Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires Federal Automatch 40 gr. LRN - another quick survey

What are folks' experiences with this? Okay - goes bang regularly and accurate enough for casual steel plinking, junk to be studiously avoided or "you might be surprised".

With .22 LR prices coming down to somewhere near to what they were 2-3 years ago - not quite but gettin' there - I've been grabbing a couple thousand here, a couple thousand there as various sellers offer free shipping deals. Looking tonight I see Federal Automatch at 6.2 cents per round with free shipping if you buy at least seven of the 325 packs, so before I whip out the credit card wanted to check with the cognescenti here.

My limited experience with it has been positive regarding function. Not one of the leaders in accuracy. Bulk plinking/blasting ammo. Of coarse your firearms and experience may differ.

I’ve never liked it but know one guy that does. Another buddy of mine bought 27 boxes of it back during the shortage and he hated it. He wound up selling all of his to my other buddy.

It generally shoots decent enough but I’ve seen more duds during Steel Challenge matches with it than any other brand. But game guns can be finicky depending on how redneck the tinkerer is.

I've never had an issue with it, but I use good rifles.

Works good in my 10/22's and mk2 ruger target pistols. It will shoot 1/2" to 5/8" 5 shot groups in my hb cz453 set bolt gun. None of my 22's hate it...mb

Generally better accuracy than any of the other cheap stuff and dead reliable. I have loads of with it for fun time at the range. Tweaked 10-22 at 50 yards.

Hell of deal right here.. I just had some shipped to Idaho $84 bucks for 1000rds. My bud is flying up and will bring it. Alaska airlines allows you up to 50lbs for ammo.

https://palmettostatearmory.com/norma-tac-22-22-long-rifle-ammo-40gr-lrn-500rds-tac22-500.html

Looks like it shoots just fine to me. It is $21/box here, which if pretty reasonable.

I know it's cheap guys, but I'm a titewad a lot of times. I won't shoot anything Remington rimfire. That schidt is garbage anymore. I used to love yellowjackets. Those were the schidt right there, but when ammo was hard to find, it seemed like Federal was still able to produce the Automatch. I'm one that can appreciate that effort on their part. I've posted these before, but here goes:

Ruger 10-22 with Kidd barrel:





These were all shot on the same day^^^

No "cherry picking". I'm showing the good with the bad..

I shoot automatch in a s&w model 41 in bullseye matches. Shoots very well, Had a guy show up last weekend with Remington thunderbolt. Lol I can’t make this up lol..he goes this stuff shoots horrible. So I gave him a handful of the federal automatch and some cci standard. Afterwards he’s like man they both shot pretty good. My friend and me said afterwards who brings thunderbolt to a bullseye match lol..

Ha ha.. I have seen that too. Makes you shake your head huh? One of my buddies in Washington is like that. An old retired Airborne Ranger. Hell of a good dude. He's 80, but still shoots quite well. Well, last year when we were having a know your limits shoot, he was having issues with his old Winchester semi-auto. I told him he could use my 10-22. I let him use the Eley Target ammo I had been using in it for 2 rounds. He was whipping all of our azzes. I said, "Steve, you are going to have to use your ammo now". He said, ok and pulled out some damn thunderbolts and old golden bullets. I said, ok I'll adjust the turret so you are on target, but you may have to fine tune it. The guy continued to whip our azz and everyone told me not to let him borrow it again. I almost won a couple matches against him but wasn't quite fast enough with my single shot Savage. The damn target ammo I was using kept sticking to my fingers when I was trying to load it quick. Still could not believe he was whipping our azzes with that cheap azzed Remington ammo. That Kidd barrel is not finicky though. Should have known better...

I have nothing but praise for Automatch. I've yet to have it cause malfunctions in any semi-auto.

My CZ bolt gun likes the Automatch well enough!

I like it because it's subsonic through my suppressed S&W Victory pistol. I just use it in that application, but it is great there. I get it at WalMart for $21 or so. Grab that or 3 boxes of $4.99 CCI Standard Vels nearly every weekend.

Automatch has functioned perfectly our semiautos and given excellent accuracy in everything I've tried it in.

It has always worked ok for me. I bought a case from Target Sports USA right at the beginning of the plandemic. Price at that time was $139.99 to my door. Ten boxes of 325. I still have a few unopened boxes.

I like the Norma also. Toss up between it and automatch. Only thing is shoot that stuff below 80* as it has some really nasty lube on it. So fugging slick I had a hard time loading magazines without the stuff slipping out of my hand.

Actually went out and shot a box of the Automatch and 150 rds of the Norma TAC-22 last night through the new MK IV 22/45. The Automatch functioned perfectly, as I expected that it would. I've gone through 5-6 cases of it in the past couple of years and 95% of it was flawless. There was one batch that had about a 10% fail to fire rate. But everything before and after that batch has been fine.

The Norma TAC-22 was a different story. And Swifty, you're right about the lube. A lot greasier than the CCI's. I had high hopes for it being usable in steel challenge matches. But, it had a bunch of FTE's with it. Sometimes, the bolt was completely closed on the empty case and sometimes the empty case was stove-pipped on the bolt. Literally went through 4-5 magazines where 90% were "single shot" because I had to pull the bolt back every time.

The Norma box says it is 1,100 fps (40gr) and the AutoMatch says it's 1,200 fps (40gr). This was also the first time the pistol has been shot. Granted, it was properly lubed after replacing all of the internals with Volquartsen parts (including the firing pin and extractor).

Maybe the pistol just needs breaking in. But, I could go right from a mag of Norma's that 9/10 rounds wouldn't extract to a mag of Automatch that functioned perfectly then right back to a mag of Norma's that would not extract. Maybe with the gun being new, and the Norma being softer shooting, the recoil spring is a little stiff causing them not to cycle with the softer shooting Norma.

I am going to go back out with my MK3's and the Glock 44 to see how the Norma's run through those, but I'm disappointed in them so far and I've got two cases of them on my shelf.

That sucks. I hope you get it figured out. Wondering how it would have performed in a bone stock pistol, before the parts change? One thing about my bone stock Ruger mkII's, is they always function flawlessly. I'm always amazed by that fact, as I've had some semi auto rifles that were finicky. I just shoot cheap azzed red box federal bulk in my mkII's because they seem to shoot very well for the price point and they take pins down just fine. That is the only time I use my mkII pistols. Not much of a pistola shooter..

[img]https://i.imgur.com/273jCSz.mp4[/img]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/puigB1P.mp4[/img]

I have seen where sticky ammo can create unnecessary issues though. I still have not tried the Norma Tac22 ammo I bought about 4 months ago. I know a lot of guys here love it. We will see though..

The Norma Tac-22 is definitely slippery oily feeling, I've only used it in the summer/early fall so far so will see how it does this winter. I use it in .22 bolt rifles so functioning in autoloaders is moot for me.

My favorite all around ammo, CCI AR Tactical, is kind of at the other end and very waxy feeling. It also gives top accuracy in all of my .22's, bolt or semi-auto, but recently displayed a little hitch which only appears in Ruger Mark .22 magazines.

My Mk IV has been getting failure to feed jams recently where the round only makes it halfway into the chamber before the sidewall is crushed by the bolt. The magazines themselves are very sluggish in operation, slow to raise the next round into position. Took one apart yesterday and discovered a smear of wax in the inside front where the bullet noses rubbed against it. Cleaned that out and they are now as slick operating as ever.

That doesn't show up in any other magazine for a 10/22 or bolt rifle. Not a big deal since it's easily cleaned out, and will continue to use the ammo but will probably clean those Ruger mags a bit more often than every 5 years.