Gentlemen,

We had a number of people shooting different rifles here at our shooting range at 100 yards, and the thing that surprised me is how bad they shot!!

Admittedly, these are all hunting rifles, but some of the groups are quite big!

Next came a request for us to do a combination rifle and ammo test at 100 yards.

Any of you think this might be a worthwhile thing to do?

The test in progress. I will keep this thread at the top of the forums, and update it as we go along.

Scope is the Leupold 35x target model, which we will use on all the rifles. I will shoot all the ammo we can get hold off at 50 yards, then move on to 75, then 100. After each rifle has been shot at all the distances, I will start with a new one.

All groups shown are the average of 3 5-shot groups.

I have never considered the 22 a 100 yard round. The accuracy is simply not there in most gun / ammo combinations.

But if it makes you happy, go for it.

So much of the acurracy in a 22 is tied to the ammo. The big time shooters will even look to see what machine the ammo was produced on at the factory.

Saeed
It would be interesting to do a test at 50, 75, and 100 yards.
Many times the bad accuracy at 100 yards is due to the fact that the 22 bullet in high velocity
loadings becomes subsonic before it gets to 100 yards.
There is a shock wave that affects accuracy when bullets go from super sonic to sub sonic.
The same things happens to the 168 grain Federal match 308 loads at 1000 yards from some rifles on some days. Many times the bullet will hit the target "sideways".
22 rimfire match ammo is designed to be sub sonic for this reason, which is why it is more accurate at 100 yards.

Yes ,I would like to see your results ,I have had great results with Eley standard in the brown box, and Match Plus in the black box. For an easier target acqusition I resite the rifle to a 100yd zero, instead of 75yd (varmit shooting zero). I have had good results with Eley high vel.(blue box) also try RWS target rimfire. I hope you have fun with the test. Ben.

Testing would have to be done under windless conditions, otherwise it would be of marginal usefulness. .22 LR's are subject to A LOT of dispersion due to wind at 100 yards.

There is competition here in CT shooting the 22 LR at 50 and 100 yds from prone outdoors. Iron sights are used. You see Anschutz and Wolf products a lot along with high end 80 mm spotters.

They get most of their shots in about an inch that way.

I surmise that you have a 100 yd tunnel thats wind free. That would prove how various combinations perform in a tunnel.

As for myself I would be interested but I try to keep my 22 hunting under 75 yds. I just don't have an application where I must use a .22 lr over that. If the ranges are longer then a faster round is what we use.

Good luck.

Gentlemen,

We have a number of rifles, and quite a lot of different ammo here. So This is going to be a major undertaking.

All tests will be shot in our indoor shooting tunnel. And I think for simplicity, I will have a seperate table for each rifle, with results at 50, 75 and 100 yards. This way we will at least have an idea of how each make and type of ammo shoots in that particular rifle.

I will let you know how things develop.

I've shot several good .22 bolt actions at 100 yards, a bunch of them will shoot 1.25-1.5 inch groups if the wind isn't blowing. I have an old Sako .22 that will almost always break 1.25. I have it sighted dead on at 50 and the top of the post of the duplex is dead on at 100, a small V8 can is hittable at that range as are various assorted songbirds.

I could not really tell a difference between most brands of bullets in my Sako 94 until I got out past 50 yards. My rifle likes Tenex, Federal Lighting and to a lesser extent CCI Mini-Mags at 100. Will do between 1.25-1.5" at an outdoor range.

In my experience, the .22LR is a 50-60 (maybe 75) yard round for all practical purposes. On the other hand, the .17 HM2 is a 100 yard (but not much farther) round all the time. I can pretty consistantly shoot the white caps off a Mountain Dew bottle at 100 yds with the .17 HM2...can't do it with a 22 LR that will shoot bug holes at 50 yds....but then I'm not really a very good shot.

Saeed, it really would be interesting to see the results of this testing. There are other sites that have done a multitude of testing.. one that comes to mind used the HS Prescision tunnels and found that in some cases because of the loosness of the bullet crimp accuacy was improved on cheap or "lesser quality" ammunition, presumably because it was better able to center itself in the bore.

