Im a big winchester 555 fan. So their what i run in most of my 22's. My vintage ones i slow it down with standard velocity or 1200 fps ammo.
Im a 22/45 fan too. I have MK3 and 4 and 22/45 no mark series.
And welcome on board.

 

Im a big winchester 555 fan. So their what i run in most of my 22's. My vintage ones i slow it down with standard velocity or 1200 fps ammo.
Im a 22/45 fan too. I have MK3 and 4 and 22/45 no mark series.
And welcome on board.

Okay I'll check out the 555's. I think the 22/45 looks to be a great gun. I'm sure I'm going to enjoy it. Thanks for the welcome.

 

I like cci mini mags. After that, I like cci standard velocity.

 

The only CCI mini-mags I can locate that are available right now are running $0.40 per round. That's not "normal" is it? Probably best to keep looking for a better deal . . . Thanks for the info

 

I think you will find many members using the CCI Mini Mag and Standard stuff. That’s what I use most of the time in my 22s. Accurate and reliable.

 

I have a few 1000 count bricks of the cci blazer stuff. Still didn't try them. The cci standard i like for my old timers lol. I been using the cci A17 ammo on my savage rifle. It likes em lol.

Oh and when i bought my MK4. My LGS threw in a brick of the Agulla red and yellow box stuff. I didn't like it. I had to do a lot of re-strikeswith it.

 

I have a few 1000 count bricks of the cci blazer stuff. Still didn't try them. The cci standard i like for my old timers lol. I been using the cci A17 ammo on my savage rifle. It likes em lol.

. . . My LGS threw in a brick of the Agulla red and yellow box stuff. I didn't like it. I had to do a lot of re-strikeswith it.

I'll be interested to hear what you think of the CCI Blazer when you've had a chance to try them . . . Regarding the Aguila, by re-strike do you mean reload and give them a second try? . . . Thanks for the info

 

[QUOTE="Rugerfan57. . . many members using the CCI Mini Mag and Standard stuff . . . Accurate and reliable.
[/QUOTE]

Thanks, I'll look for it but I haven't seen any in stock at what I think is a decent price. I did a quick search and I can buy some right now at $0.40 per round but that seems a bit steep to me. Or is that normal pricing? I'll have to keep looking.

 

[QUOTE="Rugerfan57. . . many members using the CCI Mini Mag and Standard stuff . . . Accurate and reliable.

Thanks, I'll look for it but I haven't seen any in stock at what I think is a decent price. I did a quick search and I can buy some right now at $0.40 per round but that seems a bit steep to me. Or is that normal pricing? I'll have to keep looking.
[/QUOTE]

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At 1st I read your post & wondered "Why is this guy complaining about 4 cents per round?" $0.40 = FORTY cents per round (I'm a bit tired today). Yes, that's outrageous unless it's some olympic match grade ammo. You should be able to find better deals than that.

Congrats on your 22/45 tactical. I passed on a Mk III tactical years ago. As I recall, top + bottom picatinny rails, threaded barrel, rubber grips, matte black? Nice gun.

 

CCI Blazer shoot tighter groups out of my 22/45 than even the expensive ammo. I primarily use the 40 grain ammo.

Today I tested the 36 grain Blazer and they function as well as the 40 grainers.

I also shot Mini Mags...well worth the money, Aguila SE 40 grain, worked well except for the smell of the priming compound and I tried Federal 525 pack in the blue box. They were great.

I picked up all this ammo at Wal-Mart over the course of a few days. I left plenty on the shelves for others to enjoy but I did stock up.

 

CCI Blazer shoot tighter groups out of my 22/45 than even the expensive ammo. I primarily use the 40 grain ammo.

Today I tested the 36 grain Blazer and they function as well as the 40 grainers.

I also shot Mini Mags...well worth the money, Aguila SE 40 grain, worked well except for the smell of the priming compound and I tried Federal 525 pack in the blue box. They were great.

