I had an old friend drop by a couple of days ago who brought his .22 rifles with him.....we decided to make a trip to the rifle range for an evening of plinking.....We took 3 different 22 rifles.......a Ruger 77/22 bolt action with a 6X fixed power Leupold, a Browning Buckmaster heavy barrel with a fixed 4X Nikon, and a Remington Nylon 66 with Bushnell 1.5 X 4.5....the Nylon 66 was fired with the scope set at 4.5 power. Conditions at the range were almost perfect......72 degrees and no wind........
We took the following ammo: A 500 bulk pack of Remington 38 grain round nose hollow points purchased from Walmart for a little less than $10.....a 525 bulk pack of the same Remington 38 grain round nose hollow points purchased from Benton Shooters supply, a local large gun store, for 10.95........CCI standard velocity lead round nose at $5.95 per hundred purchased fromm Carter Shooting Supply, a small local store, CCI green tag "match" from Carter at $12.95 per hundred, and Winchester high velocity power point 40 grain hollow points......these were also purchased from Carter. These winchester rounds are the traditional "box of 50" packaging, not sure of the price.....
We fired 5 shot groups from a solid bench using a Cadwell front and rear bag at 25 yards, 50 yards and 100 yards.......
The worst groups from all rifles at all ranges came from the Walmart remingtons.......all 3 rifles got similar groups or around 3" at 50 yards....the groups were like a shotgun at 100 yards at least a 6" spread.....just plain horrible.......we could hear the difference in these rounds......and the auto's suffered several jams using these Walmart Remington rounds......
Here's where it gets interesting......
All 3 rifles shot the Winchesters about the same....smaller groups than the Walmarts but still around 2" at 50 yards.
Then came the CCI standard velocity rounds......better again, with all 3 rifles shooting about 1 1/2 inches at 50 yards......
The real suprise, in all 3 rifles, at both 25 and 50 yards, were the Remingtons from the local large gun store.......the groups from the Buckmark and nylon 66 were about the same at 3/4 inch at fifty yards....but in the 1/2 inch range with the Ruger at 50 yards......
Interesting enough, the green tag did not shoot any better than the remington from the large local store, at 25 and 50 yards in any of the 3 rifles........at 100 yards, it produced 1 1/2" groups only in the Ruger with the Browning Buckmark and the Nylon 66 shooting the Green tag and Remingtons around 2 inches at the same 100 yards........
Some of the things we observed was the the green tag CCI at $12 dollars a hundred, shot no better at ranges of 50 yards and less than the $11 dollar for 525 count remingtons purchased from Benton..........5 times the price, no better performance......3 different rifles fired by 2 different shooters.........
Walmart Remingtons, at least the ones we got, are clearly drastically different than the Remingtons purchased at Benton Shooters supply and are only 10% cheaper.......I decided to plink with the Walmart remington using my Ruger single six......about one in 20 Walmart remington rounds were difficult to load into the single six.......very tight.....this most likely explains the jamming in the 2 auto loaders.......
No ammo, other than the Walmart remingtons experienced any jamming by either of the 2 autoloaders........
Both me as well as my buddy had heard the Walmart stories......both about differences in guns as well as ammo........yes, the remington ammo was different lots, but I wouldn't have expected that big a difference......
My buddy always shot the $12 green tag......guess what.......he's decided to try the test again using ammo purchased at Walmart and local shops in the Middle Tn area.......we both agree the Remingtons from benton were suprising, and were on par with the much more expensive CCI green tag.....at least in the autoloaders.....
Any one else had a similar experience?