Also, barrel lenght would be interesting to note as well. My Anschutz Exemplar with its 10in barrel will group 1in or less (too bad federal um1 is nolonger available)at 100m depending on how much coffee I have had and conditions. I have heard of the same from F/A 252 revolvers.

quote:

There is a shock wave that affects accuracy when bullets go from super sonic to sub sonic.
The same things happens to the 168 grain Federal match 308 loads at 1000 yards from some rifles on some days. Many times the bullet will hit the target "sideways".

I've heard that more often than I can count, but have been unable to find supporting documentation in ballistic journals or papers, nor have the few ballisticians I've queried about the issue had definitive answers. I would not argue the fact that bullets get sideways or that accuracy gets squirrelly at some point in a bullet's flight, but I do have doubts that it's caused by the sonic shock wave.

For one point, the effects of trans-sonic flight is not an issue of sudden transition. The effects of this are felt thru the range of Mach 1.3 to .7 in general terms, so the match ammo experiences some part of this as well as Hi-vel loads. For the second point, more than a few match loads are actually super sonic at the muzzle, and will still be experiencing trans-sonic effects at 100 yards. It is not that the bullet is faster or slower than Mach 1, but rather what is happening in the flow field around the bullet. Bullets displace air during their flight, and though the bullet itself may be sub-sonic, the air displaced around in may be super-sonic or trans-sonic insofar as we are concerned about drag.

I suspect the factors causing loss of stability is more related to gyroscopic stability factors vs. overturning moments in a high drag environment. JMO.

Saeed, will be following your trails closely, thank you for the time and effort you are spending on this test.

Gentlemen,

Please keep checking the link in my first post, as I will be making daily updates.

Saeed,

If I may humbly add to your test:

I have a Marlin model 60 that shoots CCI Mini-Mags very well. I noticed your chart did not show the Mini-Mag.

If they are available, I would be interested in seeing your results with them. They have always been consistent and accurate in the firearms I have shot them in.

quote:

Originally posted by jstevens:
I've shot several good .22 bolt actions at 100 yards, a bunch of them will shoot 1.25-1.5 inch groups if the wind isn't blowing. I have an old Sako .22 that will almost always break 1.25. I have it sighted dead on at 50 and the top of the post of the duplex is dead on at 100, a small V8 can is hittable at that range as are various assorted songbirds.

Song birds? Really!

Caw-Caw-Caw! Some people call Rap music too.

Sorry have I missed something here?
Is "song bird" code for those carrion buggers which go Caw Caw Caw?

quote:

Originally posted by 375 AI:
I have never considered the 22 a 100 yard round. The accuracy is simply not there in most gun / ammo combinations.

But if it makes you happy, go for it.

So much of the acurracy in a 22 is tied to the ammo. The big time shooters will even look to see what machine the ammo was produced on at the factory.

Yes well, here we have a comp using a 22 RF sporting rifle, standing, silhouetts out to 100 meters. The Rams at 100m are about the size of 2 side x side tennis balls. And did I mention the winds?

It should be a good test but the biggest difference with sporters would be matching the rifle to the ammo IT prefers.
I've had 'em go from shotgun group to tackholers
just with an ammo change.
JL.

JAL,

Sounds like what we do too, but at only a 100 yds. There are certainly a lot of .22s that will shoot well at 100 yds/meters and they bring a lot of pleasure when they connect at that distance.

My point was that in most cases the "I know I can hit it almost everytime" distance for a .22 is about 60-75 yds for me. The .17 HM2 is new to me and I'm really impressed with the capability. It makes a decent gun into a true 100yd gun. I shoot at 12 oz soda bottles at 100yds all the time and I can hit 6-8 out of 10 shots with a .22. With the .17HM2, I can hit almost everytime. I'm real close to 100% on crows under 100 yds with the .17....it's neat round!!

Saeed,
That will be an excellent and very informative test.

Gentlemen,

WE are testing all the ammo we can get hold of. If you do not see it in our test, then you know it is not available for us.

