Thread: Fun with 22s - wee ammo test

Originally Posted by madjon_

RWS special match @ 100Attachment 219174Attachment 219175Attachment 219176bit of wind.
Good stuff,$19.90 it should be
Tac 22 has the same headstamp.

Hey John - nice shooting at 100, are you in the Nelson group that shoot "proper" 22 Benchrest? The Tac-22 is an RWS product but no-one seems to know for sure what other RWS product it's equivalent to!

According to postings on rimfirecentral, Norma TAC-22 is RWS Match, whilst Norma Match-22 is RWS Special Match. Both out of the same RUAG line so maybe the headstamp is the only difference.

The Yanks rate the TAC-22 as a good plinking ammo.

TAC-22 is available at my local and I was going to grab a couple of bricks but after research I flagged it away and stocked up on RWS Special Match (yeah bloody pricey) which I have also found shoots very well at 100yds.

Grabbed another brick of CCI SV at the same time. Love that stuff. Just cannot get over how well it shoots in any of my rifles given the price. A bit flier prone though.

Originally Posted by Bagheera

@Tentman have you got groups with other torque settings ?

Well I did, but couldn't for the life of me figure out what I'd done with them. Had another look this arvo and all became clear . . . . I'd pasted another target on top of it - Doh!

So in the interest of science I shot it again, results were similar but not quite as easy to interpret as the first one.



So, ammo Eley Club. Distance 48M. Generally my Lithgow doesn't do "cold bore shots" but it did today. So first group at 12.5 inlbs 0.543 excluding the CBS. I shot another group at this setting and it went 0.310. Ignoring that as a outlier increased to 17 inlbs 0.539 was the result. Went to 20 inlbs and shot a 0.312, nice round group. Up 25 in lbs and 0.816 with pronounced vertical stringing. Went back down to 20 in lbs and oops a flier opened it up to 0.695. Rest again properly to 20 in lbs by loosening it right off and going "up" to 20 in lbs using 3 stages. Last group, normal service resumed and a 0.296 group.

My learnings in this:

Always get to your chosen torque setting going up in stages
Look for round even groups with no stringing (even if they may be bigger than groups with stringing)
All 22 ammo will have fliers, the trick is to know your ammo and rifle and be honest with yourself.

Originally Posted by Tentman

Hey John - nice shooting at 100, are you in the Nelson group that shoot "proper" 22 Benchrest? The Tac-22 is an RWS product but no-one seems to know for sure what other RWS product it's equivalent to!

Yes.
The tac 22 pills are different color to rws sm.
CCI standard v has a nasty habjt; pop 10.1,pop 10.1,pop 10,bang 8 at 12 o'clock.

Originally Posted by Tentman

Hey @omark if you could also comment on the accuracy of your Lithgow compared with the common "match rifles" that would also be very interesting. Cheers

It’s a wee step down from dedicated target rifles I’ve shot such as anshultz and walther and some of the bsa mk2s that I’ve shot but not by much. I consider it to be a multi purpose rifle. Definitely more accurate than the cz s and the tikkas my mates shooting. I had to torque mine to over 20 pounds to get it to shoot. Also it improves with a clean every 300 odd rounds.
I use boretec rim fire and foul with 10 rounds.

It’s such a shame lithgow don’t do southpaws in their centre fire range as I would
Jump at the chance if they did in both .223 and .308.

I am a real Lithgow fan though….so slightly bias…

Originally Posted by madjon_

Yes.
The tac 22 pills are different color to rws sm.
CCI standard v has a nasty habjt; pop 10.1,pop 10.1,pop 10,bang 8 at 12 o'clock.

My findings exactly with the CCI.

This is PMC Match through a Norinco EM332. Not the most accurate rifle at 50m - the 0.1" group below was not common - but EM a laser at 100m. Four consecutive groups averaging 0.69" - all of them under the inch. Little rifle cost $247 and was tested using its shop Huntsman 3-9x40 scope. Had to laugh!! Alot of match rifles would not beat it at 100m:

Originally Posted by mudgripz

CCI quite a consistent performer for the money. The groups below are from one of the very accurate Marlin model 60 semiautos I had - stock. Top line is three groups - two fives and a three - averaging 0.34" at 50m with CCI Standard. Bottom line is couple of groups with CCI subsonic - averaging 0.32". CCI may not deliver peak performance of match ammos but it does offer quite good consistency across batches, and that's a plus when plinking.

I recently setup my Savage for CCI Standards and was getting 1" groups @ 100m without really trying hard (rifle could undoubtedly do better with a better shooter!). Although if you believe strelok the MV was down around 960fps. Anyhoo took it out on it's first bunny hunt with this ammo, I was happy with the accuracy (hits @ 120m) but the lethality at all ranges was crap - I had a lot of hits but animals with enough life in them to disappear into nearby holes.

Originally Posted by vulcannz

Although if you believe strelok the MV was down around 960fps. Anyhoo took it out on it's first bunny hunt with this ammo, I was happy with the accuracy (hits @ 120m) but the lethality at all ranges was crap - I had a lot of hits but animals with enough life in them to disappear into nearby holes.

Should be around 80 ft.lb, 5-10x more than enough power to kill a rabbit with a head shot(!), although that FPS sounds a little high. If not head shots, then yeah, Standard Velocity are round nose so don't cause that much damage. CCI Subsonic have similar ballistics and kill better (also happen to shoot better in my CZ).

Shot by GS evaluating for consistency as heaps available. Good price too. All 5 shot group at 25 yards.

Tentman & I were chatting about rimfires and the LA101 was mentioned. My wife shot the attached target with her Lithgow yesterday - 50 metres outdoors with some twitchy wind increasing steadily all morning. Bulls are 1/2" O.D. - 100 shots - 4 lot numbers of SK Long Range. SK/Lapua is very scarce around here these days and we are pretty much buying anything we see and hoping that it shoots OK. The action of this rifle is bedded, including about 1" of the barrel. No pillars which really won't do much with the plastic trigger guards on these rifles. I run both my LA101's at 1.5NM screw torque. Groups are usually pretty round and consistent so I haven't really experimented with settings. I recently replaced the scope with a Meopta Optika 5 in 4-20 with the BDC3 reticle - Nice scope which suits the LA101 well.