So I am minding my own business doing a gun buying swing through western Montana yesterday when I stop at the newish Cabela's store in Missoula, Montana about 11:00 A.M.
When what do I spy on a shelf but a bucket'o Remington Golden Bullets (hollow-points) containing 1,400 22 L.R. hollow-point bullets for $89.00 (no sales tax)!
That's 6.4 cents per round.
I was dealing on a gun so I only bought one of the 3 buckets they had so maybe they have some left if any one is interested.
Then a few stops later up the way I find some of my beloved Winchester 40 grain Power-Points (hollow-points) for $9.99 per 100.
That's right at 10 cents per round.
I bought all they had on the shelf at the time (four boxes of 100).
I wasn't much impressed with the price but that will be a couple days worth of Gopher Hunting next spring so I bought'em.
Then as I was continuing my swing of western Montana a friend called from Washington state and he found me 6 boxes of Hornady 17 Mach2 ammo at a store called Bi-Mart (or maybe its Buy-Mart) near Yakima, Washhington.
Again those are going to come in handy next spring.
IIRC he said they were $7.39 per 50 and he was sales tax exempt (9% sales tax out that away!).
All the other stores and gunshops I stopped at had NO quality American made 22 L.R. hollow-points let alone 17 Mach2 ammo.
So it pays to get out and around if one is looking for hard to find stuff.
I am beginning to fear another "hoarding" cycle to start here in a month or so - depending on the outcome of the upcoming national elections?
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I bought 2 buckets of the Golden bullets a few months ago. Just finished off an older bucket.

I think the new and imoroved Golden Bullets are actually that. No failures to fire so far, definitely cleaner burning, and more accurate than 2 Federal loadings I was comparing them to.

I have a new 10/22 19" heavy taper barrel with Bentz chamber arriving any minute.

Back to the drawing board....

2muchgun: That's actually great news.
I used to use the Remington Golden Bullet hollow-points exclusively in several of my Gopher guns - then some quality control issues (failures to fire mostly) came along and I got off on the Federal bulk pack hollow-points for the last decade plus.
The Federal bulk packs are getting so hard to find anymore that I have been considering going back to the somewhat easier to find Remington Golden bullets.
I just returned from a trip to the local hardware store for some supplies for high country Elk camp and they had ten cartons of the Winchester 235 round bulk packs of hollow-points and I bought one carton for $13.00 (no sales tax) - that's 5.5 cents per round.
Maybe the cartridge manufacturers are catching up a little?
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I bought a 525 pack of Golden Bullets at Cabelas a couple months ago and tried them in my son's Marlin 122 single shot. Had about 15% that he couldn't get to chamber, but they would when I pushed on the bolt. Too big in diameter at the bullet to case area. The GB shot about 1" at 25 yards and gave a bunch of failure to fire that usually went off the second time. I don't know if this rifle has an extremely tight chamber or not but I've not had any problems with any of five other flavors of ammo I've tried in this rifle. Aguilla rifle match will shoot 3/8" at 25 yards for five shots so I know the rifle is a shooter. Maybe I just got a crappy lot from third shift on a Friday of a holiday weekend...

That sounds promising. I know the old golden bullet was chit.. Not "the chit" either...

The ones that I bought recently for my youth shoot club was junk, alot of misfires and alot of flyers

Rem Golden Bullets are junk. Almost all of the .22 LR duds I see at the range (left by others) are those. They're off my buy list.

Cci SV/mini mag solids and Federal auto match is all I buy for my $$. I do hope that the Remington Golden Bullets have improved. My experience with em is that they're piss.

watch these guys if you need 22 LR ammo.......

http://www.targetsportsusa.com/22-long-rifle-ammo-c-202.aspx

I agree about the older Golden bullets. Not so good. The new ones definitely are cleaner burning if anything. They shot better than the Federal AM and the Fed bulk pack. The FAM shooting the worst.