For us "clenched" target shooters, testing at 100 is what decides our ammo choices. Most ammo shoots fairly well to really well at 50, but most also come apart at 100.

There is a 200 yard prone match for .22's that's been around for quite a long time. I don't know if it's still fired at Camp Perry anymore.

There's also no telling which ammo a barrel will prefer. One of mine likes Tenex and American Eagle but nothing in between. Go figure.

Redial

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
Gentlemen,...
Any of you think this might be a worthwhile thing to do?

All groups shown are the average of 3 5-shot groups.

Saeed,
I'm not at all sure of what you want to test - the load, the ammo, the rifle, the shooter? All are possibilities, but if you narrow it down a bit there are better ways of testing than this - true testing if you wish. I'd be happy to give you one example for testing, but again, it all depends on what you want to do and why you are doing it.

Brent

Gentlemen,

We are basically testing both the rifles and ammo.

In addition to this BR-50 rifle, we are going to shoot two more Anschutz match rifle, one Walther match rifle, several sporters from Remington, BRNO, Ruger and Kimber.

The Kimber and the Remington 541S has had an awful lot of ammo shot through them.

The RWS ammo is probably over 30 years old!!

So far I am the only one shooting. And as I have learnt a long time ago, the best rim fire ammo one can find cannot hold a candle to a good reloaded center fire.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
Gentlemen,

We are basically testing both the rifles and ammo.

Well, if you are testing for accuracy, you might try something like this:
http://www.public.iastate.edu/~jessie/PPB/Stats/Testing%20loads.htm

Until you do, all you are doing is generating numbers w/o an objective way to interpret them.

quote:

So far I am the only one shooting. And as I have learnt a long time ago, the best rim fire ammo one can find cannot hold a candle to a good reloaded center fire.

I'm not real sure I agree with that out to 100 yds. But a really good .22 is hard to come by.

Brent

Brent, thank you for the link, is that part of your site and are you the author? Don't recall seeing it there in the past. Couldn't agree with your last sentence more. Do you have any thoughts, comments or info on the question of bullet upset vis-a-vis sonic shockwaves, as discussed above?

Dan, it's my article. I wrote it a few weeks ago. Most folks have been violently and vehemently opposed to anything like statistical testing and hence, they make no real progress in improving accuracy beyond a certain point. I generally get creamed for advocating anything like formal statistical analyses, and especially so for this multiple 2-shot group method.

I'm not sure what to make of the sonic instability issue. I believe it's there, and for .22 I stay below it and get better accuracy. I shoot out to 200 yds in bench rest competitions and regularly score in the high 240s on the german ring targets, so I know that slow ammo works.

However, these high dollar subsonic target bullets are far more precisely assembled than the hypersonic junk ammo that one buys on the shelves of wally world. I have some cheap subsonics that Rem sells for hunting - and they stink. But that's probably just because they are poorly made.

One of the greatest secrets out there, in my book, is the accuracy and effectiveness of Ely and Lapua subsonic hollowpoint bullets - they are quite cheap (not quite Wally World prices though), very accurate, and deadly on squirrels.
But for serious money matches, I use Ely Ulitmate EPS in my Low Wall or Wolf Match Extra in my Ballard. I've tested these ammos and as shown on that website and I have great confidence these are the most accurate loads for these rifles from the ammunitions that I have used.

If you want to do really persnickety testing of small differences, this method works pretty well.

Brent

Brent,

Thank you for the link.
You are probably right. But, I would not even know where to start to do such a scientific test.

This test, like all the testing we do here, is nto done to prove anyone right or wrong. It generally starts from an argument between some of the boys here. And the only way to stop these obstinate individuals is to do a test ourselves. They like to see the results, as one cannot tell them statistically this or that will happen.

What I have found is that each rifle/ ammo combination is unique. Some ammo will shoot very accuare in oen rifle, and give miserable results in another.

That is why we are testing a whole cross section of rifles.

And at the end of it, all we would be sure of is that some ammo is relatively better in one rifle or another.

quote:

Most folks have been violently and vehemently opposed to anything like statistical testing

Well, I had the same statistics teacher they did.

