Rimfire ammo
performance is one of those subjects that seems to be governed more by art
than science. On second thought, maybe I should have said “more by voodoo
than science”. By comparison, center fire ammo performance is boring. Put
this bullet with this amount of powder in this kind of case, and we have a
pretty decent idea of what kind of results we can expect without ever
firing a shot.
Rimfire
on the other hand is a total crap shoot. It doesn’t matter how much we
paid for the ammo or what the gun is, we really don’t know what the
probable result will be. It’s no secret that rimfire guns are very
particular about what kind of ammo they will shoot well. Why is that? No
one knows. But why don’t we know? We don’t know that either. I’ve torn
down tons of rimfire ammo over the years (don’t do it as its very
dangerous), weighed and measured bullets, powder, cases, recorded
velocities and standard deviations and still don’t have a clue as to why
one brand of ammo works better in one gun versus another.
Shooters who are really fanatical about rimfire mumbo jumbo really like
Eley ammo because Eley prints all kinds of information on their boxes to
identify the contents. For instance, most brands of 22 ammo will just have
the name of the company and the “model” of the product on the box i.e.
“Wolf Match Target”. On the other hand, for its better ammo, Eley will
have that info plus its velocity, the month and year of manufacture, the
lot number, and even which machine the ammo was produced on. With all that
info available, the true rimfire fanatic can go into synaptic collapse or
a state of ecstasy trying to find some accuracy advantage in all those
numbers.
Let me
give you an example of the information found on the Eley Match EPS ammo
that I’m currently using. On the left side of the box you’ll find the
numbers 1006-04201 and underneath that line the number 1061. The first
four numbers (1006) is the date of manufacture i.e. October 06. The second
set of numbers (04201) represent the machine used to make the ammo and the
lot number i.e. machine #4 and lot 201. BTW, Eley has five cartridge
assembly machines and so many people favor machine #5 as they believe that
it, being the newest and the most modern, must make the best ammo. On the
other hand, machine #1 (the oldest) has been recently rebuilt, and there
is a group of people who believe that it produces the best ammo. Tea
leaves anyone.
OK, on
line two, the number “1061” represents the velocity of that lot as
measured at the factory. However, I have to say that in my experience,
I‘ve never found any relationship between the velocity printed on the box
and the velocities I’ve personally recorded with my Oehler three channel
chronograph which I place ten feet from the muzzle. For that particular
lot, my chrono tells me the actual velocity is 1097 fps with a standard
deviation of 8 fps. A difference of 36 fps between what’s printed on the
box and what’s happening out of my gun is quite a bit. It’s also a little
unsettling in that the bullet velocity average is right on the ragged edge
of being supersonic. (As a general rule 1100 fps is considered to be
supersonic, however, this varies somewhat by altitude, temperature, and
humidity.) In fact, two of my shots out of that measured string were just
over 1100 fps. Obviously, most silhouette shooters want to keep their
shots safely subsonic to avoid transonic turbulence and its negative
effects on accuracy. However, in my experience there actually seems to be
some validity to the belief that individual guns prefer ammo of one
particular velocity or another. Why? Again - who knows? Mind you, velocity
is just part of the accuracy picture but it does seem to be an revenant
part.
In
order to find what velocity ammo that your gun prefers the best, try to
find an ammo dealer that will make up a brick of Eley ammo that contains
ten boxes with wide variety of velocities printed on the boxes and give
them all a try. Shoot them in as windless conditions as possible. When you
find the velocity that your gun likes best, order more. Champion’s Shooter
Supply should be able to help in that regard.
I guess
my bottom line here is that many people lay great stock in the
miscellaneous information provided on the box and will go to great lengths
to relate that information to the accuracy performance of their gun. Other
than helping you to identify the “magic” velocity for your gun, I don’t
see a lot of use for it.
On the
other hand, I should also mention the mental part of this equation. I’ve
always said that 80% of competition shooting is mental. The noted
silhouette shooter of some years ago, Bob Kelly, disagreed with me and
said it was 95%. So if someone believes ammo from a particular machine
made on a particular date is better in their gun than ammo made from any
other machine or some other month of manufacture etc., it probably will
be. Funny how those things work out.
Bushnell Sold . . .
Again
For the
third time since 1995, Bushnell Outdoor Products has been sold off to an
investment firm. The first time it was to Asian based Worldwide Sports and
Recreation who held it for four years and then sold it to Wind Point
Partners, another investment firm. They in turn have sold Bushnell to MidOcean Partners, yet another investment company, which was founded by a
couple of German bankers. This time around, the sales price was a whopping
$600 million plus. This is particularly interesting in that the Remington
sale that I reported on recently was for a comparatively measly $370
million. You could say that the numbers reflect what we knew all along
i.e. that the optics on a gun quite often cost more than the gun itself
and that’s where the real money is.