I hope this new Green Mt. 19" heavy taper barrel likes them ok. (I have to fit it to the stock today). Cuz I have over 2800 of them left....

Federal auto match is the best of the bulk ammo I've been trying lately. Shoots well in several Ruger pistols and 10-22s plus a S&W 15-22.

Varmint Guy, I was in Billings the other day, Tue.. I think Daddy O's had the 17 m2.. Was was going to get a carton of HMR"S but they didn't have any this trip... Sorry I didn't pay attention to the price..

woodson, I used to be like that. I've added Wolf Match Target, SK, and Gemtech 42 gr suppressor ammo to my higher price spread list.

Also picked up a couple bricks of Tac-22 on a tip from another Fire member, Certifiable. Haven't had a chance to shoot it yet, as last range session I took some larger caliber pistolas and time ended up being hogged by my 27-2 .357.

I need to find some Wolf MT and try it in my Volquartsen.

What I really need to do is consolidate my .22 RF ammo. Too many kinds, I want just 2-3 total......

To say that any brand of bulk ammo shoots better than other brands of bulk ammo isn't saying much - "damned by faint praise," as it were. I guess the manufacturers will continue to foist that junk on us as long as people buy it. I guess too, there's enough "spray and pray" folks to make it so.

When I used to spend a little time on RFC, I was always tickled by the people that claimed their econo-rifles shot amazing groups with some brand or other of bulk, or in extreme cases, anything they fed them. The purest form of applesauce, as Old Jack used to call it, because the necessary consistency just ain't there. Once in a blue moon everything might come together to produce those groups, but consistently, no way.

My standard for small game is 3/4" at 50 with a good hunting load; not very impressive, but it makes headshots possible at the same range. The only group shooting I do these days is for ammo testing and sighting in. The rest of my shooting is to keep me in practice, and most of that is with an airgun in the basement of late.

2muchgun: I agree with your plan completely!
I have tried to do the same thing a couple of times in the past.
Last time I did this I "decided" on Federal bulk pack hollow-points for my Ruger 10/22's and similar Rifles and then for my Remington 40X, Kimber 82-G, Kimber Hunter/Silhouette, Ruger heavy barrel 77/22, Remington 541-T and my heavy barrel Ruger MK-II and MK-III pistols I try to feed them the "more accurate" Winchester 40 grain hollow-point Power-Points.
Sadly I can not count on "supplies" currently meeting my needs.
So from time to time I buy what I can find and then Hunt with so I stick to American made hollow-points.
Beggars can not be choosers in todays ammunition situation.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Gnoahh: I am NOT a "spray and pray" type small game and Varmint Hunter.
I try to cleanly dispatch all my targets and don't try to extend my ranges to where there isn't much chance for clean kills!
I have gone through several types of hollow-point ammo over the last 55 years of Varminting and am currently content with my choices and range parameters to accomplish my goals and still have fun.
Yes I wish that ammo was more close to perfect and more reliable and more available but those things aren't completely feasible.
Lethality, cost, good accuracy (not perfect!) and availability come before "perfect reliability" on my list.
I can live with a few duds during a shooting session.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

I getcha, VarmintGuy. I'm not referring to y'all who shoot stuff bigger than edible small game, or any other small game hunters, more like the crowd that likes to rapid fire at the range who seem to be more interested in making a lot of noise than actually hitting stuff. You know the ones: doofuses dressed "tactically" with tricked out semi-autos and hi-cap magazines who go through a brick of ammo in an afternoon. The range clears out when they show up.

I haven't bought a hollow point/high vel .22 round since Bush #1 was in office. I find that lazy old standard velocity solids anchor squirrels and bunnies as well as hotter ammo when heads are hit, or even heart/lungs are punctured. Can't speak to varmints as I haven't shot a groundhog (most common varmint around here) with a .22 rimfire since Reagan was in office- that's why God gave us .22 centerfires. I suppose I would sing a different tune if I were shooting ground squirrels or prairie dogs with a .22RF (or whatever else classifies as "varmint" out there). Like I said, for us here it's groundhogs (which are tough little bast*rds to kill) and the occasional garbage-raiding raccoon or skunk which aren't particularly tough to kill. Beyond that it's squirrels and bunnies as living targets for the .22 rimfire hunter.

