Author Topic: Does rimfire ammo get any junkier than Remington? (Read 4061 times)

lakota · « **on:** March 10, 2013, 10:43:45 AM »

A friend and I went out to do a little shooting yesterday. I took my Ruger Mark 3 22/45, he had his 10/22 and a standard Mark 3.
I shot 2 boxes of Remington Thunderbolts. Now I remember this ammo being filthy dirty and inconsitent in powder charge from years ago but I never had any misfires. This new stuf is garbage. I had 9 failure to fires out of 100 rounds. A nearly 10% FTF rate is unacceptable. I ejected these rounds and subjected them to numerous firings and still nothing. My friend even tried them in his 10/22 and they still wouldnt go off. Out of the 9 only 1 went off when fired again.
If that wereny bad enough my friend had Remington High velocity hollow points in the green and yellow boxes and he had almost as many problems as I did with the Thunderbolts, and they had the same inconsistent muzzle report as the Thunderbolts to.
If rimfire ammo ever gets back to normal in the future and I can choose between brands I intend to stay away from Remington.

cwlongshot · « **Reply #1 on:** March 10, 2013, 11:20:57 AM »

Thunderbolts are pretty much known crappy ammo... BUT The Goldens have always been good. Back in the '90's I was buying 2 bricks a week to ''have'' and still have the better part of a case. They shoot well. I bought a ''brick'' of the 550s before Christmas and haven't shot any yet. Hope they are OK but by the sound of it, they will not be.

BUT The standard velocity we bought back in the late 80's is prone to many duds. My bullseye team bought a couple cases a year until we bought those. We switched to CCI std velocity and have been switching between 0035 and 0032 CCI std ever since. These are very good.

Once my Goldens are gone I too am thru with them. I'll stick with the CCI's hope they break loose sooner than later...

CW

Oldshooter · « **Reply #2 on:** March 10, 2013, 12:00:49 PM »

I have had similar results with goldens, I really like and use cci whenever possible.

JBC · « **Reply #3 on:** March 10, 2013, 01:30:07 PM »

Same experience here with golden duds, I bought one bulk pack a few years back and had a more than 10% ftf rate. Haven't and won't be buying any more. The cci's are good but for general plinking and squirrel hunting I have had very good luck with the 550 round federal bulk packs from Walmart. No failures in probably 4 bulk packs so far.

BruceP · « **Reply #4 on:** March 10, 2013, 02:20:34 PM »

I haven't tried the thunderbolts in years but have had decent luck with the Golden bullets. The White box Winchester however I have had several misfires and not just out of one box or lot but about 3 different ones and out of 2 handguns and one rifle. CCI mini mag's are my favorite but it is in a different price range.

Bruce

lakota · « **Reply #5 on:** March 10, 2013, 02:22:32 PM »

I have always favored CCI and Federal rimfire ammo. I too always had good luck with the Federal 525 round Wally World bulk pack.

gcrank1 · « **Reply #6 on:** March 10, 2013, 02:35:26 PM »

25ish years ago when I was shooting NRA indoor Bullseye one of the guys bought a case of the Rem target ammo, we were all using quality semi-autos too, and it had duds. I refused to use it for a match, though some did and 'got away with it'. I became leery of Rem. then and have been since. I do have some Golden Bullets and they have popped every time with no change of report, running the handguns fine. IMHO 22LR ammo, and not just the bulk pack, has gone downhill. I especially find the bullet dia. on the lubed lead type to be inconsistent with stiff chambering into revolver cylinders so you can imagine what that does in an autoloader. I run any 'serious' ammo through my old Paco Kelly bullet sizer.

mechanic · « **Reply #7 on:** March 10, 2013, 03:51:22 PM »

I've had good luck with Federal, more so with Winchester bulk, but not with Remington. The best deal going was at Walmart a few months back, before ammo evaporated. They had CCI mini mags in an ammo box....1800 rounds for $98.00. I'm wondering now why I didn't buy some.

