST ammo I've come across is the new Winchester M-22. Could have been an issue with the lot- but I'd say about 1/30 would FTF or the bullet would hit the ground about 30 yards down range. I still have a box of 500 from that 1000 pack. I think I'll pull sole bullets and see if some are missing powder.

Yes it is crap ! Ten years ago I would not have wanted thunderbolts at any price. But not now.

It's very dirty.

I recently spent up some a couple hundred rounds I bought two years ago. The last of it actually. Dirty as hell. I still have a winchester 333 box left and some cci. I will say I just bought some more tbolts a week ago to try again. I bought one 525 brick, but haven't tried any yet. Plan on it this Saturday or Sunday. Will post results.

It's the only ammo I could get locally and I just bought my wife a new marlin xt

Thanks to all who shared their experience and opinions.

I bought a bulk carton of 500 at SW because they had it and I wanted some cheap available ammo for close up pistol practice. FWIW, I shoot serious rifle competition with match ammo up to the top grade imports, but this wasn't my purpose here.

I ran about 100 rounds through a Ruger SR22 with nary a failure. Carbon fouling seemed minimal, but, as others reported, it left strips of lead in the barrel.

So, I'll shoot up this batch and won't buy more, if only because I don't want to have to bother with extreme leading.

Paul

Well, at least you confirmed that Thunderbolt has kept it's "quality" consistent over the years.

I don't mind cheap dirty ammo IF it actually fires. I will go into it knowing I'll need to do some cleaning when finished. In years past though leading wasn't an issue because the round needs to fire to be able to cause leading.I would work the rifle range at our boy scout range during summer camp when I would be down there with our troop. In that week time we would go through a ton of 22 ammo. On several years the ammo of choice(because it was what was given to us) was the Thunderbolt stuff. FTF where like clockwork. I am under the impression though that Remington has revamped their rimfire mfrg and hopefully the FTF will go away. Time will only tell as new stock gets used and actual results get noted.

Yup, I don't think I ever made it through 100 rds of thundercrap w/o 2-3 FTF's. On the flip side we've gone through 1000's of Fed bulk 22's in the 550ct boxes and I don't recall any FTF's.

It fail me to understand why any manufacture would want to put out that kind of junk with out a lot of effort, they could make it good stuff. Raising the price a few cents a box would not be a problem because from CRAP to good people would still buy. Why would you like to be known as manufactures of pure crap//

While I wholeheartedly agree with your comment, it's all about the money.
Right now, they can sell crap, if it's the only crap on the shelf. It doesn't much matter, if it's the only stuff on the shelf, and Remington has banked on the rep of the 700s and 870s for years, while turning out crap .22s, ammo AND guns, for a long while.
Winchester's not any different, they are getting an awful reputation for their rimfire ammo, too, depending on which loads you're talking about. The old SuperX stuff, and Power Points, are still revered, but the promo loads and bulk ammo are suffering badly, too.

Go over to rimfirecentral and you'll find folks who badmouth both brands.
Federal and CCI seem to have kept their good reputations so far, but the "rimfire shortage" is effecting everyone one way or another.