My small game load right now is RWS SSHPs, pretty pricey, but I don't shoot all that many. When I have $70 I don't need, I'm going to order the nifty little flatnoser from Gary Reeder to convert RNs into SWCs of a sort. Oughta turn CCI SVs and such into SGBs (I hope).

348, I had one of those, and it is missing on my work bench.. Handy, but I bet you could get one made much cheaper..

I've been using the Remmy golden bullet hp in my Rem 121 ground squirrel getter, with great success. They shoot quite well for a plated bullet and the terminal effects are impressive. These are relatively new production - probably in the last 5 years.

348, I had one of those, and it is missing on my work bench.. Handy, but I bet you could get one made much cheaper..

So, pardon my ignorance but I never laid eyes on a western ground squirrel, or a gopher or prairie dog for that matter. Are they that much harder to kill than a regular old gray squirrel, such that one needs something hotter than a standard velocity .22LR to kill them cleanly?

I shot prairie dogs for the first time this summer, so I'm definitely no expert, but...

I had a ball shooting them from 100 - 135 yards with my .22 lr. It didn't blow-them-up like the other rifles, but killed them none the less. I was shooting the 42 grain Win. sub-sonic.

Ground squirrels in Idaho are small and not hard to kill. Expanding bullets are desired in my experience as solids tend to go on through and not anchor the critter where he stands. Expanding ammo seems to benefit from higher velocities to help with the expansion. Ranges are long and it's often (always) windy where I live, so higher velocities are an aid to more effective shooting. I use a 221 fireball quite a bit for the longer range targets and the rimfire for closer. Maybe out to 80-100 yards for the rimfire and out to 250-300 for the centerfire. Hits are not guaranteed, at least by me.

Academy has the 325 packs of Federal Automatch for $18.99 with free shipping over $25. For plinking they are what I shoot 75% of the time with no issues in an old Hi Standard pistol, Rem 597, 10/22 and various bolt guns.

That's a great deal. That's what I'd be buying and not wasting my hard earned money on the other crap...

gnoahhhh, having shot thousands of gr. squirrels and a few tree squirrels. The ground sq. will dive in to a hole.. The holes are everywhere.. Even though you may have made a killing shot, they get away.. I for one, don't like animals I have shot escaping into a hole to die later.. I never use solids on these guys, p. dogs are even worse because they are bigger.... Auto Match is used for water bottles, cans, rocks, maybe starlings, nothing else.. It is accurate, but doesn't kill fast enough for me.. Each to his own..

Wyo, I've had the same experiences with ground squirrels, but I've also watched as their buddies came out and drug their lifeless bodies back in the hole- presumably to dine on at a later time?
For that reason, I stay on a hole until I'm pretty sure I've gotten as many as possible from that hidy spot and I use Power Points as they really smack them good. Sometimes we end up with a pretty good pile in front of a single hole.....

Bob

Gnoahhh: I have shot just a few Tree Squirrels in my time and the ranges were in the 50 to 90 feet range.
I have shot Ground Squirrels with 22 L.R. ammo at 600 feet (200 yards) on several occasions!
Now mind you I don't ever recall hitting a Ground Squirrel at 600 feet with my 22's on the first shot but it would be much easier to do using "Hyper-Velocity" 22 offerings than with "standard velocity" ammo!
Its not the increased lethality I seek when buying faster 22 L.R. ammo - its the flatter trajectory and straighter path through the winds.
My average shot on Ground Squirrels with my 22 L.R. Rifles is probably 75 yards (225 feet).
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy