Best and worst bulk 22LR

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Who makes the best bulk 22lr and what is the avoid unless there is no other choice 22lr?
Federal is the best. Their 36 gr. copper coated is superior to any bulk ammo I have ever shot. Remington is by far the very worst. It's been bad for 50 years & continues to be bad.
 
This is pretty amazing, in that everyone has its champions and detractors. I am guessing firearm design and model variations have a lot to do with reliability of individual brands. I have a standard 10/22 that will feed and shoot anything but Federal. A Ruger Mark 2 that does pretty well except for Winchester. And three 22’s that demand CCI and nothing else. Leads me to believe there is no real answer to this question. For me CCI IS the lowest common denominator. Works in everything.
 
Federal is the best. Their 36 gr. copper coated is superior to any bulk ammo I have ever shot. Remington is by far the very worst. It's been bad for 50 years & continues to be bad.
A half inch at 50yds is not what I call "bad". The problem here is that too many people don't factor in that every gun will have its preferences. They try a load in one or two guns and judge it by that narrow field of reference.

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Everyone’s mileage may vary but this is how I rank it in general;

My rifles are 10/22 Volquartsen and Ruger American 22lr,
Pistols are Walther p22, G30 AA conv kit, Kimber 1911 conv kit.

Worst: Remington Golden bullet bulk
Poor: Winchester 555, 333, 222 white box
Good: Federal Bulk 550, 375
Better: Federal Premium Gold, Federal Target Match Bulk

Somehow the best one in terms of reliability and also accuracy are not in bulk pack: CCI (Stinger and mini mag)

These are the ones that I can buy at my local Walmart.
 
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I have a bunch of different .22 firearms. Most of the ammo will shoot good to reasonably well in all of them. Some like one brand over another for best accuracy. BUT over the years the most troublesome .22 LR ammo to use in any of them has been the Remington Golden bullet bulk box. I will n ot bu it anymore. Supposedly about 2015 Remington retooled the .22 machines and the present ammo is supposed to be more reliable. The last box I tried had a failure rate of about 2 in 10 not firing no matter what I tried it in. The ones that did fire were as accurate as the other brands but were really really dirty. I will now wait and see if it is worth plunking down my hard earned cash on the new offerings for a while. YMMV
 
The Federal red-box has been my generic go-to. Acceptable but not exceptional accuracy out of everything I've shot it from, and I've only had one or two failures to fire.
My favorite is the Winchester Dynapoint GT. No failures to fire, and from my rifles I can keep the holes touching. Better than any of the 'match' ammo I've found, from at least that rifle. Unfortunately I haven't seen any more for sale in a while.

I'm not sure I can peg down an absolute worst. I prefer most over Golden Bullets, but so far they've just been a little less accurate and reliable than anything else, and usually a bit more expensive.
In my experience, I'll have to give it to Thunderbolts. No more accurate than Golden Bullets, less reliable (not terrible, for bulk, but everything I own also has a reasonable strong hammer/striker spring), and plenty dirty. Can't say I hate them, but it's far from love.

I've shot worse, but not that I found in bulk. Just have to remember than every .22 has its preference.
 
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I've had good luck with Federal 525 blue box, but older stuff was much more reliable than some purchased within the last couple years. Recent automatch 325 has been reliable for all my guns.
 
My 10/22 and S&W M&P AR22 seem to shoot anything, but my Walther P-22 and Beretta mod21 will only reliably feed CCI.
 