I picked up all this ammo at Wal-Mart over the course of a few days. I left plenty on the shelves for others to enjoy but I did stock up.

Great info! So I'm curious, given the present state of affairs what do people think is a reasonable price per round? Thank you!

 

Standard velocity like many others said.

 

"Normal" price for Mini Mags is around 8 cents/round. But current panic prices are 20-25 cents/round for lesser quality ammo. Keep your eyes open and maybe you'll get lucky. 10 cents/round is max I'm willing to pay for any 22lr. That was what I paid when I stocked up during the Obama ammo shortage.

 

I am now finding some CCI mini mags between 8-11 cents per so I'd better jump on one of those deals if they haven't already sold out.

 

I paid $25 for 525 round boxes of CCI Blazer and 525 packs of Federal . That's about .05 per round.

 

Hello All,

New here and this is my first post. I'm not totally new to firearms and I even used to own a Ruger Mark II years ago. I recently purchased a Ruger Mark IV 22/45 Tactical. It's brand new and I haven't taken it to the range to test it out just yet, and that leads to my first question. I've been researching what ammunition works well in this particular handgun. I've watched numerous online videos and have seen some pros for some brands but I've also seen cons for those very same brands. I've learned to avoid any ammunition that is subsonic. While I've seen some 22LR available at a fair price per round some of it is also fairly expensive. So before I spend a lot of money on any particular brand, and in a effort to narrow down my search to purchase, what do people that own and have used this particular model (Tactical - not the Lite) found to be most reliable? If you have a #1, #2, and #3 to stock up on when it's available what would they be? I will say I saw that I thought was a decent price on a box (brick?) of Aguila 22LR HV-SP Copper-Plated 40 Grain Round Solid Point bullets selling at .076 a round so I grabbed it. I hope they are decent and don't give me a lot ot trouble. I figured it's better to have something on hand while I seek recommendations for reliable ammunition to load it with. I'm looking for reliability feeding, firing, and ejecting. So in your opinion what's the most reliable for this gun and if you can please explain why? What makes it outstanding in your opinion?

Thanks!

Tactical

I have found that any ammo that has a FPS of 1200 or more seems to do well. Sometimes hollow points have feeding difficulties and you might have to polish the feed ramp or check the lips on your magazine. 22 cal. ammo being rimfire is prone to various failures so don't be aghast if you have the occasional failure to do something. I have put the failed round back in an empty mag. and it works with no problem the second time. Go figure.

 

Great info! Thank you

 

Restrike is when you reload the rounds in a mag. And im careful to rotate away where the firing pin had striked.

 

Okay, so if the end of the brass is a clock face when the firing pin strikes it where does it strike? I'd guess that might be hard to know as it ejects from the chamber when clearing it. Thanks

 

With any semi-auto 22 the gold standard for reliability is cci miming-mags. They will not necessarily be the most accurate ammo in your gun, but if it doesn’t run reliably after 200 rounds of mini-mags it probably needs to be looked at.

if accuracy is the goal, then who knows. Every 22 gun is different. You have to try a bunch of different kinds to see which one your gun likes.

 

Welcome from California’s High Desert and to the Forum.
Answerers are found here.

 

Hello All,
So in your opinion what's the most reliable for this gun and if you can please explain why? What makes it outstanding in your opinion?
Thanks!

Hello Tactical and Welcome to the RF!

I shoot CCI Mini Mags 40 Gr HV CPRN 1235fps. Why...because it is very accurate, shoots cleaner (less smoke, action grit build-up and very low fouling) than everything else I've tried, ejects casings cleanly every time and has been very reliable in my MkIV's, MkII's, MkI's and Standards!!! 😊

I was able to procure 10 bricks of the CCI MM last year at less than .05 cents per round. Since I don't shoot competition, believe that'll get me through these tough times!