Under
the terms of the sale, the top management at Bushnell will be staying on
the job and in fact will now be part owners of the company. As I’ve
reported to you in these pages, Bushnell has been growing substantially
with its acquision of Hoppes, Tasco, Uncle Mike’s, Butler Creek, and
Stoney Point. It also owns Bolle and Serengetti eyeglass makers. It’s not
a well known fact but Bushnell also owns the technology for all sports
oriented laser range finders. Anyone selling those products like Simmons,
Nikon, etc. must pay Bushnell a royalty fee. Bottom line - Bushnell has
been making a bundle of money under the current management and unless the
new owners start playing games with it, Bushnell should continue to do
well.
Wolf Primers
Wolf,
seller of inexpensive good quality rimfire and center fire ammunition, is
now selling primers. I recently was able to get hold of a variety of them
and was able to try them out.
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Wolf primers are now
available and at advantageous prices |
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But
first, have you ever asked yourself exactly who is Wolf, and where are
their factories located? Well Wolf isn’t a manufacturer at all. It has no
factories. It’s a company that buys all of its center fire ammunition from
several former state owned facilities located in Russia. Its rimfire ammo
is manufactured in former East Germany. Just like its center fire ammo,
Wolf primers are also made in Russia. They are currently being sold for
around $3-$4 less than comparable U.S. made primers.
I first tried
some large rifle types in my 22-250 rifle. The primer cups appear to be
made of aluminum and are less shinny than U.S. primers. During the seating
process I found that they are harder than the CCI BR primers that I was
going to compare them against. The reason that I know this is a powder
granule some how got into the cup of my primer seating tool which then
made a small dent into the CCI primers when I pressed them into the cases.
However the granule didn’t dent the Wolf primers. Other than that, the
seating process was normal. My load consisted of 36 grains of Hodgdon’s
Varget (a great powder), a 50 grain Remington HP, and Remington brass.
Here are the results:
|
Wolf Primers |
CCI BR Primers |
|
3628 fps |
3636 fps |
|
SD 31 fps |
SD 58 fps |
The
group size for both were for all intents and purposes identical at about a
half inch at 100 yards. The fact that the Wolf primers were a little
harder than the CCI’s had no apparent effect.
I then tried
Wolf small rifle primers in my XP-100 chambered in 6 TCU equipped with a
custom Leupold 2.5 X 8 scope. This gun is a tack driver at all ranges and
with just about every Sierra 6mm bullet made.
This primer was a little different in that it was copper colored.
It looked very
much like the copper wash that is commonly seen on 7.62 steel cases.
Consequently, I thought that because of the color, that the primers might
be made of thin steel, but a magnet had no effect so I guess they’re made
from some other material. Brass perhaps? The load I used consisted of 24.7
grains of WW748, a Sierra 85 gr BT HP, and Norma cases.
|
Wolf Primers |
CCI BR Primers |
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2342 fps |
2291 fps |
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SD 29 fps |
SD 11 fps |
In this
case, the load definitely preferred the CCI’s. The 50 yard CCI group was a
tight, uniform half inch while the Wolf group was double that size with one
shot going high and another going low and three in the middle.
Of course
shooting just a few groups with the new primers doesn’t mean very much, but I
intend to try them over a period of time to try to get a sense of how well
they shoot. Of course nothing is better than your own experience with your own
guns. The price is right so give them a try.
Rimfire Bullet
Lubricant
I was bench
shooting some very accurate Eley ammo at 50 yards many years ago and it was
performing flawlessly. The group couldn’t have been more than a quarter inch.
I then decided to switch over to another brand that was less expensive and
less accurate. (Got to save the good stuff you know.) Now usually when I
switch ammo, I’ll clean the barrel before I start shooting again. However a
friend came over to chat and I got distracted and forgot to clean the bore.
Well the first shot was dead center. The second shot was right on the first
one. In fact, it was hard to tell whether there was one shot on the target or
two. I immediately began to wonder what was going on as this ammo never seemed
to shoot so well before. Then, shots 3, 4, and 5 opened things up predicting a
group of around 3/4” which was normal with this ammo. I stopped and kind of
thought about what just happened.
Kind of on
a whim, I repeated the situation. I cleaned the barrel, fired a couple of
fouling shots with the Eley and shot a group. Again it produced a very nice
quarter inch group. I then switched over to the other stuff without cleaning
out the bore and again the first two shots stacked on top of each other and
the next three opened things up again. So what was going on here?
