Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires WMR ammunition options

I have a RAR Compact WMR that started out shooting poorly and inconsistent with most ammo, I shot mostly CCI and Hornady, suppressed and un-suppressed with 5-10 shot groups in the 2-5" range at 100 yards, good conditions.

After tinkering that included ditching the Revolution on tip-off rings for a SS 6X in Vortex rings, fully floating the barrel and filling the stock with epoxy, removing the blade and replacing the spring it became much more consistent, the final step was a quick re-crown at the range and that made a lot of difference. Currently it will group ~1.2" 5-shot with CCI Vmax, ~1.5" 5-shot with CCI 30gr Tipped and 1.75" 5-shot with 40gr Winchester JHP that is probably fine for it's intended use but better accuracy is welcome. All ammo seems to have one in five or two in 10 that goes off in space and I have attributed that to being rimfire ammunitition.

I would prefer 40-45gr's in the WMR and I am still interested in a HMR for the lighter bullets.

Is Aquila worth a try?

How about Browning and who manufactures their ammo if not Browning?

The RAR really favors 30gr over 40gr, is this related to twist?

Browning ammo is made by Winchester.

I have the SS .22WMR in an RAR, it's shooting well enough with 40gr. CCI HPs and Federal 50s, along with the 30gr. VMaxs. It will even shoot the Gamepoint load well enough. I favor the CCI offerings, but I'm not adverse to trying other stuff. WW HPs aren't too bad, but they follow the CCI load.

I haven't tried the Aguila .22 Mag ammo, but the .22LR stuff they make is good stuff. I have no doubt they do good work with the .22 Mag, too.

Since I quit prairie dogging, I don't have much use for the 30gr. Hornady load, but it shoots awfully well in my rifle, and from what I read elsewhere, it shoots pretty good in a LOT of rifles. It outshoots everything else in my rifle, but the others are close enough not to worry much about any differences.

If you are looking for a 40-45gr you might try the Hornady Critical Defense. It is 45gr and has been the most accurate load of all I've tried in my 22mag (not a Ruger.) The vmax does well but not quite as good as the Critical Defense. Aguila's did ok also but nothing special for me.

The Winchester 40 grain h.p. use to rule the roost in my Marlin with groups around 3/4" to just under 1". I have samples of three different newer lot numbers of them and none of the three are doing any better than about 1.5" groups at 100 yards. The 50 grain Federals seem do be hanging around 1" and the CCI maxi-mags just a little larger. I still haven't tested any of these loads enough to call it is consistent, including the Winchesters.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ What he said^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Winchester 22 mag. ammo for me has always shot well,so has the better premium Federal 22 mag ammo. now some 22 mag rifles are just not that accurate as some rifles, glass bedding and floating the barrel helps too. I have a custom single shot 40x Remington action 22 mag this rifle will tell you what ammo is accurate,it shoots less than a half inch all day at 100 yards. I am very lucky I have the ability to load 22 mag and have enough new primed cases to last me a long time .

Have the same rifle and worked with it using different ammo awhile back. At 50 yards everything except Win 40g JHP shot decent. New and old lots of the Win by far the worst. Aguila Silver Eagle stood out as best with Hornady a close second. Moving out to 100yards the Aquila groups opened up to about 2”. Hornady shot 1 1/2” consistently. Other ammo such as Amscore, Win tipped 30g, various CCI offerings shot good groups but not consistent so for now I’ve settled on the Hornady. Amscore shot some surprising groups but not consistently good. Apologies for not being more specific as to brand types, going from memory while at work.

I too would like to get this rifle shooting better but haven’t tackled it again yet. Did lighten trigger and play with action screws throughout. Using a Weaver V9. May try re-crowning and a higher powered scope. My issues may be one of those, other, or my abilities.

Selection of ammo is pretty good on the shelves locally. I stocked up on the Hornady, it’s fantastic in my old Sav93.

I've had great luck with Winchester 40 grain HP and solids out of my Mossberg 640, as well as the Win 34 Supreme load.
I want to try Aguila since their standard vel 22lr stuff has treated me well.

The American has a 14 twist, as opposed to the usual 16. So it should shoot the heavies better than most.
You got the critical defense 45. Federal Gameshock 50. And Winchester still lists the 45 grain Dynapoint, (plated, not jacketed) which is a little slow for weight.

As of this morning, my SS RAR was loving the CCI 40s of all types, about half-inch at 50 yards. WW HPs stunk things up, badly, at about triple that. Air temps were in the 80s, and that bodes well for this rifle, with CCIs and Hornady's 30s, but the Winchester ammo seems to have different ideas.

It took this rifle quite awhile to come around, I bought it in November and it's only now starting to "act right", but it's REALLY acting right, right now. It damned near outshot a couple of my CZ .22LRs, which is saying something. Prior to last week, it wasn't impressing me at all, now it is shooting like it means it.

I love it when that happens. A 455 barrel in .22WMR danged near soured me on the cartridge forever, but I'm glad I took the chance on this little thing. It took a few hundred rounds before it came around, but it sure did.

my 22 mag rifles are my varmint rifles I use living in the country for pest control,the 22 mag really smacks a pest hard and dead ! the 22 mag is the most under rated killer cartridge ever developed that`s cheap to use, the old timers tell me it was a hell of a poachers cartridge .

I Love .22 mag but the ammo is so expensive now that I'm just not as excited about it as I used to be. I also think as the price of ammo went up the quality went down. CCI maxi mags don't shoot in my gun as good as they did several years ago.

I have not shot at 50 yards, only 100 so I am sure it's better. I am sure if I search there are threads but is a reasonable limit 100 yards on Coon to Coyote with 40-50 grain slugs?

I have shot hundreds over the last month, expensive for rimfire but fun for sure <grin>

I won't shoot it it near as much once I have it dialed in, the suppressed RAR 22 is the backyard gun.

I think it's you or your rifle. I shoot alot of .22 Mag. and recent CCI's still shoot MOA out of my rifle just like they always have.

I'm thinking about a CZ 512 with a 16.5-in barrel, and heavier bullets. Interested in terminal performance.

Seems like the 45gr Critical Defense is one that reliably expands from pistols, but I'm concerned it may blow up at rifle velocities.

The Federal 50gr looks like a good option, but all the gel tests out there seem to be from pistols, and it sails through the block looking ready to reload and fire again. Does it expand reliably from a rifle-length barrel?

The Aguila 45gr soft point also might be good. Anybody shoot any critters with it?

RDW,

The most consistent ammo I've found in the Mag is the Hornady 30gr V-Max.

Zero doubt that it will dump whatever you need dumped to the 100yd line.

Thanks man, it's sighted in at a 100 with Vmax's.

My experience is that .22 mag rifles are each a law unto themselves - two of the same brand rifles made about the same time will each prefer a different brand and maybe even bullet weight. My Marlin 882 and my Dad's were like that. I am happy that mine likes the 40 gr Win Super-X. My Win 9422M likes the Win Supreme 34 gr load and outshoots the bolt guns. It likes the Maxi-Mag +V and the Rem light bullet loads but the Win groups best.

It gets expensive trying all the various loads out there to find the best one!