Thread: Sellier and Bellot .22 sub sonic report

I do a fair bit of Rabbit shooting living here in Central Otago so it's always interesting to try a new ( to me ) brand of .22 rimfire ammo.
I only shoot sub sonic and generally run Winchester 40 gr or CCI 40gr. I have a lot of success with this ammo both in terms of cycling, clean running ( for sub sonic ) consistent point of impact and on game performance.
So when the old farmer I shoot for and supply's my ammo gives me a brick of the Sellier and Bellot ammo I was keen to try something different.
Here's a brief report after 150 rounds used.

The Good: Feeds well in the 10/22 as far as chambering goes.. Projectile seems to work well on rabbits , good size hollow point that gets the job done.

The Bad: Average accuracy that is acceptable for work out to 65 - 70mtrs. After that it seems to open up .
Inconsistent speeds with a much higher rate of ammo breaking the sound barrier than either Winchester or CCI

The Ugly: Dirty , fouling ammo not to far behind that horrible shit Remington put out. My fingers are black after 50 rounds. A lot of gritty powder residue.
Jamming rates much higher than anything else I have used previously.

Conclusion : I can't and wouldn't recommend the ammo. I won't be using it again and hopefully will chew through it quickly over the next few weeks .
Save your money , there is better ammo out there .

Ive got a lot of this and mostly agree with your report. However the batch I'm running is very accurate in my bolt gun and the dirty nature of it isn't a problem in a bolt action.

I’m using it in my CZ455 with fantastic accuracy out to a routine 120-130m, nailing dozens of magpies, bunnies and hares. Have broken my PB on bunnies and magpies with this ammo. It’s so good I bought 3000 rounds, from the same lot as Tentman.

I would say @viper with the best of intentions that a 10/22 probably isn’t the best rifle to use for an objective ammunition test. You need to run it through a good couple of decent bolt actions as well. Rifles can be fussy as you know - my CZ despises current CCI, Fiocchi and Eley. Hopeless. I’ve also never had much luck with 10/22 period.

I haven’t had a single supersonic crack in several hundred rounds.

Yes it is dirty, I’ll give you that. I tend to keep the rifle in top order anyway because it’s constantly getting wet and dusty. So dirty ammo it doesn’t really make that much difference to me.

first off I need to apolagise to you rimfire guys who were complaining about the new yankee winchester stuff...I had written off complaints as whinging...
I finnally have got my shit together and started using .22lr again...the 22-250 is lots of fun but at 50 yards,the wee pea shooter makes more sense.

anyway,Ive heard to odd crack with subsonic but its the nose cone that really has me stumped..a GIANT leap backwards.the new powerpoint is the same as old superspeed...1mm hollow point that almost looks like its had slight flattening..so I took page from book of the school of the 80s found a 4'' nail and quick twirl in nose cavity takes it from tiny 1mm out to about 4mm without deforming shape...three twirls with slight amount of pressure pushing nail in and results look very consistant.
look forward to trying the new improved rounds and seeing how they preform. used the high velocity tonight and shot hare and a rabbit,cant say was impressed with how it killed...the strange thing is when opening tips the lead "feels" harder than it should...will see if projectiles stayed inside when skin tomorrow.

@Flyblown , it's funny you say that as when I was driving back from the hunt I did think it would probably go well through a bolt action rifle so both your and Tentman's comments don't surprise me.
I used the 10/22 because it's the perfect rifle from a semi auto point of view to use for the ammo test.
They are generally very reliable , a hell of a lot of shooters use them from back yard plinkers to professional pest teams.
All rifles prefer different ammo , we all know that but if the ammo is so dirty it starts to effect reliable cycling of the action then from a semi auto point of view it's not suitable to use.
Glad you and Tentman ( and probably others ) are getting a good result from it in bolt guns . It's nice to have a choice also but for my situation and application it isn't suitable.

@Micky Duck when I first started with suppressors and subsonic I would do adhoc testing shooting into a 2 liter icecream container full of sand.
Winchester subs made nice pretty little mushrooms.
I was a fan of pmc ammo at the time and they didnt mushroom at all. Didnt use them much after that.
Maybe try some using this method as you could make them bigger if it didn't initially work

opened up some of the 42grn supers..they have rounded ends on them too....its like winchester have completely abandoned the whole powerpoint concept. they are now just like the old superspeed rounds,they were 36grns from memory and were good...but powerpoints were just so much better. simple fix with 4'' nail.