Informal, multi-platform WMR ammo 'testing'

[JAB]

For some time now I've been intending to do some very informal testing of various brands/types of .22 WMR ammo from my Marlin 925M, my 6 1/2 inch barreled Heritage Rough Rider and my 1 5/8 inch barreled NAA mini revolver. I'd like to narrow things down to one or two types of ammo that work best across all three platforms. Failing that (and the more likely outcome, I believe) I would at least like to identify a 'go to' ammo for each platform.

For the rifle, I figure that penetration will be adequate for the size animals I'd use it for (if I ever use it for any animals, at all) with most any good ammo brand. For it I am most interested in finding the most accurate ammo type.

The mini revolver gets carried as a weak-hand BUG sometimes. That being the case as long as a given ammo type is functionally accurate at three yards or so, I am more interested in penetration from that platform.

The Heritage is often used as a 'yard gun'. For that reason, short range accuracy (maybe ten to twenty five yards or so) along with decent penetration are the criteria I will need to use in choosing an ammo type for it.

Last week, I made it to the outdoor shooting range where I could take shots out to 100 yards with the rifle. I ended up doing most of the testing at 50 yards then checked to see how the 'winner' did at 100 yards. Ammo types tested, firing five shot groups of each, were:

1. CCI Maxi Mag 40 grain JHP

2. Hornady V-Max 30 grain polymer tip

3. Remington Accu-Tip 33 grain polymer tip

4. Remingotn 40 grain JHP

5. Federal 30 grain Speer JHP

6. Federal GameShok 50 grain JHP

7. Winchester Super X 40 grain JHP (supposedly mirrors the load

Winchester originally developed when they developed the chambering)

8. Winchester Supreme 30 grain JHP

9. Winchester Dynapoint 45 grain HP (unlike most WMR ammo, this is more of a copper washed bullet than a true jacketed bullet - this load is supposed to be intended as a 'stand in' for the old .22 WRF and isn't loaded to the velocity of most WMR loads.)

10. Fiocchi 40 grain JSP

Long story short, the three most accurate at 50 yards from my 925M were (in order starting with the best):

1. Remington Accu-Tip 33 grain

2. Remington 40 grain JHP

3. Fiocchi 40 grain JSP

I didn't measure groups, etc. just eyeballed them but those three were obviously more accurate, even just to the naked eye. In fact, the Accutip put three rounds through one (vertically strung) hole. The remaining 7 types gave accurace that was almost identical (again, to the naked eye) to each other. I will say that even those seven 'less accurate' rounds produced groups that could be entirely covered by the palm of my hand. I will also say that I don't bench shoot much and so don't have much practice at it - and that I was simply using the rifle case laid on the shooting table as a 'rest' so all ammo types tested probably have the potential to be more accurate than I am.

By the time I was finished testing the various ammo I brought I was getting hot and tired. Also, my wife, my mom and my nephew all went to the range with me and they were all done shooting and ready to go while I was still testing. For those reasons, I didn't get any pics of the various groups. Sorry.

Edited August 28, 2011 by JAB

[JAB]

I have a few places I can shoot informally at my house, my mom's house and my sister's house. Today, I wanted to test a few of the ammo types for penetration ability from the NAA. My mom and sister (who are neighbors) have been saving gallon milk jugs for me so I tossed a few empty jugs I had into the truck and headed to mom's house to see how some of the ammo I have would do. I used standard gallon milk/bottled water type jugs. As any 'serious' use of an NAA would be pretty much a close quarters prospect and I wanted to make sure I would get more or less centerline hits on the first jug, I fired the NAA with the muzzle just a few inches (about three inches) from the first jug each time. I only had enough jugs to test the following rounds, today:

1. Remington 40 grain JHP - I wanted to test this one because it was the second most accurate from the rifle and doesn't cost quite as much as the Accu-Tip

2. Federal GameShok 50 grain JHP - I wanted to see how the heavy bullet would do

3. Winchester Dynapoint 45 grain JHP - I honestly just wondered how this ammo would do as it is the cheapest commonly available .22 WMR ammo I have found and I can buy it at Walmart

I had to test the Remington twice as the first round seems to have been 'deflected' a bit as it passed through the jugs. I fired it into the first jug near the center but it exited near the right side of the back of the third jug and went to parts unknown. The second round also seemed to deflect a bit to the as it passed through but this time i was able to recover it from the fourth jug. Not bad penetration, I thought. There was zero expansion and the bullet could probably have been reloaded and fired, again.