Ted

 

Over the years I have found CCI mini mags to be the gold standard for function and reliability in most semi-auto .22 guns. When we started seeing their Blazers, we tried them and I've found them to be just as reliable. But 99% of the Blazers we see here come from their plant in Idaho Falls, so I cannot vouch as much for the ones coming from the Federal factory back east.

I've shot over 10,000 rounds of Blazers in a variety of .22s, and have yet to have my first malfunction of any kind in any gun! That's just like my experience with Mini Mags. Zero failures!

I think what makes the Blazers and Mini Mags so reliable in many guns are good priming and relatively high/sharp impulse from whatever powder they use, and the 40 grain bullets providing a good "backstop" for the gun's blowback system to work against. (No problems with the lighter hollow point Mini Mags, either, though), but I would recommend using the 40 grain round nose for gun break-in.

You can feel the sharpness of the impulse in your hand, wrist, and arm when firing them, compared to some other ammo, even with similar velocity specifications. It seems like the powder burns fast, and provides a sharper pressure spike or something. This seems to be good for getting a pistol's slide moving despite the shorter barrel compared to a rifle.

Try this yourself. Fill some mags with Mini Mags or Blazers, and some mags with, for example, Federal 510b. From your pistol, try them both. See if you can't feel the difference, even though both rounds are rated at the same muzzle velocity.

And, in my experience, even though the 510b is a good round, it's not as good for semi-auro pistol break-in, or as reliable in "picky eaters". It's just got too gentle of a powder burn to really rack the slide as well. My new LCP II .22lr loves Mini Mags, but has issues with 510b, just as I feared it might. The extremely short barrel likes fast powder, I think, and that makes sense.

In short, the Blazers and Mini Mags provide enough "oomph" to cycle shorter barrel semi autos with authority, and are manufactured to high quality levels, so you don't have loose heads, spotty priming, random sized cases, etc.

So if you can find Blazers or Mini mags, I would recommend them for any and all semi-auto .22s.

I used to have fantastic luck with the Winchester 555, 333, etc. But a number of years back, they switched to a white box, and I got a lot of what look like light primer strikes out of many guns. It seems that the brass was very hard, or something, and I started having a lot of failures to fire. So I gave up on the Winchester 555s, 333, etc. Perhaps they have that straightened out now.

Those were the ugliest gaping hollow points I've ever seen, yet the old ones fed and fired very reliably, and were not that bad for accuracy!

The old Federal bulk packs have also been quite good, as well, but they and the 510b rounds have a gentler "push" when fired, and do not cycle some picky guns as reliably.

Your Mark 4 should actually be very ammo-tolerant. My Mks are all very forgiving, and shoot standard velocity and even subsonics just fine. But the guns were likely broken in well using mini mags or Blazers.

More recently, CCI has offered .22 rounds with a polymer coating on the bullets. I've shot quite a few of those, and had excellent luck with them, too.

At least for the initial 500 rounds or so of break-in, I'd go with Mini Mags if possible, or Blazers, or CCI's poly-coated rounds.

Later, you will likely be able to shoot pretty much anything you want out of that pistol.

 

Over the years I have found CCI mini mags to be the gold standard for function and reliability in most semi-auto .22 guns . . .

At least for the initial 500 rounds or so of break-in, I'd go with Mini Mags if possible, or Blazers, or CCI's poly-coated rounds . . . cut . . . Later, you will likely be able to shoot pretty much anything you want out of that pistol.

Thanks for the reply. It has taken me some time and some close monitoring but I have finally been able to acquire a fair quantity of 22LR from 3 different manufacturers. All at reasonable prices, but not as low as I'd have liked (of course) Maybe I've overpaid but all of the real bargains sell out really fast. From my general observations I felt lucky picking up the CCI at under 20 ₵ per.

