Hi getting ready to purchase a little 22 rifle and I was wondering what the most potent cartridge I can stuff in there. I have some small varmints hanging around the house and since 22 ammo is relatively cheap so I decided to pick up the little Winchester. This is a new area for me I have 2 large caliber rifles one chambered in 45/70 and a 338 Winchester Magnum, so I'm going to need a little help. I've heard the 30gr Aguila Super Max HP are suppositly the fastest and that Quick Shok have good not down power because they split into three parts causing multiple wound channels. Really looking forward to your thoughts and input. Thanks!!

CJ

CCI mini mags give a fair amount of hit .Stingers are great but have the disadvantage of having a slightly longer case & some .22 firearms won't fire them safley (Ruger warns not to use them in the 10/22 Semi auto )

Dave

The best thing you can do is to try a few differant brands, weights. The vermin won't know the differance, your rifle will. Some will be accurate, some won't. My old bolt action will shoot any pill effectivly, my semi does very well w/ CCI, but loves Wildcats. My .22Mag shoots CCI perfectly, Hates all others.
Here is a good thread. JP

http://www.shootersforum.com/showthread.htm?t=23650

All we shoot out of our 22's are CCIs and they have always shot great. We just got a couple boxes of remingtons and our semi autos kept jammin up on us with them. I got 1000 ccis coming from the-armory.com so that should keep me busy for a while.

Chris

If you plan to shoot little critters the first priority is going to be accuracy.
Any .22 bullet will kill rabbit size critters, some do it better than others but none will do it if they dont hit where they should. Try a number of different brands and types of hollow point ammo and see which is most accurate from your rifle.
I spent some time harvesting rabbits commercially and used winchester powerpoint ammo exclusively in my rifle because it hit hard and was extremely accurate. I was one of five shooters and i was the only one using powerpoints because the others all had too many bad shoots with this ammo. Between the five of us we used 3 different ammo types because each gun is a law unto itself.

Bob

Hi guys what do you think about the 30gr Aguila Super Max HP, do you think hey will chamber reliably, and how about accuracy saw a sale on the internet 500 rounds for around 16 bucks would hate to buy them to latter find out they have a feeding problem. Is this a big problem with rimfire ammunition this will be my first rimfire rifle and like I said I'm a little green, Thanks!

tc

the most potent .22 lr out there as far as retained energy and penetration has got to be the Velositors. there are a couple out there just a tad faster but with a 32 gr bullet compared to the velositors 40 gr bullet. and the velositor is a tougher bullet if penetration is a must. also of all the hyper stuff i have shot the velositor has always done good to really good out of every gun shot.

I say go with the super max. The ballistics on those are very close to a .22 WMR.

I say go with the super max. The ballistics on those are very close to a .22 WMR.
the speed is very close but not the retained energy. that's why the velositors are a little slower becuase it is pushing a 40 gr pill compared to the 30 gr in the super max. the super max will be flatter shooting and if you're not shooting anything tough the lack of penetration is a non issue. just go look on that wet phone book test on rimfirecentral and see how much more penetration the velositors got over the super max, it was almost double. so fastest is not always most potent.

I agree with Jim H. Even Winchester Power Points with their 40 grain hollow point wound have better penetration than the 30 grainers. Good speed, but not enough weight to be what you would call Potent.

one ore note, when you're saying the balistics are very close to a .22 wrm you're not comparing the same bullets. while the .22wrm is a rimfire round the bullets have a true jacket and are far superior in toughness to any of the .22 lr rounds. there's no real comparison between the two in true "balistics". again you realy need to look beyond the muzzle velosity and look at retained energy downrange. as always this is just my .02 on the matter and i reserve the right to be an idiot.

CCI Velocitor gives me good speed and good penetration from my 10/22 and my bolt guns. Accuracy is mixed. Good in one 10/22 but not the other, good in one bolt but not the other. Remington Thnderbolt is 40 grains high velocity and just RN lead but it hits hard and is accurate in all but one of my bolt guns. The Federal Classic 40 grain load is a good one too.

Skip the Federal Lightning stuff. Absolute miserable failure in all my semis and only moderately accurate in one of my bolt guns.

I don't like giving up bullet weight for speed especially in .22lr as it needs it to really perform when you want to be sure the varmint goes down.

For small varmint's nothing could replace shot placement for bullet potency. As for me , a nice balance of potency and accuracy (for my rifle at least) would be cci subsonic. Its a 40 grain hollow point at standard velocity. Its a quite round (around the house) and knocking power is good up to bout 100 yards. however go for head shot if its to be serve for dinner :) . downside---rainbow tradjectory. over 80 yards drop is considerable for every 10 yards increment. So for my use, a scope with target turret is a must. And i go hunting with several ****s of paper listing ballistic table and wind drift factors :( . that is ofcourse if quarry (with 1 in vital zone) is way out to (80+m). Enjoyable only if it's your kind of thing ;) .

Try the Winchester HP Power Points and the Remington Golden HP rounds. I have shot 100s of prairie dog pups with the two brands.

Unless you have a problem with squirrels using your barrel as a chin up bar, would be better to look at the ballistics tables out to the ranges you expect to be shooting rather than the muzzle energy/velocity claims.

Even with .22's, the heavier better shaped bullets tend to hold onto their speed and strike at range with as much (and sometimes more) poweer than the lite-fast hyper vel. rounds. IF your shooting is at short range, look to the 25 or 50yard tables...if at longer range, look to the 75-100yard readings.


Accuracy is #1...and .22's are picky about what they will shoot well. Foot pounds of energy isn't nearly as important as bullet placement. Would often burn up my "almost" match ammo varminting, even with the solid bullet, becasue putting the slug exactly were it will do the most damage works...making a loud "crack" and sending up a dust ball a bit to the left or right of the critter doesn't.