.22 cal ammo accuracy

[ronpistolero]

Hi.

I understand that given a certain air pistol and a set of pellets, one would have to adjust its velocity to be able to attain the best groups.

What about .22rimfire cartridges in free pistol and standard/rapid fire pistols? Would it be correct to assume that a top of the line Eley may shoot the best group with a Hammerli 150 and do unsatisfactorily on another 150? How then can one improve its group using a given ammo?

Thanks

Ron

[Isabel1130]

The short answer is that all of the top quality target ammo such as Eley will shoot better groups than you can. That is true of almost all 22 target ammo, even the cheap stuff. You are a bigger variable than the ammo by a factor of about a hundred. When shooting free pistol and feeding one round at a time, you have eliminated one of the factors that Bullseye shooters look at when selecting ammo for their guns. That factor is "does it feed well through my magazine and gun and not jam during sustained fire". I think you are probably safe using any of the better grades of Eley. That is mostly what I saw the free pistol shooters using down at the match in Phoenix last month. I would practice with anything that works in my gun, probably CCI SV. Isabel.

[Ernie Rodriguez]

Isabel is correct. In free pistol shooting about the only concern,for the average shooter, is any chambering problems-as some of the FP chambers are tight due to match grade chambering specs.

[Reinhamre]

There is a difference.
http://hem.bredband.net/nfdt/22lr/index.html
As you can see, it is not only the price tag that makes the ammo.
Start with the cheapest and test several brands. For competition it most also go bang all the time :-)

Kent

[Rover]

Your question was: "How can one improve a free pistols grouping ability with a given ammo?"

You can't.

With the top ammo costing over $1000.00 a case, you probably would like something a little cheaper.

Buy a bunch of the cheap stuff and shoot 25 shot groups out of a machine rest. If you can find a brand that can group well within the 10 ring, go with that. Remember that even the high speed ammo is slow out of a pistol.

In my own testing, I found that not all the top ammo was satisfactory and some of the cheap stuff was.

[Mark Briggs]

If you do a search on this topic you'll find some ammo test results I posted a couple of years ago. This testing was done in a CM84E, and it essentially proved the point that just about any ammo will hold the 10 ring, with a few exceptions. Since the human involvement in the shot process is such a large variable, you also need to select your ammunition based on what YOU shoot best. Your hand, wrist, arm, shoulder, torso etc are all variables in the equation that defines the grouping achieved on a target. Shooting the ammo that groups best in a machine rest may not produce the best groups when shot from your hand. You need to keep this rather large factor in mind when you do your testing.

Just as a quick guide based on my personal findings, the CM84 seemed to perform best in my hand with relatively "soft" ammo, that is, ammo that had a soft recoil impulse. Harsher ammo, such as RWS Target Pistol, and almost all the Lapua lines just didn't group as well when shot from my hand. By way of contrast, the Hammerli 150 seems to not be as recoil-sensitive, probably because of its greater grip rake angle. Ammo that I couldn't shoot at all well in the CM84 groups well for me in the Hammerli 150. The Toz seems to shoot just about everything reasonably well, depending on how your grip fits.

[ronpistolero]

Hi all,

Many thanks for your opinions. And thanks for the link, Kent, the test groups showed so many things without a word spoken. Uhm, any more links? I grew up believing the Hammerlis to be (arguably) the best.

I am aware that the equipments are constant and the human factor is the variable. This being the case, I was trying to find a way to come up with a best group given a certain ammo. Like, apart from a clean barrel, what else can one do to ensure/improve accuracy?

One more thing. I saw test groups of 3 MG standard pistols that arrived in the Philippines a few months ago and 1 group was significantly smaller than the 2 others (maybe 10mm against just under 18mm holes). I assume that these were done to show the barrel's accuracy. But does this mean that that's the best it could do with varying ammos? Lastly, is it also correct to expect the group to become smaller after x amount of rounds fired as the barrel gets "honed" or broken in?

Thanks again.

Ron

[GOVTMODEL]

Hi all,
I saw test groups of 3 MG standard pistols that arrived in the Philippines a few months ago and 1 group was significantly smaller than the 2 others (maybe 10mm against just under 18mm holes). I assume that these were done to show the barrel's accuracy. But does this mean that that's the best it could do with varying ammos? Lastly, is it also correct to expect the group to become smaller after x amount of rounds fired as the barrel gets "honed" or broken in?

Thanks again.

Ron

Every barrel and every lot of ammunition are unique. That's why Eley has a Customer Range; to lot test TENEX in YOUR barrel. (I have it on good authority that nearly a third of all TENEX is sold through the Customer Range.)