I have been shooting SK Long Range ammo for matches and Eley Contact for everyday for 3 years or so. Killough's has had Contact for $5.25/ box. but has gone up to $7.25 two month ago. At $5.25 it was the best ammo out there, but at $7.25 It is closer to SKLR the price. The SK line is no go right now. I am going to try Eley Club and see how it compares. What do you use for everyday shooting? CCI SV and Tac 22 does ok out to 200yds, but falls apart past that.
Everyday ammo
- Thread starter MarkCZ
- Start date
I've had failure to run issues with several of my rifles when I've run CCI Target. For my every day ( i.e when I want quality, reasonable consistency but I'm not scoring,) I've found it hard to beat Norma Tac-22. I find it runs about as well as SK Std+ ( one small step below SKM but with an extra flier here and there.) Tac-22 was $3.20 a box last year (bought in case lots) but now its getting harder to find. I just paid $6.50 /box delivered for another case +. As I've read, importing of all 22 ammo has slowed to a crawl. All I can add is that once you find something decent, invest in 2-3 years supply.
I have found a few lots of Club that shined as an everyday plinking round. My experience was that SD was not fantastic, but perfectly serviceable for shorter range shooting.
I use Federal Automatch. I just tested out different ammo in my new CZ MTR last week and it actually was the best out of that rifle compared to Eley, SK, Wolf, and RWS. SD wasn’t the best but it grouped well out to 200 yards.
What do you guys consider acceptable SD and ES for your ammo choice? My best so far with a box of SK Standard + is an SD of 9 and ES of 43 that I'm happy with.
Bill
Bill
Last edited:
Not sure about everyone else but I don’t pay near as much attention to SD’s with rimfire. I shoot it, get my velocity, check groups out to distance.
The Federal I’m shooting has an SD in the mid 20’s and it did better for me than the Eley I was shooting with an SD under 5 was but the Eley, Wolf, and RWS consistently would throw a flyer on the first shot or two out of the magazine. Federal and SK wouldn’t. Eley had the worst flyers.
The groups from the Federal were not as tight at 200 as the SK but they were still easily hitting a 4” plate at that distance.
I think one needs to calibrate their expectations. “Everyday” ammo (as in, “This is cheap enough that I don’t think about the cost of pulling the trigger”) and hitting 2 MOA targets at 200+ yards are somewhat incongruous. Simply because 2 MOA at 200 yds isn’t an “everyday” accuracy expectation.
For me personally, my performance has progressed to the point that cheaper ammo holds me back. I want to know when my wind reading or rifle manipulation are off, not when my group size is too big.
But if I were playing inside of 150 yds, Norma Tac or Match are solid choices.
For me personally, my performance has progressed to the point that cheaper ammo holds me back. I want to know when my wind reading or rifle manipulation are off, not when my group size is too big.
But if I were playing inside of 150 yds, Norma Tac or Match are solid choices.
Well the 2 moa at 200 wasn’t the group size either, just the plate size. I usually keep a 2” plate at 200 as well but it went flying off after I had shot it with my 6.5 the other day and I haven’t replaced it yet.
I also shot them all side by side as best as I could on a 12” plate at 200 and the Federal and SK did the best out of all of them. Eley and Wolf threw some horrible flyers and RWS did a little better than Eley and Wolf but not as good as the Federal and SK.
As far as group size vs wind reading and rifle manipulation that’s fine, but when I’m testing out ammo in a rifle I for sure want as good performance as I can get in group size. That’s the point in testing different ammo.
Well, you seemed to be asking about cheaper “everyday” ammo, not “as good as I can get.”
It costs more money to get better groups, especially at long range. Reports of “my SK Std+ shoots as good as Center-X” can basically never be reproduced on demand, with round counts higher than 5 shots.
Well I’m not the one asking the questions here for one thing. And when the better match ammo I tested can’t even hold a 3/4” group at 50 but bulk federal punches one hole less than half an inch at 50 I would say that’s a pretty good indication. This was done with four 5 shot groups and then the Federal was shot again in a 10 shot group at just over 1/2”. After that I shot everything at 200. I didn’t measure those groups but it was pretty easy to tell that the federal and sk had the least dispersion over and over again for 30 rounds worth on each type.
I shot the Club today. It shoots a little better than Contact. I shoot Dum Dum sucker at 100yds. 200yds i have 4", 3", 2" and a 1" 300yds I shoot Long Gongs 8", 6" and 4". I ran the 200yds gongs a few time clean 1 for 1 By the time I got to 300yds the wind got up. I could hit the 8" and 6", but the 4" was tuff.
I don’t practice much volume past 150. The dope is pretty basic, except wind, and that is easy to practice with 1”@100 or so. Mostly I practice on paper. When my positional groups are as good as the bench ones, I upgrade ammo. I found SK terribly slow, with vertical spread like CCISV. When CCISV is not good enough I go to Eley Team.
