.22 ammunition

[brazen]

So, I will be finally picking up a cooey .22, and, I've been reading the Wikipedia about short, long, long rifle, cb, hollow point, hypervelocity, subsonic, f/s, etc. etc. and I'm getting overloaded with information to sort out - WHAT KIND of ammunition do I want?

I want to sight in and target practice and just learn to use it well, then maybe try my hand on a grouse or a hare at relatively close range if I get such an opportunity.

Is there a short version of rimfire selection reference somewhere??

[MATTIAC]

CCI makes great rimfire ammo. I personally like the stingers

[elkdom]

for all around plinking, shooting ditch chickens or rabbits, the blue box 22LR solids will work just fine!

I must of killed about a million gophers with CIL-Imperial 22LR-solids growing as a kid on the prairie in Saskatchewan,,using a $15.00 Cooey bolt action single shot!:-D

[keoke]

Just grab 3 boxes of different ammo and see what your gun and you like. I stay away from the hollow points cause they don't feed properly in my savage 64. I like blazer ammo, and comes in a box of 500.

[elkdom]

its a Cooey! :neutral: you dont have any feeding problem unless your thumb is DE-FORMED ! lol :?

[bearhunter338-06]

I buy as many brands of ammo I can find from cheap to expensive. When I find a brand my rifle likes then I'll go get a brick or 10.

[416]

I buy as many brands of ammo I can find from cheap to expensive. When I find a brand my rifle likes then I'll go get a brick or 10.



X 2 ....find what works the best in your gun (and there will be one/two brands that will shine) and stock up. One of my .22 will shoot groups on top of each other or spread out to over 2 inches depending on whoes bullet it is.
l have found solid points tend to be less finicky then the most hollow points and the more expensive high velocity offerings.

[new hunter]

I'm not a fan of stingers , they're not accuarate in my gun . I like remington thunderbolts {you can hear them hit the ground at a hundred yards } , but for really acccurate shooting I've turned to subsonics .
the only thing you really need to know is that your gun is a .22lr , thats pretty much all . Hollow points are better for hunting as they can expand a bit , solids should penetrae a little better and I have found to be more accurate at long range .
Beyond that the different descriptions fit different uses . Stingers and real high velocity for animals bigger than rabbit at close range , Subsonics and shorts if you don't want to make to much noise , and also if high velocity prints bad groups for you .
Figure out what youre going to do the most with you gun . If its a can killer , buy whatevers cheap and have fun . If your hunting grouse or rabbits the bullet weight doesn't have to be really big , and the velocity doesn't have to be high , but you need accurate shots {grouse head }.
Get some sand bags and a few of those little 50rd bricks and go experiment at the range .

[Van Isle]

Make sure the ammo stamp matches the barrel stamp, first and foremost. I'm talking short,long, long rifle. Chances are your Cooey is LR, maybe all three. SO. Check the barrel stamp.

AFTER you've picked the right cartridge THEN you can worry about hollow point, hi-velocity, or all the other unnecessary marketingspeak that can go in to ammunition. You're likely best off buying a bulk box of anything your local Walmart or Canadian Tire has to offer (500 rds for $20 or so) and practicing at the range/gravel pit with that. .22 ammo is all quite cheap, so after you've figured out the basics of marksmanship you can spend more if you want to investigate whether it's you, the rifle, your sites/optics, or the ammo that is giving you big groupings. (HINT: it's probably not the ammo!)

[Black Bird]

Everything Van Isle said x 2

In short. Don't sweat it. Practice. Practice. Practice. A cooey is a fantastic rifle. Get good out to 50m with any ammo and go from there.

[fowlweather]

i carry a youth model .22 in my backpack when i am deer hunting, if i see a grouse or rabbit when i am hunting i pull that out and load a cci cb subsonic short into it. it is absolutely quiet, no louder than somebody snapping their fingers. does the job just fine.
http://www.kingdomarms.com/store/images/_products/HenryMiniBolt22Rifle.jpg
http://ammo-sales.com/marketplace/photos/20110502094824_cci-cb-short.jpg

[brazen]

Thanks guys, I came home with a bit of a party pack, going to print and label by ammo some target sheets for the weekend, but where is the 'how to best sight in your first 22' page? I can see a lot of math coming at me...and I don't have instructions for the peep sight. Dang I forgot to pick up a cleaning kit...

[boxhitch]

Yupp, keep it clean. Use a special size chamber brush for the powder residue
and forget the shorts. Nothing accurate about a chunk of lead that has to jump in the chamber and smear against the lands. Lots of times lead will spew from the vent hole
CB longs are the same noise as CB shorts but shoot better imo

[Cookie-kid]

for open sighting ur rifle: for me it was practise, practise, practise. I had to fiddle with the sight ramp a little, but once I found 0 & built my confidence with it (just this summer) it was easier to find out what ammo it liked best. I printed & photocopied like a million "free" targets from the web. Plinked @ it until it looked like buckshot, at 50m (about 50 paces for me). My winchester likes the winchester wally world ammo best, the big 555 box for $18. Wife & I are now hitting bullseye repeatedly w/ the little single shot. It likes the stingers for pests too thoug.

