Favorite Bulk .22lr?

[Boyandhisdogs]

What's your favorite bulk .22lr ammo? It's time to stock up again.


I just finished a few bricks of Aguila Super Extra that were surprisingly decent. Very few duds/jams, accuracy was good for plinking but not that impressive on paper. I usually got about 1 flier per magazine. I also like that its plated and not gross to handle.

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[Andy54Hawken]

CCI Blazer 40 grain lead round nose....

Federal Champion 36 grain hollow point

Are my two favorite bulk .22LR ammo.

Both work well with my firearms...and are reliable for both function and accuracy.
Andy

 

[boattail]

Federal has been good to me. I have a pile of Winchester as well. The only bulk stuff that is complete garbage has been Remington Thunderbolt. Round to round consistency is horrible. You can hear it when firing...Bang, pop, phiff, ...all over the map for powder charges.

I never have any trouble in my 10-22's or revolvers with the Federal and Winchester. Get good groups from both.

 

[BlackdogGS]

CCI because it's accurate and reliable. Federal Auto Match is supposed to be very good also.

 

[dangerranger60]

Federal AM is about as close to bulk as I go. My last case had zero duds. DR

 

[Bobbygun]

CCI mini mags are my favorite. A bit more expensive but seem to cycle better than most of the other stuff in my guns. I haven't had great luck with Remington Thunderbolts or Golden Bullets (the new ones are better).

 

[Joe13]

Federal is my go to. Champion packs. Idk if you can get them anymore but the other Federal stuff I've shot I have been happy with.

I bought a bunch of the 525 packs years ago and still have a few.

Competitions and I'd lean towards CCI.

 

[eldbillbo]

I have no idea why Remington Thunderbolts get so much hate. I only shoot SA .22 rifles and pistols and it has been the best bang for buck I have ever shot.

 

[WAYNO]

I have no idea why Remington Thunderbolts get so much hate. I only shoot SA .22 rifles and pistols and it has been the best bang for buck I have ever shot.

I get this also. I shoot a huge variety of .22 rimfire ammo. It all works well. Some better than others, but I don't believe even Mini Mags are any better than Blazer or Thunderbolt.

I have however, experienced some huge swings between batches of otherwise the same ammo. Some of the worst in fact, were Mini Mags.

 

[1911Fanatic]

Aguila Super Extra 40gr CPRN. When I can get it for 50 bucks per 1000 rounds.

 

[orygun]

I have no idea why Remington Thunderbolts get so much hate. I only shoot SA .22 rifles and pistols and it has been the best bang for buck I have ever shot.

I dunno, either. I blasted away with those for years. However, under the Peters name Remington produced more duds in a box than anyone else.

I get this also. I shoot a huge variety of .22 rimfire ammo. It all works well. Some better than others, but I don't believe even Mini Mags are any better than Blazer or Thunderbolt.

I have however, experienced some huge swings between batches of otherwise the same ammo. Some of the worst in fact, were Mini Mags.

Mini Mags are that, hot little numbers. I've never shot that many because they are on the more expensive side for ol plinkin ammo.
I've started looking around, pondering buying more 22LR, so this is nice timing, @Boyandhisdogs

 

[Legs]

CCI Standard, for the win... I shoot a bunch of 22LR, 5,000 per year, and have run through and still sample all the other offerings, but for my use the Standards check all the boxes. It ain't fast, runs okay suppressed, not the best for hunting, but gets the job done, and isn't the cleanest, but for the money it shoots clean enough... Burn through a case and you'll agree....

 

[Bobbygun]

I get this also. I shoot a huge variety of .22 rimfire ammo. It all works well. Some better than others, but I don't believe even Mini Mags are any better than Blazer or Thunderbolt.

I have however, experienced some huge swings between batches of otherwise the same ammo. Some of the worst in fact, were Mini Mags.

Years ago, my buddy and I broke open a brick of Thunderbolts and used them in our Colt pistols, neither of which had ever jammed before. Both of us experienced multiple failures to feed with every magazine. Being as that was the only .22 ammo we had with us, it was kind of a miserable day. I've never given them another try since. They were lead bullets as well, and I have never had so much trouble cleaning the lead buildup out of a barrel. I was literally pushing rifling shaped lead out, to the point I had thoughts of being lucky it didn't plug the barrel. So, in all honesty, my ONE experience is what led me to not recommend Thunderbolts. Maybe they have improved since then.

My experience with the CCI Mini Mags is just the opposite. If I had a gun that jammed with cheaper ammo, I would always try the Mini Mags. If it jammed with those, it was a gun problem. I (foolishly) bought one of those Remington Vipers when they first came out. That thing was a jam-o-matic. It would barely feed anything, but it would feed Mini Mags. It would also feed the equally expensive Viper ammunition. I was too cheap to spend the money back then, so I gave the Viper to a nephew. I hope I don't sound like a Remington hater, because I'm not. Some of my favorite and best centerfire rifles are Remingtons, including my most favorite 700 Classic in .25-06. The most accurate rifle I own is an old 722 in .222 Remington. I've never had any trouble with their centerfire ammo either.