I don't know if the GameShok round I tested just didn't stabilize out of sho short a barrel and so tumbled extremely or something else. Whatever the case, it travelled in what almost seemed to be an arch - entering near the centerline of the first jug and exiting near the bottom of the third jug, clipping the front of the fourth jug as it passed by. It seemed to have plenty of 'oomph' behind it as was the only round that signficantly moved any of the jugs, causing the first jug in line to hop just a little bit into the air and fall off of the surface I had the jugs sitting on. Still, because of the 'arch' trajectory of the bullet it probably wouldn't penetrate very deeply in a flesh and blood target when fired from the NAA. That bullet wasn't recovered and, as I was getting low on jugs, I didn't bother testing that ammo, again so no pics for that one.

By this point, I only had six water filled jugs left for testing. I lined them all up, just in case, but didn't expect to use them all considering I was testing WMR ammo from a mini revolver and my expectations for the Dynapoint ammo weren't extremely high. Man, did I ever get a surprise!

The Dynapoint round I fired entered near the centerline of the first jug in line. I noticed immediately that it produced a perfectly round, .22 caliber entry hole in that first jug. All the other rounds tested had produced more of a 'split' type entry in the first jug with a little larger hole where the bullet itself had actually gone in. When I moved to the side of the line of jugs to check the results, imagine my surprise when I saw that all six jugs were leaking. I checked the sixth jug and found that the bullet was not in it. I looked at the hole in the sixth jug and realized that it didn't look big enough for the bullet to have passed through. At this point, I figured that the bullet was lost. Then I noticed that the exit hole in the back of the fifth jug was pretty small, too so I checked the fifth jug, just on the off chance. Sure enough, the bullet was there in the fifth jug. It had enough energy to make a hole in the back of the fifth jug and the front of the sixth but not enough to completely exit the fifth jug. So, it didn't quite penetrate into the sixth jug. Still, I think that it is pretty impressive that it cleanly penetrated into the fifth jug and still had enough energy to poke a small hole in the back of the fifth jug as well as the front of the sixth.

I would not consider a mini revolver in .22 WMR to be a primary carry level of handgun in most circumstances. That said, loaded with Dynapoints and used as a weak-hand BUG I think it is not too shabby.

One reason I like it for a weak hand BUG is the relatively low amount of recoil. I have both a Kel Tec P3AT and a S&W 642 that each sometimes play the role of primary when I want/need a small, light gun for the purpose. I can control either of them pretty well in a two-handed grip or even in a strong hand only grip. I don't do so well with either when firing weak hand only, however. I figure if I needed to fall back on a weak hand only firing grip then things would not going so well in the first place so I like the idea of a BUG I can control well with my weak hand only even if that BUG is in a rimfire caliber. I am honestly a little rusty with the NAA as I haven't practiced as much lately as I should (figuring if I ever had to use it to defend myself it would probably be used as a belly gun where accuracy doesn't really enter into the equation, anyhow.) Still, I thought the few targets I shot today didn't look too bad for a weak hand only shooting grip. As the NAA is pretty much a close quarters proposition, I only fired from a measured three yards, today.

Notice that on this target, two rounds (the first two fired of this group, in fact) went through more or less the same hole:

The Dynapoint ammo produced a slightly bigger spread (which could as likely have been my fault as that of the ammo) but all five still stayed easily within the 8 inch target. I tried it out twice just to make sure the accuracy results were more or less consistent. I think I have found my go to ammo for the NAA. Dynapoint, it is - at least until I have more jugs to do some more testing.

Edited August 28, 2011 by JAB