TargetTalk

So, what's the "normal" way of choosing which type of ammo to use? Just buy a box of each and try it to see which shoots best through your gun? What seems daunting about that is there are so many types of "match grade" ammo out there. How much variation is there between lots? If I try all of these different types and find one that seems to work best through my gun, will a change in lots make my results meaningless? So much ammo, so little time...

Thanks,
Ted

I'd start with the most inexpensive and work up. I'm not sure what gun your firing, but flawless operation of the weapon to me is the most important feature of the ammo. Once the gun works 100% with a certain ammo, then I would worry about accuracy. It seems that Agiulla standard velocity is a good starting point for ammo testing.

Here's my $0.02 worth. I visited the Eley Customer Range and batch-tested TENEX with three Hammerli pistols. For comparison I brought along some Federal Ultra Match that I was using at the time, and they also had 711 and several flavors of CCI. It is a 50 meter range.

At 25 yards and shorter, worry about functioning reliably. Any decent .22LR ammunition, starting with CCI Standard Velocity, will shoot very small groups at those distances, i.e., less than 0.5 inches.

At 50 yards there is a measurable difference. Seventeen batches of TENEX were available for testing. Just about any batch of TENEX shot X-Ring groups. It was easy to find batches that shot five, ten-shot groups averaging ~0.9 inches at 50 meters. All the ammunition tested shot groups well within the ten ring; few exceeded two inches.

Conclusion: Based on testing three Hammerli pistols and seventeen batches of TENEX, there is enough variation from gun-to-gun and batch-to-batch in ammunition that, unless you are prepared to do rigorous, controlled testing, and then buy multiple cases of ammunition from the best batch and save it for 50 yard slow fire, don't worry about it.

Richard Ashmore
Rhode Island, USA

That makes me feel better. I'm shooting an MG-2 for 25m RF, and have yet to have any ammo not function reliably through it. Even the cheap $5 for 550 box from WalMart worked flawlessly when I was letting my family try out the pistol. Lately, I've been shooting Aguila subsonic and have no complaints. I also recognize that my abillities are still way behind the point where subtle differences in ammo would have any impact on my score.

Thanks for the replies,
Ted

A couple of quick comments, if you intend to shoot RF, make sure you look at velocity of Aguila sub sonic ammo just make sure it is traveling fast enough to be used in RF. I understand there is a minimum velocity for ammo being used in RF now. I know the Aguila Calibri is way under the min velocity for RF.

To comment on the reliability, I know of two shooters who own them and could help you trouble shoot your problems. I’ve shot one of the pistols, and had no trouble with Elley target pistol.

If you would like me to put you in contact with the MG2 owners, please send me a message.

Good luck

Brian

Hi.....while we're on the subject of TENEX and MG-2's ..........they seem to be various handguns TENEX will work reliably with and others that just won't work with it..................has anyone owning an MG-2 shot a quantity of TENEX thru it and what were the results........IF it doesn't work well, what specific ammo is the best "match" grade (regardless of cost) for the MG-2 ?

Race,

Unless you're using your MG-2 to shoot 50m free pistol you're not going to get much benefit from shooting Tenex or any other premium-level ammo. My MG-2 digests everything - it just doesn't seem to care what you feed it. And in terms of accuracy, Eley Match Pistol (yellow box) works very, very well. Certainly far better than I'll ever be able to shoot. Just to give you an idea for comparison, I've shot free pistol targets in the high 80's with the MG-2. Some days I don't do that well with my free pistol!

Back to the subject of Tenex... Why would you want to shoot Tenex in a pistol? It's hot ammo, and most shooters are trying to minimize pistol movement on recoil by going to softer ammo. Also, are you thinking about Tenex or are you thinking about the Eley EPS bullet design which doesn't feed in some pistols? The EPS bullet has much more of a truncated cone than a nice round nose. It makes nicer holes in the paper but some semi-autos, particularly those with fairly sharp feed ramps, have difficulty feeding the EPS bullet.

In a semi-auto pistol like the MG-2 I would say you'd do yourself a much greater favour by buying and shooting a larger quantity of less expensive ammo and saving the really pricey ammo for national championships and international matches.

BTW - I haven't yet tried EPS in my MG-2, but it feeds well with the following:
Remington Target, Winchester T-22, Federal 711B, Federal cheapo bulk pack from Walmart, CCI standard velocity, Eley Practice, Eley Target Pistol, Eley Pistol Match (blue box), Eley Club (rifle ammo), Lapua Super Club, Lapua Pistol King and RWS Target. The RWS ammo is extremely hot though and I didn't shoot much of it.

Hi Mark.........yes, mistaken TENEX for EPS.........thanks for all the info, will see you at Cdn. Nationals this summer?? race1911

My comments relate to the Standard Pistol and Rapid Fire matches but may also be applicable to other events.

You obviously need an ammunition that is accurate and reliable in your gun but for these events it is vital that the recoil is consistant and suits your shooting technique.

When I was shooting competitively I would use Eley Pistol Match (dark blue) which was supposed to be only designed for free pistols. It consistently gave me the right amount and softness of recoil to allow me to use the recovery phase as part of my timing routine. No other ammunition I could find, and I tried a lot, allowed me to do this.

In the Standard and Rapid matches changing your ammunition for training and matches is in my opinion as crazy as changing your grips. If you want to achieve your highest possible match results then you must train with your match ammunition. In my case that meant buying (or getting my supplier to reserve) 10000 rounds at a time. I was lucky that Pistol Match was not the biggest seller so that, when it came time to re-order (every 2-3 months), the same batch was usually still available. That didn't actually matter too much as I never found a batch that was noticeably differentin accuracy reliability or feel, to any other.

I posted this earlier but it's worth repeating. Eley Pistol Xtra, which has the EPS-style bullet, does not feed in my MG2. The first round from the magazine chambers when cycling the slide by hand, but after it fires, the second round jams in the feed mechanism - every time! So I have given up on Pistol Xtra in the MG2.

TENEX Semi Auto and Match Semi Auto were developed because of feeding problems in some pistols, notably Pardini SP's, and magazine fouling problems in Ruger 10/22's.