For most of my life, 95% of my .22 shooting was done with a 10/22 that eats anything and everything without hesitation. Frankly, I never worried about what was best or worst, because I wasn't going to have failures to feed, and all I needed was minute of soup can. In the last few years, I've started paying more attention to differing qualities in .22 ammo. That said, I've never bought the most expensive, so I'm likely missing out on The Best. I'm also still sorting out what 3 of my 4 .22s really like and in the process of mapping it out on actual, non-soup-can targets. That's one of the hassles of having bought in dribs and drabs for the past 30 years. I've got small amounts of about 27 different types of .22 ammo. I have learned the following:
  • My 10/22 eats everything. Period.
  • My 22/45 Lite doesn't like the Winchester Xpert bulk ammo that I bought in about 1985. (Though it might feed better now that I've figured out how the 22/45 likes its lube.)
  • My Ruger American Rimfire feeds it just fine, but it's neither not particularly accurate ammo, nor very clean.
  • Federal Game Shok feeds well in all of my .22s.
  • CCI SV runs really well.
  • CCI Stingers run fine, but there's a whole lot of flash out of my 22/45 Lite.
  • CCI Mini-mags run a little hotter than average, but they don't have as much flash as Stingers.
I guess I really don't know what's best and worst. I'm gonna have a great time trying to figure it out, though! :D
 
It is mostly going to depend on the individual guns it is fired in. My favorite is Remington Golden Bullet HP's. They expand and work very well on game. Federal is very good for plinking but they don't have a functioning hollow point. The only .22LR bulk I avoid is Winchester X-pert.
A good point. I was looking at this from a function and accuracy standpoint, and not a hunting one.
 
In bulk ammo Blazer 525 is numero uno in both reliability and accuracy in all my rifles and pistols. Federal Champion is in second place. Blazer shoots to sane POI as Aguila SE HV and Federal American Eagle but Champion shoots about 2” different POI.

I had one .22 conversion that would shoot Thunderbolts well, but it is nasty and unreliable and wildly inaccurate in every other rimfire gun of mine. Almost anything Remington or Winchester bulk shoots like shotgun pattern at 30 yds so I never by either brand anymore. CCI and Federal are tops in both bulk and boxed for my guns.
 
Worst = Remington Golden Bullets
Best = Wolf Target Match

Funny, Just yesterday, I headed off to the range with my SR22 and 12 mags. I loaded up all he mags with Remington Goldens and then filled up a plactic bag from the bucket with about 150 more rounds. Man NOT ONE SINGLE FLAW. They shot geRReat!
Love he Golden's and so do all my 22.cals.
 
Funny, Just yesterday, I headed off to the range with my SR22 and 12 mags. I loaded up all he mags with Remington Goldens and then filled up a plactic bag from the bucket with about 150 more rounds. Man NOT ONE SINGLE FLAW. They shot geRReat!
Love he Golden's and so do all my 22.cals.

I get about 25 ftf/fte in the bulk pack, it gets worse with sv blue box Remington with 1 in 9. They work well for some and great day for ya when they do, life is too short to piddle with.22lr ammo. I’ll stick to CCI and wolf.
 
Remington Golden Bullet HP bulk pack-beware. You may get good ammo or bad ammo. Crap shoot for sure.
 
Remington Golden Bullet HP bulk pack-beware. You may get good ammo or bad ammo. Crap shoot for sure.
I need to start playing craps, Because I have been a big winner with the last 10 buckets.

If your gun does not shoot em, move on. And folks need to separate what firearm. I do a lot of fast action shooting with a pistol and revolver. And my guns feel them with great success. If you are talking about precision rifle shooting at 100 yds then no, I will use something else.
 
Many of the ammos people have mentioned (Aguila, CCI, RWS, Magtech) I have never seen in "bulk" quantities, only in boxes of 50 or 100. What I consider "bulk" would be boxes of loose rounds of 200+ rounds. That would be the 3 types of Winchester bulk (222, 333, & 555), Remington would be the Goldens & Thunderbolts (~525 rds.), Federal (550) and your "buckets" of about 1,400 rds. Because of the loose packaging, both bullets and brass are more likely to suffer deformation, limiting accuracy. I have shot all of the ones mentioned above but NOT tested for accuracy. All have had "failed to fire" at times in various guns, bolt rifle, semi-auto rifle, and a SA revolver but none stood out as particularly troublesome.
The only one I will make a negative comment about is the Remington Thunderbolts, and I don't know if it is the powder or the bullet lube they use (or both) but they have a bad habit of leaving a lot of debris in the barrel and on my fingers from loading them.
 
