Remington Bulk 22- interesting find

[quietman]

This was interesting.

Gave a friend of mine a box of the Remington 22 Golden Bullets as My 60 does not like them and he has a 22 bolt.

Fast forward and after shooting a 795, he went and bought one. Tried using the Remmy 22's and had numerous FTE's.
So he did something I wouldn't have thought of. He took out a micrometer and checked the casing diameter on a bunch of the cartridges.

Turns out a number of the ones he checked were oversized compared to the rest. In fact they were slightly larger than the chamber. So he figures his FTE's were from the oversized casings wedging into the chamber so tight that the bolt couldn't cycle correctly.

Makes perfect sense to me, and adds one more reason to not shoot their bulk ammo in a semi auto.

[awp101]

Yup, bulk pack .22 ammo is great for trigger time and practicing clearance drills.

It's not just the bulk ammo though. A few years ago I had one of those Russian Vostok single shot target rifles. I also bought some Russian "target ammo" from the shop as well. This supposed "target ammo" was so out of spec that about 1/3 of the rounds wouldn't even fit into the chamber. With ammo it liked (and that would fit) it was a lights out shooter though...

[jdad]

I never use or buy Remington rimfire ammo. Dirty, unreliable, and extremely poor QC. You definitely get what you pay for. Thunder Bolts have been nick named Thunder Duds, for a reason.

[Malamute]

Interesting, hearing about the problems with the Remington bulk ammo. I havent had any troubles with it. I wonder if it has to do with the actions the ammo was shot in?

I agree about the Thunderbolts tho, all I tried was junk. The golden bullet stuff I've used has been very good. I've shot 10's of K's of it in a Smith K-22, Marlin 39 and old Remington target bolt action. All have pretty heavy striker/hammer falls. Federal bulk 22's seems to have an inconsistant report, but everyone seems to love it. Oh well.

I just keep buying the Rem bulk goldens and it seems to work fine for me.


I had a brick of Russian 22's. They gave me so many problems I tossed about 2/3 of the brick in the trash.

[claybob86]

I never use or buy Remington rimfire ammo. Dirty, unreliable, and extremely poor QC. You definitely get what you pay for. Thunder Bolts have been nick named Thunder Duds, for a reason.

+1. The last batch I got misfires regularly, and some of the cases blow out on the rim where the pin hits it.

[Blaine]

I guess things have not changed. I got some Green Box Bulk and you could hear the difference in them going off. Nasty ammo. The Federal Bulk, however, are pretty good stuff and I would not hesitate to hunt with it.

[86er]

I tested various ammo in my 1 1/8" barrel NAA Mini. The Remington Lightning bulk pack ammo yielded the widest velocity spread, from 492-557 fps. Some bullets key=holed at 10 feet and some didn't. I tried Federal bulk 525 pack and found the velocity variance was 663-674 fps (much less than the Rem's). However, the advertised velocity for the Rem and Fed bulk ammo was the same, with the Rem being 40gr and the Fed being 36 grain. The CCI Stingers gave 879-887 fps. Running it though the Accurizer with .224 diameter and making the nasty nose the Stinger ammo ran 874-881 fps and had improved accuracy, penetration and wound channel. The Remington Lightning was too slow and inconsistent to consider, especially compared to the other ammo including Federal's bulk ammo.

[Huntermb]

I use mostly federal or winchester bulk or american eagle. I've had to just many problems with the remington stuff over the years through tons of different 22's so I know it isn't just one or two rifles not liking it.

[Don McDowell]

Most of the time failures to fire or eject can be traced back to first a dirty gun, damaged firing pin , or malfunctioning ejector.
8inch groups with the Remington Golden( bullet)at 270 yds isn't uncommon. Pops prairie dogs out to 200 yds with not much trouble....

[mikld]

In '91 or '92 I bought a Remington Viper, .22 rifle. I figgered a Remington rifle should shoot Remington ammo, right? Nope. I bought a bunch of Viper, Yellow Jacket, and Thunderbolt and I still have a lot of them left. In my rifle I got failures to feed at about 1 or 2 per magazine with Thunderbolts and poor accuracy. The feed issues with the others was better, but not good and also fair to bad accuracy in all my .22s.

[foxtrapper]

Couple of thousand Wally World Federal bulk Pack running through a dedicated 22lr AR-15 platform without a hitch

[adirondakjack]

I shot a 1/2 MOA 50 yard group with Remmie golden bullet bulk pack stuff in my tricked out 10-22. It DOES have a sharp claw extractor, which IMHO is mandatory when using a barrel with Benz or Match chamber.

[AJMD429]

I guess things have not changed. I got some Green Box Bulk and you could hear the difference in them going off. Nasty ammo. The Federal Bulk, however, are pretty good stuff and I would not hesitate to hunt with it.

That's my experience, as well. We use the Remington stuff for 'plinking' only, and the Federal for vermin patrol, etc.

[Rusty]

I bought some Remington match ammo to shoot out of my tricked out 10/22. It's not as accurate as Wolf match ammo but if I remember to push the bolt home with my thumb the last 1/8" it does OK. Forget that last little push though and it completely breaks up your rhythm.