Ben

PowPow · « **Reply #8 on:** March 10, 2013, 04:21:46 PM »

My last bulk buy was Blazers. My CZ and my 22/45 like them.
Don't recall a single FTF; a few stovepipes maybe.
About $13/brick last summer. $40/brick now.
Haven't bought Remingtons in several years.

lakota · « **Reply #9 on:** March 10, 2013, 05:02:58 PM »

I lucked into some Blazers about a month ago and bought 2 bricks but I havent shot any of it yet. Around the same time I also found 2 bricks of Federal Champions hiding in the back of my closet. I thought they were shotgun shells because they were in among Federal 12 gauge trap loads. I am going to shoot up all of the single partial boxes I have before I tear into any of my complete bricks. If things get really bad and I have to kill small game to survive I dont want to have to rely on those Remington Thunderbolts!

gcrank1 · « **Reply #10 on:** March 11, 2013, 05:31:36 AM »

Thunderbolts......aptly named?......kinda 'hit or miss'?

slngblde · « **Reply #11 on:** March 11, 2013, 02:08:57 PM »

I am to the point now i wont even look at remington rimfire ammo, i had such bad luck with thunderbolts. I have had some problems with winchester but that may have been the gun. What i shoot the most of is cci and aguila, cannot remember a single dud round with either. Cci std velocity is scary accurate out of my savage mark II heavy barrel.
Also have had good luck with federal bulk pack, but only one of my guns is accurate with it, my ruger 22/45.

gcrank1 · « **Reply #12 on:** March 11, 2013, 04:39:40 PM »

Our Savage MkII HB is scary accurate too with Aguila SE, and some others. Its good enough to be another 'match' rifle for us. Too bad they dont see fit to put the light spring 'Varmint' from the CF AccuTrigger in (my guess is that its the std spring like in the regular hunting CF's); must figure that the liability is too great. Even so, its a good trigger compared to most, though a little funny feeling at first.
But, back to the post inquiry, yes, I had some WAY worse than Remmy, so bad it made Remmy seem good. It was some crap Russian made 'target ammo' (well, thats what the box said). Nigh onto 25% misfires and varying powder charges. Sometimes cheap just ain't cheap enough.

cwlongshot · « **Reply #13 on:** March 11, 2013, 04:58:42 PM »

There are a couple guys in my league who swear by the SE... I have a older brick and I must say it is a great shooter in my Savage 24V. The sights on it are tiny and hard to see but I can still shoot about 1'' groups at 50 yards with it and that ammo!

This target is 5-6 Agulia SE 22's and two RWS 3'' slugs at 50 yards form my Savage 24V. The target is a 6'' paster.

CW

gcrank1 · « **Reply #14 on:** March 12, 2013, 04:14:33 AM »

Similar for me, nice 'round groups' and I have been very satisfied. Fortunately I picked up a case of the same lot I tested way before the last scare; should be able to ride this one out.

Awf Hand · « **Reply #15 on:** March 12, 2013, 10:31:30 AM »

I'm a little bit concerned about the quality of ammo being loaded right now. Factories are running 24-7 with very limited shutdowns for equipment maintenance. Having ties to manufacturing, I know that producers are willing to let quality slip during times of high demand. The general rule of thumb is: High quality, fast production or inexpensive; pick two only.

That said, Rem Thunderbolts have been the bottom of the bottom well before ridiculous demand.

muznut 54 · « **Reply #16 on:** March 12, 2013, 10:43:31 AM »

I bought a rem597 and a box of goldens about ten or so years ago and half the box were duds in three different rifles. The 597 was a jamomatic with any ammo at first but I was able to tweak the gun and get it to work fairly well.

zero · « **Reply #17 on:** March 12, 2013, 10:44:06 AM »

Quote from: Awf Hand on March 12, 2013, 10:31:30 AM

I'm a little bit concerned about the quality of ammo being loaded right now. Having ties to manufacturing, I know that producers are willing to let quality slip during times of high demand

I can work with low quality alot better than nothing at least

+1 for federals

Cheesehead · « **Reply #18 on:** March 12, 2013, 11:03:29 AM »

I shot many rounds of 22 lr in Bullseye competition. The best in my experience is CCI and the worst is any Remington.