Many of the ammos people have mentioned (Aguila, CCI, RWS, Magtech) I have never seen in "bulk" quantities, only in boxes of 50 or 100. What I consider "bulk" would be boxes of loose rounds of 200+ rounds. That would be the 3 types of Winchester bulk (222, 333, & 555), Remington would be the Goldens & Thunderbolts (~525 rds.), Federal (550) and your "buckets" of about 1,400 rds. Because of the loose packaging, both bullets and brass are more likely to suffer deformation, limiting accuracy. I have shot all of the ones mentioned above but NOT tested for accuracy. All have had "failed to fire" at times in various guns, bolt rifle, semi-auto rifle, and a SA revolver but none stood out as particularly troublesome.
The only one I will make a negative comment about is the Remington Thunderbolts, and I don't know if it is the powder or the bullet lube they use (or both) but they have a bad habit of leaving a lot of debris in the barrel and on my fingers from loading them.

You would think so, but just not the case. Rremington Goldens) Kind of surprised myself. Maybe they even go through less handling. Who knows. All I know is they run fine.Maybe fNot for long range shooting, but for targets and plinking, they hit as fast as I can put them on target. Not into bullseys shooting with a gun meant for speed.
 
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When I got a suppressor and went with aftermarket barrels with tighter chambers the number of problems I experienced went way up. I have not tried cci blazer, but cci standard velocity and nicer ammo has run 100% on everything. Hosts are a mkii with aapaclite upper, a 10/22 with a Kidd ulw barrel, and a cz 455. (Non host is a ruger mki gov target model. It is more reliable. )

I had a ton of problems with golden bullet going all the way into battery. I dont think they are sized right, but if they chamber, they typically go bang.
The wincester 555 and 333 doesn't want to chamber well, AND gives me lots of misfires.
Remington thunderbolt actually works really well for me, though I mostly run it in the pistol because it goes supersonic in the rifles.
Federal automatch chambers and fires well, but is supersonic in rifles and gives uneven accuracy. 3 out of 5 rounds will cloverleaf and the other 2 will be fliers that open the group way up.
Aguila standard velocity works well but is kind of messy.
I finally found some of the old school red box federal in stock and will be trying that soon. Let's see if it is as good as I remember.

Wolf match target, rws, and Norma tac22 all work well but are not bulk ammos.
 
I've been a big fan of Federal, any of the several bulk boxes they offer. The Blazer is good stuff too.

I don't shoot 22 in huge quantities, so I tend spend a little more and get CCI MiniMag and Standard Velocity for my Marlin 795 and Savage Mark II respectively since that's what they're zeroed for. I usually use the bulk stuff in my S&W M&P22 Compact and it hasn't shown itself to be that picky.
 
The most consistent standard velocity ammo is Eley sport out of my Mk II. The hard part is getting more than a brick at time.
 
You have to be careful when buying Agiluila. Both varieties carry the name Super Extra which sounds like high velocity. But the standard velocity variety carries that name too. It sounds like it is high velocity. I think the true high velocity is the red label. The blue label is the standard. Beware.
FWIW, the standard velocity Aguila shoots significantly better (accuracy wise) in both my Sako P04 and my Tikka T1X. So be aware that you are buying what you really want after testing lots of different ammo.

I can honestly state I have yet to have a dud Aguila round. That's pretty good for an economy priced .22 ammo.
I seem to remember reading somewhere a few years ago that Aguila is manufactured by Eley in Mexico. I could be wrong, but that might be a reason for their surprising quality.
 
I shoot lots of 22 --- most of the time I use Federal Spitfire hyper velocity 22s --- works very well with no problems
 
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