[jhrosier]

I used Remington .22 ammo for decades.
A couple or three years ago, Remington started turning out some real poor quality ammo.
I found loose bullets, oversized and/or crushed cases, and missing priming.
The message got through to me loud and clear.
I have been using the Federal 550 bulk pack and the 350 bulk pack Auto Match ammo with very good results. The Auto Match is what I shot a couple of days ago from my Ruger Single-Six Hunter and got 1" - 10 shot groups at 25 yards. The 550 bulk pack ammo is great for plinking but doesn't shoot much less than 1-1/2" at 25 yards through most of my guns.

Jack

[jdad]

I used Remington .22 ammo for decades.
A couple or three years ago, Remington started turning out some real poor quality ammo.
I found loose bullets, oversized and/or crushed cases, and missing priming.
The message got through to me loud and clear.
I have been using the Federal 550 bulk pack and the 350 bulk pack Auto Match ammo with very good results. The Auto Match is what I shot a couple of days ago from my Ruger Single-Six Hunter and got 1" - 10 shot groups at 25 yards. The 550 bulk pack ammo is great for plinking but doesn't shoot much less than 1-1/2" at 25 yards through most of my guns.

Jack

I agree, the Federal 550 is really good plinking ammo. The Federal 510 is better and almost as good as MiniMags.

I stocked up several years ago, on a good lot number, of this stuff to use for silhouette.
http://www.championshooters.com/store/p ... 316&page=1

This stuff is amazing, for precision match shooting, but you better have deep pockets.

http://www.championshooters.com/store/p ... 295&page=1

[Don McDowell]

For match shooting I really like the Aquila rifle match ammo. Doesn't cost an arm and a leg, but will shoot with the best of them from both my Winchester lowall and Winchester 75 rifles.

[rimrock]

I too have come to believe Remington doesn't care too much about quality control for its bulk .22LR. I have about 700 rounds of it left, and then will go to Winchester bulk exclusively for my stock 10/22. Probably won't be interested in a Remington branded firearm either.

rimrock

[DixieBoy]

This is interesting. I like to warm up before shooting my .45acp pistols with 100 roundd or so of .22 out of a Ruger Mk III pistol with 5" barrel. I keep this pistol clean, and it has been regularly feeding, firing, and ejecting CCI Mini-Mags and 34 grain Winchester Super X jhp's (sorry, I can't remember the exact product # for it).

Last weekend there was a guy shooting next to me who had a brand new S&W target type .22 pistol. He had one of the 550 round boxes of Federal bulk .22 long rifle that I see all the time at Wal Mart. This guy kept having failures to fire. I watched him toss about 15 rounds in the trash over a five minute stretch of time.

Finally, I asked him if I could look at some of his "duds" and give them a go in my Ruger. I looked at the brass on the rounds we fished out of the trash. They had firing pin hits, but they looked light. I wondered if his pistol was so new that maybe he had packing grease getting in the way of a good solid firing pin hit.

I loaded up a dozen of his no- bang rounds in my Ruger. I got five of them to fire, and those that didn't, we looked at. My Ruger puts a good firing pin hit on the brass, and these Federal rounds all showed good hits. Just no bang.

Geez Louise, what gives ? I always figured that Federal was a brand that could be counted on. Anyone else have this happen lately ? For what it's worth, this guy said he'd just bought the ammo this week, to shoot in his new pistol. I'm hoping that this is not something we're going to be seeing more of. - DixieBoy

[jnyork]

Friends dont let friends shoot Remington .22 ammo.

[au2183]

I have to agree about the Remington .22 ammo, it's junk. I have not had any issues with Federal bulk however, as mentioned above, and I have a lot of it a nd have shot a lot of it. My favorite continues to be CCI mini-mags, and CCI SV in my S&W model 41.
I also have several .22 caliber S&W revolvers, and I find that the chambers are pretty tight in the K-22's. That makes them a little picky about ammo, but only on extraction. I haven't had any issues with FTF's. Again, CCI works the best in these too.

[Don McDowell]

Funny how different forums have different answers. Another place I visit, the general concensus is Remington is great, federal fair, and winchester just scrap...

[66GTO]

Funny how different forums have different answers. Another place I visit, the general concensus is Remington is great, federal fair, and winchester just scrap...

Go over to RimfireCentral and search on Remington Golden Bullets. They have been calling them junk over there for years. It got so bad a year or two ago that a Remington Customer Service Rep showed up on the forums and offered to replace any defective ammo. He disappeared quickly after the complaints piled up.

[Don McDowell]

Yeh and they'll tell ya over on rimfire central that the winchester/miroku lowalls have miserable barrels and all that rot. But that doesn't line up with what actually happens with those rifles in match situations. I know I've got one.
Just like the several thousand a year Remington Golden bullets bulk packs I went thru doing prairie dog extermination. No misfires unless the gun got dirty, and minute of prairie dog accuracy in excess of 200 yds....from a box stock ruger 10-22 equipped with a 4x scope
If Remingtons stuff is so junky they'ld be tied up in court from enterprising lawyers representing agrieved clients, and would probably be out of business...
Never mind the SAAMI requirements...

[claybob86]

Whatever. My recent experience with their bulk .22s tells me to not buy them again, and I don't. I've had no such trouble with any other brand.