Brent, thanks for writing it, and I'd say it is one of the more easily understood treatments I've read on the subject. As to the ammo quality and instability thing, it is probably something for the alchemists and magicians to decide. I lean toward ammo quality(regarding .22RFs) myself but don't look gift horses in the mouth.

The reference above to the 168 gr match ammo sparks a recollection from one of McCoy's papers IIRC, something specific to that bullet shape/design that contributes...don't recall exactly and I have better things to do today.

Saeed,
All you have to do is follow the instructions on the website - I gotta feeling your a bit brighter than average and can manage that with one hand and Walter tied behind your back.

If nothing else, please post the standard deviations or variances or each of the three group sizes for the 3 5-shot groups you make. Just the average group size is insufficient. That way some hope of getting something objectively useful out of all that work is possible. Although the power of the test to detect real differences will be pretty minimal, at least it will be a little better than nothing. Seems a shame to go to all that work and not get the maximum bang for the buck (sorry for the pun I couldn't help it)

Brent

Coincidentally, I just found a very interesting thread on a benchrest forum. If anyone really wants to see a sophistocated way to do what Saeed is attempting to do, check out the article linked at the top of this website:
http://www.zouaves.org/agr/

Brent

Saeed
Are you able to do any testing on 22 taget pistols?

quote:

Originally posted by hikerbum:
Saeed
Are you able to do any testing on 22 taget pistols?

No sir we are not.

There's a turn up already.
CCI standard Vel beat Eley Tenx all ranges!!
John L.

So the German RWS R50 with your German rifle takes the cake. This is good news as Eley is rarely beaten, and great competition among the ammo makers. Hopefully even better ones will be made. My old rifle team coach from school would make the team shoot R50 whenever Eley Match or Tenx was not availible. We fired indoor 50 Feet ,3 position and outdoor 100 meter 3 position matches. The coach Sgt R.B. Brese had 11 national titles at his death . Our rifles were Winchester 52's, Remington 40x's,Of coarse Anshcutz 54's.. We did use a lot of Olin target stuff ,which was US army match rimfire ammo at that time. Your test and this thread have brought back alot of old memories.Thanks.

Brent:

You apparently know a lot about statistics and I found your article very interesting, but if you for one second think that a .22 LR can compete with a truly accurate centerfire at 100 yards, then you need to go figure some more. Any half way decent CF BR rifle will easily shoot .25 MOA or much less. I'd like to see how many .22s you can come up with that will do that.

Gatogordo. If you pull out BR rifles, sure they win. But off the rack rifles? Then it is not so clear. Any tricked out BR rifle BETTER beat a .22 - even a tricked out .22. On the other hand, on any given day at the range, I can generally give any rifle that shows up a run for it's money with either of my .22 single shots.

Brent

I would likely give the nod to CF/BR guns as well, but taking the trophy is not necessarily a slam dunk. IIRC a recent record was set by a .22RF bench gun at 200 yards that measured less than a 1/4". I don't recall the precise group size, but that's an apples and apples comparison. If there is an intrinsic advantage for CF guns it mostly has to do with higher BC, and less drift from wind. Give both RF and CF rifles a no wind environment inside 200 yards and all else being equal, I wouldn't waste my money betting one against the other. JMO

Saeed,

Are you getting tied of shooting yet? At this point, you're done with the 50 yard groups of the second rifle.

46 different types of ammo (if my quick count is accurate), 3 groups@ 5 shots/group (15 shots/brand) is 690 shots /rifle.

Eyes holdling out? Blisters on trigger finger? Bored? It's like cheering on a marathon runner. Go, Saeed, Go!

catboat,

It is not that bad really, as I am shooting in between other things I do around the workshop.

I found that I can shoot about 10 different types of ammo in an hour. Once that is done, I take a break to play with my little daughter, fix Walter's computer, return my phone calls, or, at lunch time, I take a book and an air rifle, and go read by the pool. At the same time shoot all the mina birds that come to eat our dates, and feed them to the crocs.

The crocs love them. Each bird makes one small bite!

In our workshop we never have a dull moment.