So what's everyone using in their 22 mag sportsters for the upcoming hunting seasons?
The win black box supremes are by far my favorite load, 2nd most accurate load, and most destructive. But I have to drive an hour one way to pick them up. I've found that I don't spend very much time at the range with my mag sportster since I switched to the black box ammo, just because I have in my head I have to ration them because of the distant supply.
So I'm switching to stuff I can get locally so I get more range time. And the only place that sells ammo close to me (withen 20 minutes one way) is the small town walmart, and that is scary to me!!!! The have had the winchester dynapoints that my rifle didn't like, winchester silver box which is my most accurate load at 50 yards, and then CCI maxi mags that my rifle didn't like. They didn't carry any of the "good stuff". Well, my local walmart now carries Remington Premier Vmax's, which I shot last year for awhile but got really mixed accuracy. Before switching I pulled out 2 partial 50 round boxes that I had, one that gave good accuracy and one that didn't. The "older" looking premiers that didn't shoot good had bullets that measured anywhere from .219" to .221". the best I can tell my micro groove barrel has .219" rifling and .222" bore, but I haven't done a cast to be absolutetly sure. But if my measurements at the crown are accurate the .219" sized bullets wouldn't even be engaging the rifling. So it's no wonder they shot irregularly with lots of flyers. The .221" bullets in the box would fly right, and the .219" ones would be flyers, and the .220"s would be irratic. I measured the other box of newer premiers (from a lot made last year) and all the bullets were .221". I stopped by walmart and bought a new box of premiers in the new clear plastic box and measured the bullets and they also measured .221". (my winchester silver and black box ammo all measure .224", for what it's worth)
From doing some searching on the internet I found reports of the first run or so of the Remington premiers had bad accuracy and they changed them and the current stuff is very good. That's how it looks to me also.
So I'm going to run the old varying sized premiers out my colt 22 mag "dispatch" pistol, accuracy is not an issue at 3 feet and less :wink:. And shoot the new lots of premiers in my sportster. They're sure hard on squirells, need to hit the front third of the squirell to save the meat, but they sure hit the varmints with authority.
So what's everyone else using?
Later,
scruffy
