Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Whats up with WIN .22 lr ammo

I bought a bunch of the WHITE BOX WIN 550 rd count before OBAMMY was elected. My buddy has several custom built 10-22s which shot the win 550 without a flaw and extreemely accurate. Now he has nummerious misfires, with the smaller round box I think its called 330 or 350. Four out of 10 rounds, the report of 10 rounds firing, none ov them sound the same. And he has numerious miss fires and hangups with this little semi 22. Has WINCHESTER'S QA dept gone to [bleep] with all the layoffs and cut backs? Untill they get their [bleep] together, Ill be buying FED ammo. It is not as accurate but at least it fires.

Nobody have an issue with Win 22lr ammo Its all my Savage will shoot.

I don't buy that brand anymore. Just CCI's here. They cost more but they fire when the trgger is pulled.

I've not had a problem with Winchester in a Model 47 Winchester, a Charles Daly Zastava, or a Smith and Wesson Model 18.

lots of remmys and cheap winnys in 22 cal misfire.

I was shooting with a friend last week who had some of the winchester stuff, I think it was 555 to a box. He was having some problems with it in a semi auto pistol and it seems to fit overly snug in the cylinder of my M617 also.

I've had no issue with the 333 bulk pack stuff they where selling a few years ago and still might be. I tested it for function an accuracy in several of my rimfires before I picked up about 20K rounds of it. I've gone through most of it by now and hope to get more of the same stuff.

Most of the bulk-boxed 22 ammo is crap.. When I have to test fire a .22 I stick to the gray-boxed 50 rds of Winch Super-X.. If you want the best, buy Eley - but expect to pay 3X the price..

I won't even look at the bulk stuff any more.. Basically, it's worthless..

To a certain extent I disagree, Blazers have always treated me and I believe others well and there's not much to complain about Federal 510's either.


Not quite Bulk ammo, but CCI Mini-Mags are good to test the functionality of different guns. (My .02 cents)

It's the market. Nobody says capitalism is pretty.

Most folks who buy .22 ammo just want it to go "bang" (most of the time) and they want it cheap, so that's what the manufacturers give them. Even many or most shooters have the attitude "It's just a .22", even with the guns themselves. Serious shooters of the rimfires are a relatively tiny part of the market.

In the case of .22 ammo, like many other things these days, crap sells, and it is profitable.

Paul

I've had good luck with the Federal Automatch. It's more expensive than the bulk but less than CCI.

Federal Blue box shoots bug holes out of my CZ453, and I've never had a misfire in at least half a dozen bricks.

Another vote for Blazers (made by CCI) and Federal blue box. The Federals haven't proven quite as reliable for me, but for the money, I cannot complain.

So have I, at least in certain lots. Automatch may be bulk, but it seems to be a cut above the really cheap stuff that I was referring to.

If a person is willing to test samples of the cheaper .22 ammo, sometimes you can find a decent lot and, if you are lucky, stock up on it. One problem with the cheap stuff is its variability, but sometimes you can take advantage of it and score a good batch.

Or, you can buy Eley.

Paul

I bought up a bunch (some 20K rounds) of Federal Bulk .22LR HP a year or so back. I store it, along with a lot of othet ammunition, under temp and humidity controlled conditions in a metal safe. This is SHTF long term stuff.
As I shoot it, there have not been any problems out of the ordinary.
As Redneck says, when I really need quality, I use something else. For hunting, I have settled on the 100 ct boxes of CCI mini mag.

Blazer bulk?

I've not seen that.
I agree with no more bulk ammo for us.
We go through a ton of .22lrs

At least 500 every weekend through target pistols and 10/22's
( those 25 rnd mags are great , but boy do they eat up shells!)
I've had so many miss fires, and even unloaded , empty cases , come out of the bulk boxes that I will never buy them again.

We buy Blazer 505 std velocity 50 rnd boxes for the wife's Buckmark ( it's favorite fodder )
And I like Federal gray box standadr velocity shells
A good compromise between cost and accuracy.

If we ever get back into bullseye matches again, I'll need to buy better , match ammo.

I have contacted Winchester and Remington both with ammo complaints. And they have both sent me coupons.
But I won't buy their stuff.

That reminds me, me needum 22.
I had a good run with the Winchester 40 PP when those first came out, but later lots didn't impress much. Then the 555s and 333s came along and even with rim-gaging my 10-22 didn't like them much -- with PP nowhere to be had.
So, I circled back to the Northwest's Own Ammo, CCI mini mags. Painful to buy, a pleasure to shoot. But I miss the "ploop" of the power points.

Bulk stuff is completely off the menu for my rifles as well. It is a shame, as I bought several thousand Winchester Wildcat rounds in the 80�s and used those in my Kimber M82 to win .22 silhouette matches in the 90�s. It shot as accurately as anything else.

Cut forward to last year. Finally ran out of my big stash and bought two more bricks of recently manufactured Wildcat. It won�t group worth spit. It does go bang, I�ll give it that, but doesn�t shoot well in any of four .22 rifles or four.22 handguns. Federal bulk is even worse, it doesn�t group, it sprays.

Still have about 7500 rounds of Winchester Super-X from 20 or 30 years ago and am using that sparingly, and as that goes I�ll just bite the bullet so to speak and go ahead and pay the bucks for decent ammo. When I started up silhouette again last year I bought 5 bricks of Wolf Match Target, all from the same lot. That stuff is the real deal, it shoots great in everything

If you just want to pull a trigger fast then bulk is probably worth the money, but I like to take my time and put each round where I want it, so accurate ammo takes precedence over cheap ammo.

I''ve never had a real problem with bulk ammo. I figure it comes off the same line as the more expensive stuff since it would cost more to run two lines (or re-tool a single line) than to just make it all pretty much the same. The savings (in mmy mind)comes in the packaging and cost allocation model (attribute less marketing cost to the bulk stuff).

I've had some misfires with both bulk and higher prices 22 LR ammo.

I did a little research on that. Rotating the round 180 degrees sometimes works. If i didn't I pulled the bullet and put it in a vise loosely. Turning it and using a punch on the rim.

I found that some had no priming compound. Others had some put it didn't go all the way around the rim.

Most Commercially built 22 LR rigs have their Firing Pin center lines offset at LEAST .100" of Bore Centerline.

Having studied "Wild Bill Calfee's" writings at some length, I bought into his proposal that crushing the Outer radius of the rim was WASTED energy,.....and that there's no advantage to denting / crushing a "Dead" area, made up of cartridge brass only. The priming compound lays a bit closer the middle of the pie, as it were.

I now center My .22 LR Firing pins at .0935" off Bore Centerline, and have been pleased with results.

Ruger 10-22s Use a Chisel tip that beats the crap out of a LONG area, including that "Dead area" of the rim radius. Try trimming that pin tip to strike only the "Inboard" area,....You know, where the priming compound actually IS.