6 Different .22 LR bullets ballistic property comparison

Discussion in 'Ammunition' started by DHonovich, Aug 17, 2010.

  1. DHonovich

    DHonovich Founder Staff Member Administrator

    [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD9_F-DdOZY&feature=related[/youtube]
  2. DaveinCT

    DaveinCT Copper BB

    Guess it will be Yellow Jackets and CCI Velociters for the stock pile..
  3. 4Adam41

    4Adam41 Copper BB

  4. s9mcderm

    s9mcderm Copper BB

    Great video. Very interesting!
  5. J.L. Latham

    J.L. Latham .22LR

    Good info, thanks. I got a CZ-455 a while back and went through a lot of shooting of various brands/loads of .22LR before I finally went with the Aguila Rifle Match to buy in bulk for practice. I felt it offered me the most bang for the buck - I managed to buy 4 bricks that figured out to be $0.11 each to shoot. They gave me groups and consistency as good as much more expensive bullets I tried out. I put almost 1,000 rounds through the barrel using brands like Winchester, Remington, RWS, CCI, SK and Fiocchi before choosing the Aguila.

    Meanwhile, I have a friend that absolutely swears by CCI and I don't doubt him a bit.

    I use the CZ as an inexpensive way to improve my technique - beats my $1.25 each 6.5 Creedmoors all to pieces for that kind of thing.

    Here are a couple of pics of 5 and 10-shot groups I got at 50 yards with the Aguila. The scope wasn't specifically adjusted to the bullet, so I was looking for groups at the time, not absolute dead center hits.

    CZ455_AMR_50yds-05.JPG
    IMG_0217.JPG
  6. SHOOTER13

    SHOOTER13 Guest

    Good shootin' JL....!!
  7. J.L. Latham

    J.L. Latham .22LR

    Didn't actually measure them - but the orange circle is a Birtchwood Casey target dot and is (I believe as close as I can measure it) that it is 1.045 inches in diameter which would make it 1 MOA wide at 100 yards, 2-MOA wide at 50 yards. So I think it'd be safe to say one group at roughly 1/2 inch (1 moa) while the other looks like about 1 inch (2 MOA at 50 yards).

    To clear up any questions - both groups were shot with the Aguila Rifle Match bullet, which I didn't properly label in the top photo.

    Coincidentally, American Rifleman reviewed some of Aguila's offerings in the latest issue. They didn't review the "Rifle Match", but they did shoot some of the 'Super Extra' loads in .22LR. I also shot some of those, and to be honest I got even tighter groups with those, but the standard deviation (SD) was larger: from one box of each I found that the Super Extra SD was 38.5 fps, while the SD for the Rifle Match was down at 11.4 fps. Given that and the on-target results and the price I elected to go with the Rifle Match as my practice round.

    There were other brands that shot very well such as Fiocchi, RWS and SK - while I got poor results with Federal's inexpensive Golden Bullet - while their Gold Medal was good and their Club, Match and Target rounds also shot well, but they're pricy for non-competition use.

    The 1:16 twist rate in my CZ wasn't able to stabilize Winchester's Varmint LF 26 grain - kind of ironic that the most expensive bullet I tested shot the worst out of my rifle.
    Last edited: Feb 22, 2016
  8. J.L. Latham

    J.L. Latham .22LR

    Win_VarmintLF_26gr (2).JPG
    Actually the holes all appeared round, just widely dispersed. See the picture of some results with them I'll upload. But I went over to a bullet maker's site and plugged in the numbers and their stability calculator said "no go" to confirm my suspicions. The calculator is over at Berger: http://www.bergerbullets.com/twist-rate-calculator/ and they do note it's really designed for boat tail bullets, not flat bottomed ones - but still a good indicator. And that says that a 26 grain .224 bullet with my estimated BC of 0.17 for it will not be stable in a barrel with a 1:16 twist.
    Last edited: Feb 24, 2016
  9. J.L. Latham

    J.L. Latham .22LR

    I agree that some appear more oval than round, but not all so it's difficult to say with certainty that the bullets were actually tumbling. But the Berger site notes that one symptom of instability could be 'simple' inaccuracies and may also show keyholes because of tumbling bullets. Bottom line for me after shooting a box of these was to scratch them off of my list to ever use in that rifle.

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