Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires You never know until you try

Like a lot of folks here I try to buy rimfire ammo in bulk, both for price breaks and to have it all from the same lot. Last year I bought three cases of Federal Automatch at a good sale price from a local store.

Problem was, it was always "meh" in my rifles and pistols. Not terrible, okay for plinking, but even there it was problematic. Had at least one failure to fire in every magazine in a Ruger Mark IV. Had to buy a new Volquartsen firing pin to solve that problem. In my 10/22's it showed a lot of variability in power. Mini-Mags, CCI AR Tactical and others would work the bolt forcefully, a "Bang slam!". The Automatch would go "bang ka-chug", and sometimes a feeble "bang kaaa-chuuugg", with way too many stovepipes.

I shot a few boxes since it was paid for but that's about the only reason. I've rented a table at a gun show this weekend and was planning on selling the remaining 2 1/2 cases there and putting the money toward some Norma Tac-22 which all of my rifles like.


So in another thread I mentioned how I recently bought a left hand CZ 457 American and a Varmint model as well. Went out this morning to do some torque tests and retry some of the ammo that the American had found only mediocre before. Looked at the Automatch, said "naaahhh", didn't want to open a fresh box and have 325 rounds to fire, but then finally figured what the heck and took a box with me.

Well, boy howdy, that was fortuitous. Found the torque value sweet spot on my rifles and tried some CCI Standard Velocity, CCI Mini-Mags and the Federal Automatch in each. The picture below speaks for itself.

Top three groups are torque value tests with Norma Tac-22, bottom left is CCI Standard, middle is Mini-Mag and bottom right is the Federal Automatch. Apparently an evil witch showed up at my christening and cursed me with throwing a flyer in every group I shoot for the rest of my life, but even with that, that group is 10 shots into .619" with nine shots into .394". That's near as good as my Tikka T1x will shoot. Fwiw, the lower left group with the Standard Velocity ammo is about how the Automatch performed in my other rifles.

Just to make sure it wasn't a fluke I fired another group on a separate target and put five rounds into .361", and that was just dinking around, not even using formal benchrest technique.

Bottom line is I'm not selling the Automatch, and even if it only gets shot in the 457 American, I now have some 8,250 rounds of ammo, all of the same lot, that this rifle really, really likes.

You just never know 'til you try.

I bought a case of Geco Semi-Auto, after trying a brick. The case was a different lot number, and completely awful in the CZ512, (the first brick averaged .359" at 50 yards, it was outstanding). I have a wad of .22 rifles, but it didn't shoot very well in any of them. However, when I tried it in my Smith 617, it was pretty good stuff.

You just never know with a doggoned .22, rifle or pistol.

I have a couple bricks of the Geco Match .22 It doesn't group well in my CZ's either. They prefer SK variants, Eley Benchrest Precision and Norma Match. I believe the Geco is made by RWS but I have some RWS Target and that does much better than the Geco.

Not sure at all, but the Geco brand might be discontinued now. I haven't seen any more since I bought that case three years ago. Who knows anyway?

Beretta bought the whole shebang about two years ago, RWS, Geco, and any other associated brands that might have been assembled on the same machines.