The ammo I've had the biggest swings in performance with is the Golden Bullets. The packaging indicated "new and improved" for a while. I don't think it does anymore, but they seemingly recognized it had some issues. I still have some of that in the cupboard, acquired during an ammo shortage years ago. My son will likely inherit it.

 

[TTSX]

Whatever the federal blue box is. Works just fine in everything

 

[boattail]

I have no idea why Remington Thunderbolts get so much hate. I only shoot SA .22 rifles and pistols and it has been the best bang for buck I have ever shot.

Back when I was shooting a brick a day of 22LR on squirrels, long before I had 17HMR or 204's to shoot, I shot only bulk ammo. Mostly Winchester sold in bricks with individual boxes of 50 packed inside. Those were the typical rimfire with a few duds that you could eventually get to fire by rotating them around in the chamber, Maybe 3 rounds out of 200 that would never go off.

Fast forward 20 years and the bulk ammo was then dumped in a box loose and the Thunderbolts hit the scene. My first brick was so bad that one in ten rounds failed to fire and almost every round that did fire hung up my semi autos. In a revolver they went "bang, pop, puff, ping, pow, .......every round had a different sound and there was no shooting a group. They were hitting anywhere from three feet low to one foot high at fifty yards. I actually took that first brick back to the store. They would not return it but gave me Remingtons address for complaints and possible refund which I never got. I did only buy that one brick. I buy two bricks for every one I shoot and that day I bought one Winchester and one Thunderbolt to try. I took that box with me, out of rotation, to test them to see if I wanted more.

People I shot with had some and they had the same experiences. My friend and I were plinking at the range and he had to give up on his box as his guns would not cycle it. It might have been a bad batch in my area but I was online at the time and others on forums had the same issues with them. I believe I ended up just doing cylinder dumps with the rest of that brick at the range and teaching my wife and her friend to shoot not caring where they hit but working on fundamentals.

I currently have an open brick of Goldenbullets that seem to be running just fine but most of those have been shot in revolvers. Of the many bricks of 22 I have on hand only two are Remington branded and I am trying to burn those up first. Those Thunderbolts left a really bad taste in my mouth and screwed me over on a day hunting when I really needed them to work. I do hope they fixed the issue but I will stay away from them until I have no other choice.

 

[Bobbygun]

CCI Standard, for the win... I shoot a bunch of 22LR, 5,000 per year, and have run through and still sample all the other offerings, but for my use the Standards check all the boxes. It ain't fast, runs okay suppressed, not the best for hunting, but gets the job done, and isn't the cleanest, but for the money it shoots clean enough... Burn through a case and you'll agree....

Good to hear. I've got four bricks of that from when my wife and I stood in line at Cabela's to get our 2-brick per person limit during the last great shortage. (I learned my lesson that time and won't be caught short again.)

 

[Bobbygun]

Those Thunderbolts left a really bad taste in my mouth and screwed me over on a day hunting when I really needed them to work.

Sounds like we had ammo from the same batch!

 

[ron]

The Federal Auto Match works good in all 4 of my semi auto pistols except the Ruger 22/45. I had a bucket
of Remington that was complete garbage. Miss fires and squibs. I gave it away. I bought some of the Winchester Bi-Mart
had on sale. Works good but some failure to fire. CCI works the best but is more expensive.

 

[boattail]

I actually went and looked at my stash and the Remingtons I have are not Golden bullets. Just bulk Remington and I have three bricks not two. I also did not realize I had so much Auto Match. Somewhere in my stash is one brick of Winchester from back in the day with the individual boxes of 50 inside the brick. I'm not digging through it all to find it but I know it's there as I purposefully keep it out of rotation. It has to be forty years old minimum. It was part of my dad's stash and after he died my brother and I split up his ammo and I went through most of it in a year or two. It was my dad that taught me the shoot one buy two method. I have never had to buy high priced ammo or stand in line for it. My stash has always gotten me through tough times.

I only have a few hundred rounds of CCI and save those for times I need really good accuracy. I have 50 rounds of lead free that I have never shot but I bought it just in case I was in a lead free area and needed to shoot a squirrel up close as I always kept a 22 handy for those shots right under me in the field.

 

[boattail]

Here is the old stuff I still have.....we shot brick after brick of this stuff. I want to say we paid from $5 to $10 a brick from the 80's to the 90's.


I also remember buying 100 round plastic packs really cheap back then as well....I don't remember the maker but they shot just as well as this stuff.