Cheese

Oldshooter · « **Reply #19 on:** March 12, 2013, 11:27:58 AM »

Common cheese, tell us how you really feel about remy's 22's.

1911crazy · « **Reply #20 on:** March 16, 2013, 07:19:35 AM »

There's more than one bad 22 ammo thats being sold. I just purchased the CCI Blazer 22lr ammo mainly because all of you guys and more are saying its ok. I'm getting ammo shy now with the 22 stuff

Ladobe · « **Reply #21 on:** March 16, 2013, 08:06:18 AM »

A picture is worth a thousand words sometimes....

tt4617 · « **Reply #22 on:** March 18, 2013, 05:59:56 AM »

I have had alot of problems with the Remmy .22. For bulk, I have had the best luck with Federal. Hunt with CCI though.

SHOOTALL · « **Reply #23 on:** March 18, 2013, 06:57:44 AM »

cheap remington is well cheap. One time they came in faded yellow looking bricks and they had misfires you rotated the round and it might fire. They were the worst. Then Federal had some that the cases were brass but one side might be bright the other dull or the top bright and head area dull . they were the pitts. Winchester over the years has had a few bad batches of cheap ammo. CCI on the other hand seems better , I don't ever remember a FTF. That said the high priced ammo from most of them works some lots better than others. But then CCI is very consistant lot to lot for hunting anyway.
So if you want good oats buy them fresh if you want cheap they may look/act like they have been thru. the horse once . same for 22 ammo.

Cheesehead · « **Reply #24 on:** March 18, 2013, 07:10:13 AM »

I once bought and fired 10,000 rounds of CCI standard velocity 22 rim fire for bullseye competition. Not one misfire. Just my personal experience.

Cheese

cwlongshot · « **Reply #25 on:** March 18, 2013, 11:34:00 AM »

Quote from: Cheesehead on March 18, 2013, 07:10:13 AM

I once bought and fired 10,000 rounds of CCI standard velocity 22 rim fire for bullseye competition. Not one misfire. Just my personal experience.

Cheese

We shot 2 1/2 -3 cases of the CCI BLUE every year since the mid 1990's when we changed form Remington Std velocity.... I can with all honestly tell you I can count the duds and alibeys we have had with CCI on two hands... That's almost two DOZEN CASES of ammo!

CCI gets my dollars too.

CW

theratdog · « **Reply #26 on:** March 25, 2013, 12:07:26 AM »

i don't shoot thunder bolts the bullets will stick in the barrel the golden bullets bullet is loose in the case. these were given to me i would not buy them. i got some russian ammo called junior 22lr i have not shot yet that has a steel case i herd the case gets stuck in the chamber some times we will see.

ironglow · « **Reply #27 on:** March 25, 2013, 01:02:24 AM »

"Golden Bullets" are good enough.....If I can't get anything else !

Seriously, I must agree with everyone else...last choice.. When it comes to quality, dependability, price , accuracy and availability (normal times)...CCI is the gold standard.
Aguilais very good also and I might even use some regularly, but I have never been able to find a reasonable supply of Aguila around here. I use Federal & Winchester bulk and like them..the Winchester 40 gr subsonic HPs are a standout.
I don't do much paper punching, but when I do, it's the CCI standards I go to. Perhaps some of that very costly stuff like the best of Eley & Lapua may shoot a tiny bit better, but if it does, it's not "minute of squirrel head"..but rather, "minute of squirrel hair" !
In my experience, the Yellowjackets seem a bit more consistant than any other green & yellow boxed stuff..but cost wise, it hangs around in some rarefied air...trying to compete with Stingers & Velociters.

cwlongshot · « **Reply #28 on:** March 25, 2013, 05:02:16 AM »

[copy]Does rimfire ammo get any junkier than Remington?[/copy]

THIS ONE IS!!

CW

Oldshooter · « **Reply #29 on:** March 25, 2013, 06:21:08 AM »

where and when did you find that CW. It looks old, is it from eastern europe.

OK found you some more! http://www.gunauction.com/buy/11858869/ammo-for-sale-hunting-shooting/rifle-ammo/junior-22-long-rifle-rim-fire-hunting-cartridges