CCI SV was always go to, but managed to pick up a lot of Norma Tac for cheaper than CCI.
Norms Tac is considerably better ammo (accuracy and ES) and is better than a lot of lower end Eley I've tried, but CCI SV is good enough for practice that if it's the cheapest "match" ammo you can find then just go with that.
Norms Tac is considerably better ammo (accuracy and ES) and is better than a lot of lower end Eley I've tried, but CCI SV is good enough for practice that if it's the cheapest "match" ammo you can find then just go with that.
Puff, Puff, Pass MFer. I could use some of what ever you're smoking.
I shoot SK Standard for all practice ammo. my practice is 50y dot drills and position building drills all in 1. My match ammo is lapua Midas till it's gone, SK long Range fresh case and Eley match. It all depends on the rifle im carrying to a match as to what ammo comes out.
Second group was Federal. The rest was Eley. I wasn’t even gonna try the federal, just had it to use to get an initial zero.
For 22LR-BR at one of the clubs I shoot at, guys want <30ES max or they they don't bother with it.
ES of 30 is loosely SD of 8 (4x8=32) depending on sample size and confidence requirements etc, so a good rule of thumb.
For PRS, our local MDs don't set super small targets at 200-300 yds outside of maybe KYLs. (Those aren't exactly representative of cold-bore hit pobabilities, since the previous shots larger targets are acting as sighters).
ES of 30 is loosely SD of 8 (4x8=32) depending on sample size and confidence requirements etc, so a good rule of thumb.
For PRS, our local MDs don't set super small targets at 200-300 yds outside of maybe KYLs. (Those aren't exactly representative of cold-bore hit pobabilities, since the previous shots larger targets are acting as sighters).
+1 That SK seems to deteriate after time anybody know WTF is up with that?
Oh, so at 50 yds. Ok, less surprising there.
As a side note, those other groups are appalling. Something’s not right there.
I don’t have group pics at 200 but the federal still did better than the Eley. SK did a little better than federal maybe at 200. SK did almost as good as the Federal at 50.
I was wrong on the SD. SK had the SD under 5 and Eley was 10 something. Federal was 21 something.
Not sure that I have seen issues over time. I keep my ammo in a conditioned garage. It's not un common for me to have 4-5 cases of ammo at any time in the rimfire realm. I'll shoot 1.5-2 cases a year between 3 rifles.
This particular lot of SK was never great with SD, but started to deteriorate in mean velocity over time. And it showed up on paper/target downrange. It was stored indoors with other ammo that didn't change velocity/SD etc. At the time, I chalked it up to mid-pandemic QC probably going to shit. Just curious if anyone else had seen the same.
Thats very interesting for sure. The case of Sk I just finished was a 5.4 SD and a 21 ES over 50 rounds. It was an amazing lot. It was also just a random purchased case as well.
What flabvour Eley is it?
I have had very mixed results with Eley.
Any Tenex, Team, Match I have tried has been good, even Eley Standard.
Eley Club has been extremely inconsistent between batches, and 38gr Subs have gone from an ES of 50ish to and ES of over 100 with horrible high low fliers in another batch.
My practice/goof’n ammo is my match ammo. I try and hold my per box price as close as I can to $5.00, and do everything I can to get the most out of each rifle. This translates to an assortment of guns that shoot nearly identical group sizes for high round counts, which helps my confidence that I’m getting about all I can out of my abilities as well.
I have noticed a trend in ammo that troubles me.
Back in the day… 20 years ago, I shot NAMMO made Wolf MT and Winchester bulk pack Dynapoints like they were water. That ammo was heads and shoulders above the stuff I’d relied on in the past, with consistent match size groups across a broad selection of guns. When Wolf switched contracts to Eley, my consistent groups grew dramatically, so I quit buying it. Dynapoints disappeared during the first ammo famine, and CMP Eley became my go-to, but again, groups were not as tight.
When that ran out, I switched to Geco Bolt Rifle, at 25-50 yards it was ok, so I ran it in comps for a few years until it became unavailable. Now I’m on Eley Contact, only excels in my longer barrels,in everything else it breaks the sound barrier and groups are loose. Guess ammo will just continue to get worse until someone starts up with something new
I have noticed a trend in ammo that troubles me.
Back in the day… 20 years ago, I shot NAMMO made Wolf MT and Winchester bulk pack Dynapoints like they were water. That ammo was heads and shoulders above the stuff I’d relied on in the past, with consistent match size groups across a broad selection of guns. When Wolf switched contracts to Eley, my consistent groups grew dramatically, so I quit buying it. Dynapoints disappeared during the first ammo famine, and CMP Eley became my go-to, but again, groups were not as tight.
When that ran out, I switched to Geco Bolt Rifle, at 25-50 yards it was ok, so I ran it in comps for a few years until it became unavailable. Now I’m on Eley Contact, only excels in my longer barrels,in everything else it breaks the sound barrier and groups are loose. Guess ammo will just continue to get worse until someone starts up with something new