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The group on the left was produced with
bullets coated with Lithium grease while the group on the right was coated
with Shooters Choice gun grease |
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The
left group was shot with bullets shot with Graphite grease and the right
group was shot with ammo right out of the box |
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I came to
the conclusion that the residual bullet lube in the bore from the premium ammo
was improving the accuracy of the less expensive ammo. But after two shots,
the lube from the good ammo was then worn away and the cheaper ammo reverted
to its normal accuracy level. Then I thought how nice it would be if somehow
one could buy some of that premium lube. You could then put it on middle
priced ammo and get premium performance. Well I didn’t think that Eley would
sell me a barrel of Ten X lube so I wondered if I could find a substitute.
That kicked me off on a multi month experiment where I tried at least a
zillion different lubes which ranged from super heavy duty industrial greases
to hair care products and everything else in between. They only made things
worse. Nothing worked and so I gave up.
Then a
couple of weeks ago, the same thing happened again, and again, it got me
thinking about rimfire lubes again. This time my experiment would be more
limited. Like most people, I’ve noticed that expensive brands of rimfire ammo
always seem to have white lubricant, while the less expensive brands have
black lube. Just what is that white stuff? I wondered if it could be white
lithium, so I thought I’d give it a shot. I also had some general purpose
graphite grease in the garage, so that got added to the list. Lastly, as I was
casting my eyes around my work bench looking for something slippery to try, I
saw a tube of Shooters Choice gun grease. Perfect.
I chose
Wolf Match Target ammo for the experiment as it shoots fairly decently in a
lot of guns and the price is right. The first step in the experiment was to
remove the factory lube. This was easily accomplished by wetting a paper towel
with acetone and spinning the bullet in the same. I then applied the
respective lubricants on seven bullets each. Two bullets would be for fouling
shots, and five would be shot for group. I should note here that my lube
coatings were very thin and were applied by putting the smallest of dabs on my
fingers and twirling the bullet around. I was very careful to insure that
there was no lumping of the greases on the bullets and that the coating was
even and uniform.
|
Lithium Grease |
.536” |
|
Shooters Choice |
.178” |
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Graphite Grease |
.328” |
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Original Lube |
.140 |
All
shooting was done at 50 yards. Again I used my wind flags to insure that all
shots were taken under as identical wind conditions as possible. Here are the
results:
It was easy
to see that both the lithium and graphite greases really degraded the accuracy
of the ammo. It also confirms the fact that lubricant is a significant factor
in rimfire accuracy. The Shooters Choice gun grease however was a nice
surprise in that it produced a very pretty, very tight group. However, in
spite of its excellent performance, it still didn’t match the effectiveness of
Wolf’s original lube. Of course when you’re getting down to groups that are
measuring in the 1’s, the differences between groups is very small and can be
caused by almost anything, including random chance.
Bottom line
- unless you like to experiment for the fun of it, fooling around with
alternate lubes for rimfire ammo isn’t worth the trouble. If you do like to
experiment, this is a subject that can keep you occupied for a long time. Mmmmmm I wonder how some
RCBS or Redding die lube would work?
Alpen Optics
Over the years
I’ve been really blessed in that I’ve gotten to try out and write about at
least two and a half boxcars full of optical products of all kinds.
Consequently I hope that I’ve been able to help the you, the reader, to pick
and choose wisely from among the thousands and thousands of scopes and such
that are being offered to the shooting public by the ever increasing number of
companies who are in the sports optics business.
I guess the
word has gotten around that I have some experience in this area as I get tons
of emails from people asking for information and advice. I would say that the
most common question goes something like this: “I don’t have a lot of money to
spend but I need a good, reliable scope. What do you recommend?” My answer is
always the same. “For good quality products at reasonable prices that won’t
break the bank, look at Alpen Optics first.” Yes, there are other scopes that
cost less, but the quality (especially the mechanical quality) just isn’t
there.
I don’t
know how they do it but Alpen always seems to give their customers more for a
given amount of money than the other optics manufacturers. For instance, their
50 and 60mm spotting scopes could easily be priced $50 more than they are, and
their 80mm spotter really should be priced $100 more than it is. The same is
true of their rifle scopes and binoculars.
Their
products are also uncommonly reliable. Once on a visit to their headquarters I
asked to see their repair department. They just laughed and said that they
didn’t have one. I asked “Why not?” They replied “Because we hardly ever get
any of our products back.” My own experience verifies that. I’ve had a 6x24x50
and a 4x16x50 Alpen rifle scope for several years now that have been mounted
on and off a wide variety of guns both big and small and have never had a hint
of a problem. So if you, like me, fall into that very large category of
shooter that hasn’t won the lottery yet, and you need a good scope for a good
price, take a look at Alpen.
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