[Iron Sighted]

Yupp, keep it clean. Use a special size chamber brush for the powder residue
and forget the shorts. Nothing accurate about a chunk of lead that has to jump in the chamber and smear against the lands. Lots of times lead will spew from the vent hole
CB longs are the same noise as CB shorts but shoot better imo

^^^^This is my exact finding as well, if you are inclined to shoot the CB's, go with the longs over the shorts. Same noise(or lack thereof), same velocity but without the excessive jump to the lands. Also I've found the CCI CB's to be much better than the Remington CeeBees which are, in my opinion, total crap.

All that said, the beauty of the .22 is how cheap they are to shoot, so try a bunch of different brands/types and enjoy the extra time behind the trigger while you figure out what your particular rifle likes best.

[bearhunter338-06]

I like the hard to find Remington Viper. The are the Yellow Jacket with a solid bullet and not the hollow point.

[brazen]

Hey, so, I figured out the peep sight thing and I think I got it close to where it sounds like it should be @~25 yds. I only had time to use one kind of ammo so far, between time of day and walking back and forth to swap the target out and measure and count clicks and BREATHE etc.

BUT now I have a new query, the cleaning kit I got, it says in step one: 'assemble rod, handle, and bore brush...'

Well over here is a picture of the same kit - WHICH part of this resembles a 'brush'??? There's nothing in there that looks anything like what I know to be called a 'brush'. There's plastic loops and wee plastic tips and a metal screw fitting thing. I don't know why the picture is so small, but if you click on it it gets bigger. Am I looking for a BRUSH?? Like a pipe cleaner??? :(
http://www.outers-guncare.com/products/cleaningkits/aluminum_rodkits.aspx
3714


Includes:


Lightweight cleaning rod
.22/270-cal slotted batch loop
.22/243-cal spear pointed jag
30-cal slotted patch loop
30-cal spear pointed jag
All gauge slotted patch loop



Rod adaptor
Micro-fiber absorbent patches
Nitro Solvent Gun Cleaner 2-ounce bottle
Gun Oil 2-ounce bottle

[Morel]

Brazen, I don't see a bore brush in the list or picture. Go to your local gun shop or Canadian tire and a .22 bronze bore brush should set you back about $3-5. I bought the exact same kit for my guns - when you break the two part cleaning rod (and you will) get a solid rod. The threads on the attachments are pretty standard so the jags etc should still work fine with the new rod. Happy shooting - I learned on a Cooey model 60 and miss it.

[brazen]

pfffft buy a cleaning kit, then go buy the brush that's supposed to come with it oy vey! Ok!! Thank you Morel!! I had fun today!! No critters in sight thankfully except the squirrel going on about me being there, but, when I got finished up, 4 crows came over and circled, hoping I'd maybe hit SOMETHING worthwhile lol!

[boxhitch]

Your kit should have all you need. A brush can help with the really heavy stuff but shouldn't be needed. Patches should do it. Run them til they come clean.
The loop is for pulling patches, the jag is for pushing.

[buck nash]

Get yourself a 22cal bore snake. They're about $25. You just slide it through with a bit of oil a couple times and your good to go. With the bore snake its easy to always pull it through in the same direction which should be away from the chamber. With a rod you have to push it through, screw on the brush then pull it out in order to avoid pushing crud into your chamber.

[brazen]

Oh, ok. Think my bore is pretty clean, so I'll go at it with patches in the morning. And I guess I should shop somewhere other than Cdn. Tire.

I actually had one more ammuntion question - all I read about .22's is that they drop off after 100 yds, but the packaging and the Firearms course says something like 'can go a mile'. So, is that true??

[Cookie-kid]

@ 100 yards I was still putting my hollow points through 2x4's, same as when the boards were @ 25 yards. I've seen guys reach out & hit their mark @ 200 yards with their scoped 22's. May not be enough force to b/f anything worth hunting, but considering how fragile the human body is, in comparison to anything we hunt, I'd believe that round is still capable of being lethal at a mile. Would make a million dollar shot to hit something at that range, let alone effectively, but my police & paramedic friends have seen the results of accidental long shot wounds.

[brazen]

gees I never thought to look around the back side of that post. I will go back there.

[Cookie-kid]

I actually have 2 hp slugs from that 2x4 sitting on my mantle. It is in another thread on here, but I had the 2x4 resting against a beam of a pallet at 100m, where I found the slugs tightly sandwiched, I had to carve them out. They hadn't even mushroomed. I brought them home, to show what a shot round looked like after it came out of the barrel. Pretty good for some of the cheapest ammo available on the island.