.22 Ammo Flyers

Looking at just the ammunition there's a plethora of reasons.

Slight variations in the weight of the powder charge, the amount of priming material, damage to the base of the bullet itself, insufficient lubrication, inconsistencies in the brass itself.

Then theres the firearm, firing pin strike not hard enough giving iffy ignition, barrel leading, action settling slightly different in the stock or the whole gun settling in the rest different.

Then theres all the shooter induced issues which I'm not even going to get into.

Match ammunition does its best to eliminate at least the first of those sets of variables, match rifles the second and practice the third.

Over the years I have found 22LR ammo to vary from time to time. 22LR is a very small & light bullet like Walkalong said , wind can cause a problem plus a bunch other stuff like gotboostvr said.

Grimmy said:

What causes one round to not shoot consistent with the others?

Click to expand...

Here's 22 plinkster's tour of the CCI factory:

A lot has been made about the camera capturing them just dumping bullets from one container to the next. I'm using CCI as an example here, but if the bullets are dinged up, each one will fly a little differently. If you had a bunch of centerfire bullets that were all dinged up they wouldn't all fly exactly the same either. Even the better plated handgun bullets are restruck for uniformity.

Rimfire ammo is "consistently inconsistent" by nature. There are so many things that affect it. Here's just a simple list:
Powder - lot number, charge weight
Priming - composition, charge, and uniformity in the rim
Amount of crimp
Brass uniformity - size, thickness, hardness
Bullet uniformity - lead composition, weight, swaging (size and uniformity of the bearing surface), and coating or plating (thickness), care in transportation. Don't forget the rimfire bullet heel. This is something that you cannot see without taking it apart. A person has no idea how uniform the bullet heels are.
Bullet lube - composition, application
And many others...

So we're left with things we can measure, external things weight and rim thickness, and of course velocity.

However, there are over 100 manufacturer measured data points for the best match ammo. Even then, excellent 22LR is a box of 50 with an ES of 40fps or less. Long range shooters would laugh at those kind of statistics. People waste time trying to sort by rim thickness or weigh and sort out the flyers, measuring 2/100 things. Then, they claim some meager "improvement" with a small sample size that could be explained by other factors. It's like when statistics report an increase in the death rates for the elderly and an increase in sales of ice cream cones. Ice cream cone sales didn't cause the death of the elderly. It's because it was a hot summer and they wouldn't turn on the A/C.

Dinged up bullets, uneven bearing surfaces, inconsistent charges, inconsistent priming, et cetera is why rimfire ammo is "consistently inconsistent" and why unexplained flyers still exist.

It drives me nuts.

try loading into the chamber by hand and see what that does to groups. might do nothing, but I've seen a .22 action ding up the cartridges pretty good on their way to battery. from putting crimps into the cases to shaving lead or putting a huge nick into the bullet. I have an old pump action Winchester 62a, and if I cycle the action too fast it will bend the cartridge in the middle as it enters the chamber and jam. If I cycle it almost as fast as I can get it to go, each ejected case will have a dent in the side. If I go really fast, but not like as fast as you can go - it cycles fine and the ejected brass has no dent or crimp. food for thought anyways …

Rimfire thickness gauge can weed out the fliers, been using one for years in competitive rim fire events....it works.

http://www.neiljones.com/html/rimfire_gauge.html

Clean your rifle. I had a superbly accurate .22 start throwing shots and i ran a patch or 10 through and it was back to business.

Ive heard some smallbore guys say they never clean their rifles but I think once a year is about right. Itll take a few shots to foul and settle back to zero fyi.

It is pretty interesting......this and that.

I have read that the rimfire gauge that another poster brought up was sure to make things just that much better....while others say it really does not matter.....same with cleaning, some say you need to clean that thing every X rounds, others say clean it when you have chunks of gook falling off of it....then expect to shoot it again for x rounds before it will calm down.

What I really think it is....AMMO and how it is made.....even "good" 22 ammo is made by the billions like the video showed. And I would doubt there is much difference between CCI and the cheapest thing you can find at walmart in terms of how the thing is made. I would bet the machines and the process are real close to the same. I would bet the quality control....in this day and age of sue happy people that would just love to end an ammo makers business....would just love to lay fingers on an out of spec cartridge that managed to do something. So I think quality control is about the same.

