Ammunition for picky guns.

[w_houle]

There are guns that run flawlessly no matter what you feed them, and then there are those that don't. I am looking for suggestions on ammunition that will be hot enough to increas reliability.

[Mosin_Nagant_Fan]

Well, depends on what type of gun.
My Mosin loves surplus ammo and will fire new production ammo just fine.
My brother's 795 used to fire Federal CHP HV ammo fine but I think it got real dirty and FTFeed & FTFire (FTFire was probably a bad batch of ammo).
My Ranger (Marlin 80) .22 rifle fired but found out it was missing an extractor).
My 16ga SS (Savage 94) likes pretty much anything, but the Remington ammo sometimes needed a double strike, either it's to hard of a primer or the firing pin spring needs an adjustment.

[PPK 32]

My S&W would fire just about anything, Federal or Remington, except the Remington would have a lot of FTFire. The Ruger has less FTFire on the same ammo. We have had the most sucess with Federal. But for practice ya can't beat the price. In my larger caliber guns I have not had a FTFire or feed. Only problem encountered is range ammo that we suspected were reloads, not done very well as all three guns, different mfrs had jamming issues. S&W, Ruger and Walther. Try a small box and find what you have the most success with. If you pay top dollar there are a lot of good ammo's out there but it will cost a small fortune to practice. Hope this was helpful.

[LDBennett]

I decided recently to try to get all my Target pistols into one ammo to avoid the logistics of various ammos for various guns. I wanted it to be Standard Velocity to preserve the guns as much as possible. I heard good things about CCI Standard Velocity so I tested it all my Target guns.

Every gun shot as good as I was able to shoot with open sights and the gun rested. No gun had failures to feed or fire or eject more than one every ten magazines and some never failed. Here's the list of guns I tried it in:

Ruger MKII 678G
CZ Kadet
Marvel Conversion Unit One on 1911
Browning Buckmark
Sig Trailside
S&W 22S
Beretta 87T
Benelli MP90
Colt Match Target
Browning Challenger
S&W Model 41
High Standard Victor
High Standard Field King

The High Standards are most notable as they are very ammo dependent but feed the CCI STD. VEL. ammo just fine. To say I highly recommend CCI STD VEL ammo is an understatement. I bought a case. My cost was $3.33 a box after shipping (Midway). That's a good price for mid value ammo today!

LDBennett

[pinecone70]

My .22s like CCI too, and I haven't used a ton of it but have not had any bad primers so far. My Marlin rifle hates cheap Remingtons and even Federals, my S&W pistol isn't too picky but is much more accurate with CCI shells.

[Mosin_Nagant_Fan]

Almost forgot:
My old Makarov (.380acp) loved S&B FMJ, Brwon Bear (FMJ) and American Eagle (FMJ) the best and Remington FMJ the worst (one stovepipe).
My FEG AP9 likes pretty much anything my old Mak liked, even the Remington Golden Saber.
I only used surplus ammo in my 1895(1944) Nagant revolver.
I haven't tried my S&W 10-2, but I think it'll eat anything I feed it.

[w_houle]

I didn't want to bias the opinions as to what you loaded into your .22s. I have two pistols that fire .22lr, and let's say they would not win popularity contests on most forums. I have an RG14S and a Jennings J22. The Jennings J22 I have does all right with bulk ammunition, if you accept a 97% success rate, but was looking to improve that.

[millman]

Originally Posted by w_houle

There are guns that run flawlessly no matter what you feed them, and then there are those that don't. I am looking for suggestions on ammunition that will be hot enough to increas reliability.

Try CCI Mini Mags. These work the best in a majority of my .22s.

Millman

[Mike U.]

I have three .22 rimfire rifles.
Marlin 60, Winchester 150 and a Remington Nylon 66.
The only thing they have in common is they shoot CCI Mini-Mags quite well.
Next reliable is Federal 550 bulk ammo at Wal*mart.