Better 22 LR rounds?

[pliny]

I thought i asked this yesterday, but I don't see my post so I'll try again. I have a Taurus Model 94 9-shot 22 cal. I have always purchased the cheapest rounds I could find. Now i want to upgrade. What can you suggest for a higher quality round? Do all 22 rounds have the same load or are some more powerful?

Information

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[GUTS]

Our gun club shoots a lot of .22 matches and most of the shooters are pretty serious about their ammo. Most of them shoot ELEY brand ammo as it is supposed to be the most accurate. Aquila makes a few different .22 rounds, I shoot Centurian(made by Aquila)and it's very accurate too. As far as more powerful .22 ammo goes, CCI Stinger is a very hopped up .22, so much so that it is not allowed in our NRA small bore matches

[jmoore]

It all depends on the intended purpose. Quite a few hyper velocity rounds out there. Velocitor, Stinger, Viper, Yellow Jacket, etc.

Also, as a defensive round, the CCI Triple Shock pre-fragmented bullet is actually pretty good. (It's split almost all the way through longitudinally into three wedges. They don't come apart until impact.) Wound channel generally described as equivalent to a std. 38 Spl.- but that is likely overblown a bit.

[pliny]

thanks for the information GUTS, that is exactly what I needed. Jim

---------- Post added at 08:44 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:42 AM ----------

Thanks Jmore! I'll be sure to look for those Triple Shock pre-fragmented CCI rounds.

[Patrick Chadwick]

There is a great variation in 22 lr ammo. You must first decide what you want to use the rifle for. My experience (which, of course, depends on the type of rifle) is as follows:

Until a couple of years ago, I had an Anschütz Match 54. I sold it when I discovered that a No. 8 could a) shoot just as well, and b) unlike the Anschütz, was eligibe for trainer competitions, and c) meant more to me personally. But while I had the Anschütz, I tried out every type of 22 ammo I could find.

1.
50 meter 22 target shooting: if you shoot in the kind of competition where you need to shoot 100/100 to be competitive, then I can assure you that you have to select the ammo that matches your rifle. Do not assume that because Joe X uses Brand Y in his rifle, that that is automatically going to be the best for your rifle, even if it is of the same type! - I took my Enfield No. 8s to the RWS test range in Fürth. Not only could you see the difference in results with various types of ammo, you could even see a difference in grouping with different batches of the same ammo! I asked the range manager about this, and he said they are quite familiar with this effect. There seem to be microscopic difference between barrels (grain distribution, surface flow, hardening, residual stress patterns...) even from the same batch, and, as a result, serious competition shooters find out which production batch suits their rifle best, and buy 5,000 10,000 or 20,000 rounds in one lot. I am not kidding!

2. Target shooting at 100 meters. Use the same ammo? Not if you are a serious hole puncher The 50 meter competition ammo is tuned to have just enough energy to work best at 50 meters. At 100 meters it is ballistically fading away. The 100 meter ammo has a slightly higher load. So it is not quite so good at 50 meters - but significantly better at 100!

So I ended up with different batches for my two No. 8s. at 50 meters - even though the serial numbers only differ by about 800. And something else again for 100 meters!

3. "Varmint" ammo - CCI stinger, Swartklip, Yellow Jacket and the like. My experience has been that none of these is as accurate as the 50 or 100 meter competition ammo (but they are considerably cheaper) or even as accurate as everyday "training" ammo, but your experience may be different.

Some people talk about using cheap ammo for training. IMOH this is a waste of time if you are a serious target shooter and the cheap ammo groups worse than you can aim. You want to test yourself, not the ammo. As for me, I have several "hungry muzzles" to feed, there are more competitions than I can manage, and so I just do not waste limited range time on ammo that does not group better than I can aim!

Patrick

[Johnny Peppers]

It is doubtful that you would notice any difference in accuracy between brands when firing them from the Taurus 94.

I found that the old white box Winchester Wildcat shot consistent groups in my Anschutz 54 Sporter where the other brands of standard off the shelf ammo gave an occasional flyer, and while not as accurate as match grade ammo, was plenty accurate for hunting and plinking.

[emmagee1917]

I managed to buy my way into a pretty good collection of WW2 training rifles. Decided to try them out and did so. Now , I'm not into competion , but I wanted OK groups. Because these were military guns , by golly I wanted to shoot FMJs through them . I bought CCI mini-mags , Federals , and WWs. In every rifle and pistol , the CCIs and Feds were neck and neck with the WWs in a slow third. Until I came to the last rifle. It shot the best groups of the day , little raggity one hole groups at 25 yds , but ONLY with the WW ! You just never know till you try.
Chris

[jmoore]

Oops! NOT "Triple Shock", but "Quik Shok".

Just in case y'all are wondering why I brought up defensive amm- A Taurus 94 is a small framed .22 revolver...not exactly a match target rifle!

[enfield303t]

I do agree that there are superior types of .22 ammo but at time think too much is made of them.

I know many shoot .22 for competition but to be honest I shot DCRA and in the winter shot indoors at a RCAF range where we used white box DND .22 ammo and military .22's.

Now I am sure the ammo was Imperial Standard Velocity .22LR which was ok but nothing to write home about however it did group very well and countless high scores were shot on every occasion. The only score that was treated as special was 100 with 10X's and I qualified for every badge available thru the RCAF indoor program in one winter, no I am not a exceptional shot but the point is the ammo was a cheap as you could get and it performed very well.

I have a friend and when his son was in the Lapua factory was informed that the way they grade the .22 ammo was by how it grouped as it was produced, nothing special was done just some "lots" grouped alot better than others so it became premium ammo. The cost of manufacture was identical to all the .22 ammo made that day, just a big increase in price for better grouping ammo.

I do agree that if you are a serious competitor I guess you can justify the high cost of some .22 ammo, personally I can't and won't spend money on it mind you I only shoot .22 for fun like all my friends.

I believe in competition all the ammo for all competitors should be the same, we shot competitive DCRA Big Bore in competition with identical ammo thus no person had a advantage whether it was a good or bad year of manufacture.

Just my thoughts and I know I am about to get much disagreement over this.

[rr2241tx]

From my Taurus 94 REVOLVER, Winchester Wildcat is about as good as it gets. I ocassionally burn off the orphans from a lot number of high priced target ammo but the lower muzzle velocity gets to be an issue with sight alignment at anything beyond rock throwing distance.