Where I think it changes is when those machines get "work" done to them.....will eley be a little quicker to take a machine off line then cci?.....I would think that the specs for replacing parts would be a bit tighter on "good" 22 ammo.

IMHO
22 is fun, cheap, inexpensive (not the same as cheap), quiet, but you can't bank on it being accurate. Anymore I shoot because (I) want the holes as close together as possible....I load for everything that I shoot and am anal about loading for that.....with 22 set it on a bench pick a lot of your most liked food for said 22 and poke some holes.....if 90% of those holes look good then you are good....now if when you are shooting off hand, prone, whatever and one flies off to Cleveland I doubt it is you.....sometthing you live with in the rimfire world.

All that said I bet I shoot way more rimfire 22 then anything else....as it is so easy....and shoot a single shot bolt rifle using sub sonic ammo.....I have air guns that are louder.

I wanted to add a story....you guys know there are two things about me, I love stories and hate ruger.....so story time boys and girls.

I was out shooting two single shot 22's, with "slow" ammo.....no ears. One a wz-48 the other a single shot mauser......just sitting on my bench, my back is up against a wood line and I am just sitting there ringing steel....peeking through the spotting scope, and generally enjoying a 70F fall day shooting about 1 round every minute.....really not shooting just an excuse to be outside and listen to the birds......and you do hear the birds, see the hawks and owls, just sitting there.....

Well I decide I better shoot again so I line up and there there is a hell of a noise behind me....I jump up frightened out of my whits and there is a big doe about 3 feet behind me.....she is looking right at me.....The deer around are pretty tame so people really don't make them run.....she did take off, and in looking there have been a few on the back half of the property....along with some coyote....you can hear them at night.

That is the nice thing about "quiet" 22's....I enjoy shooting them over the fast ammo....just nice in the woods.....now if I could just come back with some blood left in my body after the mosquitos get done with me.

fpgt72 said:

I have read that the rimfire gauge that another poster brought up was sure to make things just that much better....while others say it really does not matter.....same with cleaning, some say you need to clean that thing every X rounds, others say clean it when you have chunks of gook falling off of it....then expect to shoot it again for x rounds before it will calm down.

Click to expand...

Eley gave a presentation at the National Matches and put up a chart showing around 120-130 cartridge characteristics they measure and monitor during production (I think these were just the dimensional characteristics) and the presenter more or less fluffed the idea that measuring rim thickness did anything. What I am going to say, is that there is a lot of snake oil being sold, and a number of shooters are seeing patterns where they don't exist, which is why snake oil sales are very profitable. The human capacity for self deception is infinite, and interestingly, placebo's work a high percentage of times, even when the patient is told the pill has nothing in it!

Eley tests their ammunition at the end of the production line. Good shooters frequently test ammunition and different lots of the same brands in their rifles. For me, it takes about a brick before I have confidence in ammunition. And it takes about a brick because there are days where I can't shoot straight, don't realize the shotgun patterns are due to me, and I need enough good groups to start outnumbering the bad groups before I really trust the stuff. Shoot enough rim fire ammunition and you will see that cheap rimfire will toss rounds anywhere, anytime, all the time. Match ammunition is better, but even then, with the cheaper stuff, expect flyers and dropped shots. And you won't know why. You can't see inside the case. The 6 OC dropped shot to me is the most identifiable failure of cheap ammunition, and the dropped shot can be very bad indeed.

Match ammunition varies:


The better grades of match ammunition give nice round groups, and the dropped shot might be from the X ring to the bottom of the ten ring. This is good stuff, nice round groups at 100 yards.




Different BSA rifle, but same ammunition. Good stuff.


I think this is a low velocity shot, because I have had a lot of low velocity shots with the lesser priced match ammunition, this stuff has been very good over all, but...



Now this is clearly an example of mid priced ammunition with a blaring label that was actually, not good enough for competition. An F Class bud of mine shot this and this was the last match he used TAC 22, after he had this dropped shot.






