All: Two weeks ago I stumbled into a great deal from a friend of mine who sadly is rather ill (liver cancer) and is thinning out his large accumulation of firearms.
I was with him last fall when he bought this stainless Ruger American Rimfire in 22 L.R. added a scope made by Nikon and then he set about to test ammo. Its been to the range just twice with him but not afield, and now sadly my friend needed to sell it.
This Ruger American has the stainless action and stainless semi-heavy barrel 18" barrel.
No sights and it has the Ruger style "Accu-Trigger" (which is very pleasing by the way!)
The 4x12 scope has additional stradia wires and dots that I will familiarize myself with soon.
My friend later bought several boxes of the new Winchester 40 grain "Hyper Velocity Hollow Point Copper Plated Varmint & Small Game" 22 L.R. bullets and he sold them all to me with the Rifle.
I had never shot these bullets and I am pretty sure they are a somewhat new offering.
I have not chronographed them yet but the advertised speed of 1,435 F.P.S of the 40 grain bullets sure got my attention!
I believe the item number on the box for these bullets is "XHV22LR"?
It is not clearly marked.
Been real busy and have only been to the range once with this rig and the intended ammunition. Got it sighted in quickly and easily and was very impressed with the two 5 shot groups I made with the set-up there at 50 yards.
When I get more time and a "calm enough" day I will shoot this combo at 100 yards.
Time finally came yesterday for the new rig and new ammo to draw "first blood"!
I am hosting some Hunters from Florida, Louisiana, Illinois and New Hampshire this week and the snow quit yesterday so off we go!
To say I was impressed with the performance/lethality of the new Winchester 22 H/P ammo would be a gross understatement!
This ammo is the best 22 L.R. I have ever used on Ground Squirrels and I am stating that after only shooting 300 rounds of it at Varmints yesterday!
With the 12 power scope (no adjustable objective sadly!) I was bonking Gophers (straight downwind!) at 125 - 140 yards rather regularly!
And the terminal effects of this 1,435 F.P.S. H/P ammo was noticeably better than any 22 L.R. I have used before! And I am pretty sure I have used all the American made offerings in 22 L.R. H/P ammo.
Over this past winter my friend ordered and installed a Boyd's high comb type laminated Varmint stock for this Rifle and it sure fits me to a "T"!
And it is way better looking than the factory plastic offering that came with the Rifle originally.
So a big thumbs up on the Ruger American Rimfire with its very pleasing accuracy, great trigger and the unbeatable Ruger Rotary Magazine!
I am guessing I kill't about 220 Ground Squirrels yesterday on this Rifles first outing, out of the exactly 300 rounds I fired.
For those not familiar with early season Ground Squirrels the males are constantly chasing and fighting each other this time of year and seldom hold still for even 6 seconds! I touched off at least 15 shots at Gophers who were no longer "there"!
The bottom line on this new Winchester ammo is "amazing"!
I was very impressed with it.
So far I have only seen this ammo for sale at "Cabela's" type stores!
In my opinion it would be well worth the while of any small game and Varmint Hunters to seek out and try this new Winchester offering.
I have a spare Leupold 4.5x14 variable scope with adjustable objective and fine Du-Plex crosshairs that I may use to replace the non-A/O scope on this Rifle, as soon as I get time to do so.
I nearly forgot to mention how "handy" this stiff and short barreled Rifle was yesterday - I shot it from the cab of the VarmintMobile about 90% (off of "window bags") of the time yesterday as the outside temperature barely got to 40 degrees!
Anyway it was sure easy to handle there with the 18" barrel.
Out of 300 rounds fired I never had even a single failure to extract, failure to feed or failure to eject!
I did have one failure to fire but ejected the case onto the ground and forgot to retrieve and inspect it (for depth of firing pin strike).
Two big thumbs up for both items tested.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy