Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires remington thunderturd failure

Marlin 90, clean and works, case blew the rim. Why and the heck can't the US ammo folks make a decent 22lr load anymore?

Ain't a matter of can't, it's a won't thing. If we want to make them up QC and product performance we only need to stop buying their crap. All of the Euro production ammo I've shot in recent years is light years ahead of US manufactured rimfire ammo. Good enough that I've not purchased any US made ammo for the .22 RF in about 15 years.

There is a USA company that makes really good .22 ammo.

It is called CCI.

My question to you is , Why are you shooting Remington Thunderbolts? It is widely known to be some of the worst .22 ammo out there.

pre 2000 22 ammo, had a box sitting on the shelf, by the way current CCI sucks as well

I have not purchased any Euro 22 lr ammo ever as US production has gave me accurate, reliable ammo for plinking and small game hunting. My Winchester 1906 has been fed several brands over the years with good results. During the Obama scare and hoarding most of my ammo supply went to Hunter Safety classes and the KAMO organization. For awhile Thunderbolts were about the only bulk ammo I could purchase reasonable to re-supply.

The 1906 does very well with it. Have I had some mis-fires, sure, is it dirty ammo, yes? Is it fun to shoot, yes?

CCI Std Vel seems to do quite well for me. What I like to shoot is SK though. The Fiocchi Sport is decent stuff.

That Aguila brand Mexican ammo says on the box that it's Eley-primed. Which makes it part European I guess.

Do you know if that is as good as the European? Meaning is it going to go bang every time? I've never tried it.

Another vote for CCI. Although I bought a lot of Aguila during the crunch, CCI SV is still my go-to ammo.

No, not as good, not even close. It does go bang.

The best Aguila/Centurion stuff is as decent/serviceable/reliable as CCI Standard, although it extracts hard in some wheelguns, as does some Euro stuff.

Same here. And there's been plenty of opportunity lately to stock up at good prices. Around $.04-05/rd.

I've shot close to 7500 rounds of it thru my boltguns and a 10/22, with no issues whatsoever. An ancient Marlin 60 will sometimes fail to fire, but that's common with any and all ammo in that old thing. I really like it, and so do my rifles. I've got about 7500 rounds still on hand. I plan to buy it whenever I can get a good deal on it. Last I looked, it was $$2.49/box at Academy, with free shipping if you buy enough. Midsouth usually has a good price on it, too.

I refuse to buy any Remington ammo. It leaves my rifles and my hands filthy. I can buy better ammo for a lot less money. It does shoot somewhat better than some of Federal's stuff, so I avoid Federal .22 ammo as well. In some circles, that Aguila is known as "Mexican MiniMags" because the reliability is similar and it shoots about the same as the CCI ammo.

Haven't had any trouble with current CCI, yet. The 10 year-old Winchester bulk pack I have is reliable and okay for plinking, but just so-so accurate in my guns. High dollar Winchester 1435fps HP's have had multiple duds, in several guns, apparently because there was no priming at all, not just in spots. For my 77/22 RSI, it's RWS SSHPs for business, SV and Quiet .22s for practice. Haven't bought Remington in decades, except one box to try in a CZ about 8 years ago.

I’ve shot a ton of CCI and Thunderbolts.

CCI has been stellar. Thunderbolts nearly so. I’ve only had a few fail to fire with them out of thousands.

Ratsmacker.. you can get SV aguila for 190/5000 shipped from targetsports. I’ve shot a bunch and find it to be well worth the price.
Mooner I’ve also shot a ton of CCI SV and thunderbolts and while the CCI always wins for accuracy I’ve never experienced the horrendous FTF issues some seem to have

IIRC, over half of the Thunderbolts that FTF in a Remington 572, fired in a CZ 452.
Not all were checked, yet enough to say the first gun was probably not striking the primer as hard as it maybe should
We had paid $7.99 per 500 so a few misfires of the thousands shot at whistle pigs wasn't disastrous.

Bulk has mostly been Federal since with no real complaints.

CCI has been excellent ammo since the 1970's for me. Have seen semi-autos that would jam occasionally with most other brands, and not using mini-mags.
YMMV

I know a guy whose High Standard target pistol was damaged when a round of CCI standard velocity appeared to be double charged.
It was packed in blue & white paper boxes back when they were made for export I think.
CCI paid to have the gun fixed.

I had a case separate with a round of Sellier & Bellot target .22LR. The front half of the case went down the barrel along with the bullet.
I felt the extra power and heard an abnormally loud discharge when the case blew.

It can happen to any ammo, especially the less expensive ones that are massed produced on fast running production lines.

But despite what happened with the Sellier & Bellot, I never had one misfire with any of their .22lr ammo and I shot a lot of it.
They have excellent priming. I did find a loaded S&B bullet that was 1.5 times the normal length and saved it as an oddity..
They can make some weird looking bullets, but they don't seem to mess up their .22 priming. But its accuracy can be poor.

I used to grab a lot of .22 misfires from a range box and feed them into single or double action .22 revolvers.
Many misfire rounds end up firing after being spun in the chamber up to 2 or 3 times if it doesn't go off the 1st time.
It's like playing Russian Roulette except with clay pigeons.