Bud switched to Eley Black box and his group sizes got much smaller and rounder.

Pay attention!

Seriously - I've thrown just as many shots from lack of or lost focus, as I have a bad wind call, trigger hitch, or sight mis-alignment. Becoming a better shooter requires brutal honesty with ones' self - particularly in the area of shot calling. Did you jump on the trigger? Let of of a held breath? hold your breath too long, causing your sight picture to dim? Remember that you need to pick up that oil for your buddy on the way home right as you were breaking the shot? Forgot to check the wind flag or mirage right after the shot broke?

Having a consistent sequence is part of becoming a better rifle shooter. Using reliable wind indicators, reputable ammunition, and having a stable position help to rule out those things as the cause, allowing you to focus on technique, muscle memory, and gradual improvement.

cougar1717 said:

Here's 22 plinkster's tour of the CCI factory:

A lot has been made about the camera capturing them just dumping bullets from one container to the next. I'm using CCI as an example here, but if the bullets are dinged up, each one will fly a little differently. If you had a bunch of centerfire bullets that were all dinged up they wouldn't all fly exactly the same either. Even the better plated handgun bullets are restruck for uniformity.

Rimfire ammo is "consistently inconsistent" by nature. There are so many things that affect it. Here's just a simple list:
Powder - lot number, charge weight
Priming - composition, charge, and uniformity in the rim
Amount of crimp
Brass uniformity - size, thickness, hardness
Bullet uniformity - lead composition, weight, swaging (size and uniformity of the bearing surface), and coating or plating (thickness), care in transportation. Don't forget the rimfire bullet heel. This is something that you cannot see without taking it apart. A person has no idea how uniform the bullet heels are.
Bullet lube - composition, application
And many others...

So we're left with things we can measure, external things weight and rim thickness, and of course velocity.

However, there are over 100 manufacturer measured data points for the best match ammo. Even then, excellent 22LR is a box of 50 with an ES of 40fps or less. Long range shooters would laugh at those kind of statistics. People waste time trying to sort by rim thickness or weigh and sort out the flyers, measuring 2/100 things. Then, they claim some meager "improvement" with a small sample size that could be explained by other factors. It's like when statistics report an increase in the death rates for the elderly and an increase in sales of ice cream cones. Ice cream cone sales didn't cause the death of the elderly. It's because it was a hot summer and they wouldn't turn on the A/C.

Dinged up bullets, uneven bearing surfaces, inconsistent charges, inconsistent priming, et cetera is why rimfire ammo is "consistently inconsistent" and why unexplained flyers still exist. That's why I finally quit shooting Rimfire Benchrest.

Click to expand...

Ammo is so inconsistent that it's almost a miracle to shoot a perfect score. Of course, it's expensive to test ammo to select the one lot that works best in your particular rifle. That may be a great lot for only that rifle and it's necessary to go through testing with all three of your weight-class rifles. Once you find the most accurate ammo for each of your rifles, its necessary to order as much ammo as you can afford and then some!!!

Flyers on small game can be frusterating, and a .22lr is the most frustrating.

I clean all my rifles after using them, its more than the bore that gets cleaned, simply out of habit.

I do take a shot when Im away from the house, when I can, checking sights and fouling the bore, while hunting.

Pound for pound ,my .22's make more meat than any other rifles or shotgun, but I also catch swimming Caribou from a few feet away and that jacks up the %.

(Shuks, the wife and I are in Anchorage for a couple more days, and the oldest daughters caught 2 sweet Bulls today, in our absence)
Status; feeling stuck.....

.22 can be more useful than most people realize.

d2wing said:

.22 can be more useful than most people realize.

Click to expand...

Especially in a state like Ohio, where it's shotgun/straightwall cartridges for deer and theres not a whole lot of medium/large mammals to worry about. Between a 22lr and a 12 or 20ga you've got it all covered. If you live up north in the plains, maybe a 223 for coyotes and popping groundhogs at distance over the soybeans. In the southern half of the state 22lr will cover just about anything short of deer.