22 ammo testing

[Grasshopper52]

I have a two part question for everyone,

1- What do you do to test your .22 ammo?

2- Based on your testing, how do you decide if it is acceptable to use? Or in other words, what is good enough?

Thanks,
Jim

[ajj]

I test from a benchrest at 100 meters. You occcasionally see ammo which is acceptable at 100 yards but really opens up at 100 meters, believe it or not. I would consider groups under 1.5" at 100 meters to be pushing the "excellent" territory assuming that's really an average of several 5-shot groups. The truth is that you have to get very good indeed before a half-inch difference in 100 meter groups makes any difference to an offhand shooter. Just find some reasonably affordable, standard velocity ammo which will consistently group under 2" and consider anything better than that a bonus.

[Grasshopper52]

Thanks ajj,

I know that I'm not a great bench shooter so I'm hoping to find some ideas other then that. I really want to see if this case of Eley Practice 100 that I won at Pe Ell will work for more then just practice. I usually want to have a 25 shot group to be as close to an inch as possible, but I'm really not confident in my bench technique and I can't tell if it is me or the ammo that is causing some to get away from the group. For what it's worth, I do have access to a chronograph, so what kind of velocity extreme spreads should I be looking for?

Thanks,
Jim
(a AAA shooter working on becoming a Master)

[iceman99]

I usually pay the daily fee to use a local indoor range there I compare a host of ammo. i.e. I buy boxes of 50 shells for every ammo I can find.

The winner is the ammo that consistently is shooting the smallest groups. Whatever the smallest groups are - is acceptable.

[shootingpaul]

any ammo that you will pay more than $6 US for a box should be uniform in velocity, if you want to get to Masters (considering what you wrote on the bottom) then I would suggest finding ammo that shoots 1 inch -1 1/4 at the rams.  I think that cronograph your 22 is waste of time, sugestions for a good ammo would be LApua MAster, eley (at least ) black box, some better RWS like "rifle target".  I shoot Lapua Master, and at one time i was sorting it by rim thickness and I shot 5/8 group at 100 (11 shots), unfortunatelly It got late and I could not test any more than that, but I got so hooked on that group that I certainly will repeat my testing next year.
all 22 match ammo will shoot around 1080 fps, and I heard others opinion
that rim thickness sorting will improve accuracy, but I still have to do much more testing before I will be convinced, I remember we tested some old Fed GMM 900, couple years ago, and this stuff was so even that it was a waste of time,
all the best
shootingpaul

[lucho]

I use a technique developed by DanDeMan.

He suggested chronoing an entire box of fifty shots.  If the extreme spread of the velocities for the whole box is less than 30 ft/sec.  Then shot it for groups at 100 yards.

To save time I shot over the chrono and for a group at the same time.

I recently bought some Eley Match EPS that had an extreme spread of 24 ft/sec for 50 shots.  I have posted the group in the Greybeards album.  Here is the address:

http://www.graybeardoutdoors.com/phpbb2/album_personal.php?user_id=5376

This ammo was $6.00 a box.  I use it only for big matches, like State or Nationals.  

For regular monthly matches and practice I shoot Wolf ammo which has an extreme spread of about 50ft/sec.  The groups are about 1.5 inches at 100 yards.  It cost $2.00 a box.  I have shot masters scores with this ammo.

My theory is practice more and save the expensive stuff for the big matches.  More practice will make you a better shooter, not better ammo.  If you break center they will go down.

You could also practice by shooting the cheap stuff at chickens and pigs.  Even the cheap stuff groups great at those distances.

Lucho

[DanDeMan]

Yo Guys,

The reason I've recommended shooting a box of ammo over the chrono and THEN shooting groups is a function of the range Lucho, Grasshopper, 5Pigs and others shoot at.  To use the chronograph one needs sun light, but wind during daylight hours is often tricky so grouping is often questionable.  On Tuesday nights the range is open till 9 PM.  On a typical Tuesday evening the wind totally dies by about 7 PM.  That is why I shoot 50 over the chrono during the day and then groups on Tuesday evening.

[nomad]

Lucho,

I may have missed something. (It happens all the time!) :oops:
Is that 50 shots at 100 yds? Not 100 meters? What was the size?
I'm guessing that it's a bit over 1 1/4"?

[lucho]

Yes, it's 100 yards and the orange dot is 3/4 of an inch in diameter.

Lucho

[nomad]

Lucho,
You had to go and start me wondering!
I generally test for average of a couple of 10 shot groups but I'll have to run a full-box group next time we have some decent conditions and see how it goes.
For 50 shots, the group that you posted looks awfully good. Now I'll have to see what my rifle/ammo combination will do over that many shots.
 :eek:
Faced with the constant wind problem here, we don't get many days when testing is absolutely reliable. Mostly, we have to use something already 'known good' as a control and compare against that. And, our range is set up in meters so it won't compare exactly to your group anyway...but you've certainly aroused my curiosity!

[lucho]

Nomad

Generally, if there is some wind, I just ignore the horizontal group size.  I usually only measure the vertical group size.  After all that is what would correspond to the velocity variations.

That was a great group.  I usually shout 2 to 4 boxes depending on how many I have.  But the groups from that lot were similar.  I shoot rather quickly since my primary goal is to get the chrono data.  The groups are just an added peace of data.  

Needless to say I bought as much of that lot as I could afford.  If I only shoot it at big matches it should last a few years.

Lucho

[nomad]

Lucho

Because we're INSIDE the DFW metroplex, our entire range out to 100m is heavily bermed and baffled.
When the wind blows, it swirls around the club house & RO shack, down through the overhead baffles, over the 40/50/75/100m berms and across the high walls on both sides of the facility. Ignoring the horizontals just doesn't work here! We get verticals, horizontals, diagonals and (probably) octagonal Betazoids!

When I can get a calm day -- there are about four of those a year -- I'll see what I get for 50 shots.