Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires What is your favorite ammo for hunting with a .22!

I use my .22's mostly for shooting ground squirrels in the summer... My small game hunting cottontails and the like is done with my .22 Hornet.. The last tree squirrels I shot were also with the Hornet... But for hunting if you use a ,22 what is your favorite ammo.. I bought a bunch of Fed. bulk 22lr hp... The other day I shot maybe 15 gophers with it and my 521T.. Some where solid heart lung hits and the big gophers made it a few feet into a hole...I don't like that so went back to CCI MM HP ammo for my 94-22 and Stingers in my bolt action CZ.. My only complaint is the 94 does not group nearly as well as the CZ or 521T with that ammo, but it does a job on gophers, and the Stingers are even better.. What is your favorite...

My grandson was shooting them with the Aguila 38 grain super extra hollow points and had really good luck with it. Accuracy was pretty decent also.

I like the old winchester power point hollow points. I have one brick left. I shot two groundhogs recently with federal 31 grain hyper velocity hollow points. No complaints.

The most accurate short of buying the $18 fifty county boxes. American Eagle HP for a Ruger 77/22. Win HP Power Points for an Anschutz. Go for head or shoulder shots on Belding's Ground Squirrels. They do not run away.

The old Winchester Power Point (X22LRPP) was completely excellent but is no longer in production in the same configuration (I've still got bricks of the stuff). That being said, the two best that I have found accuracy/lethality-wise is the SK High Velocity Hollow Point and Lapua Hollow Point. I'm not certain that either load is still in production (again, I've got multiple bricks of both) but if you find them, they are worth the price.

RS

Winchester 1906 - Remington Thunder bolt 40 grs, round nose solid bullet.

Ruger 10/22 Winchester SuperX Power Point 40 gr, lead hollow point

Ruger 77/22 Remington Viper 22 Hyper Velocity 36 gr. solid bullet (1410 fps.)

My 10/22 has a belly full of Velocitors waiting for the woodchucks to come in.

The velocitors shoot dime sized groups @ 50yds and deliver instant death.

Remington golden bullet hollow point is the most accurate out of my Rem 581. with a solid body hit they won't get down the hole.

I'm really like the Aguila 38 grain HP high velocity load

Those and CCI Stingers are my go to loads.

Eley subsonic HP

CCI Subsonic. I like RWS Subsonic too. Both are deadly on squirrels.

I have a new found love for the Velociter. Deadly accurate and very few rats make it back to the hole.

I mostly hunt tree squirrels, with my .22s. My favorite load is CCI SV LR.

Over decades mostly used Minimag HPs. Red Squirrels to beavers and porkies.

Now prefer CCI subsonic HPs. Also the Eley version.

For rats at night CCI Quiet segmented HPs.

If I am hunting with a 22lr, there is a 99% chance I am squirrel hunting. Since we only head shoot them, I would use the most accurate ammo I can find.

RWS subsonics. I started using them in the late 70's and have never looked back. I like the PMC Moderators also, they are super quiet.

CCI Quick Shok. Puts a hurting on small game.

Since the 80's I've relied on Eley Tenex, Federal Gold UltraMatch (UM1), RWS R50, and their ilk for all my tree squirrel hunting. Winchester 52's, Springfield M2, Winchester Low Wall get the nod- as long as a rifle exhibits dime size or less accuracy at 50 yards it's good to go. Head shots in the main, but occasional chest shots still see them tumble out of the tree dead. I'm quite willing to sacrifice a little pizazz on the bullet's part in exchange for hair-splitting accuracy.

Those guns and ammo suffice rather nicely for backyard predators also. Three garden raiding groundhogs last year and a chicken killing fox this year succumbed to low vel target solids, all at roughly 50 yards. You don't need hyper velocity or HP's if the bullet goes squarely into the brain. Besides that, they are very quiet- a "pttt" versus a "crack" has advantages both in a suburban backyard and in the squirrel woods.

Note too: when I take up a station in the woods, I use a rangefinder to mark various distances so I know exactly where to hold or what elevation setting to employ to take advantage of having worked out bullet drops at the range. Same goes for pre-measured distances in the backyard. With the low velocity of this ammo it's what I do to compensate for increased bullet drop versus hi vel ammo.