Aguila 22LR 40 grain HV RN Copper Plated @ 7.2 ₵ per round (delivered) 2,000 rounds
Federal 22LR 40 Grain LRN @ 14.0 ₵ per round (delivered) 800 rounds
CCI Mini-Mag 40 Grain Copper Plated RN @ 17.3 ₵ per round (delivered) 1.500 rounds

I'm sure there are better prices to be found but I think i did okay given the current market. If I average all of them together they are 12 ₵ per.

I have recently had Carpal Tunnel Release Surgery on my hand so I still haven't had a chance to get to the range but when I can I plan to load then seperately in their own magazines and just rotate through them to compere. I'm looking forward to when the doctor gives me the okay.

Thanks for everyone's replies and opinions. They have been very helpful.

 

It sounds like you've done well finding ammo for this particular time. It's a shame that it's so hard to find and expensive right now. I guess we'll see what the future brings on that front but we've been through these "ammo droughts" before, and they've always eased up after a while. Hopefully that will be the case again.

I've had very good luck with Aguila .22 ammo. So I think you'll likely be very happy with it.

And again, your MKIV should run well with just about anything. I've had no problems with the Ruger MK series, and I like the 22/45 because I tend to prefer the grip angle and shape of the 1911 type pistols.

I'd probably start off firing some of the Mini Mags for the initial break-in if it was me, because they really do cycle the guns vigorously, and that helps to overcome any friction from parts that need to be "smoothed off" a bit. And has been mentioned above, because they're so good at cycling a gun, if a gun won't fire them reliably, especially after a few hundred rounds are through it, then it does indicate that something needs to be tweaked in the gun.

You probably should be careful and take your doctor's advice before doing any shooting after your surgery. From what I understand, the modern carpal tunnel surgery is much less invasive than it used to be years ago, though, so you'll probably be allowed to shoot a lot sooner than people were back in the "old days".

I know a guy who had both wrists done at the same time recently, and back a few years, they would never have done that because the recovery took so long that they didn't want you to be without the use of both hands for such a long time. He said it worked great for him, and he was ready to do a lot, and was back at work very soon. So the technology for that surgery has really gotten good!

I guess you're doing exactly what you need to do to find some deals on ammo. I think we just have to be persistent and patient, and some always shows up here and there. It's kind of a fun challenge, I guess!

 

I like Aguila, but Wedn out of 100 Super Extra High Velocity, I had 5 malfunctions out of my Mark IV. Maybe 2-3 duds, and 2 failures to eject/stovepipe.

 

Hello All,

New here and this is my first post. I'm not totally new to firearms and I even used to own a Ruger Mark II years ago. I recently purchased a Ruger Mark IV 22/45 Tactical. It's brand new and I haven't taken it to the range to test it out just yet, and that leads to my first question. I've been researching what ammunition works well in this particular handgun. I've watched numerous online videos and have seen some pros for some brands but I've also seen cons for those very same brands. I've learned to avoid any ammunition that is subsonic. While I've seen some 22LR available at a fair price per round some of it is also fairly expensive. So before I spend a lot of money on any particular brand, and in a effort to narrow down my search to purchase, what do people that own and have used this particular model (Tactical - not the Lite) found to be most reliable? If you have a #1, #2, and #3 to stock up on when it's available what would they be? I will say I saw that I thought was a decent price on a box (brick?) of Aguila 22LR HV-SP Copper-Plated 40 Grain Round Solid Point bullets selling at .076 a round so I grabbed it. I hope they are decent and don't give me a lot ot trouble. I figured it's better to have something on hand while I seek recommendations for reliable ammunition to load it with. I'm looking for reliability feeding, firing, and ejecting. So in your opinion what's the most reliable for this gun and if you can please explain why? What makes it outstanding in your opinion?

Thanks!

Tactical

I have not had good luck with anything Aguilas...exceot their 60 gr. SSS round. I stick pretty much to CCI Mini Mag HP. YMMV.

 

Hello All,

New here and this is my first post. I'm not totally new to firearms and I even used to own a Ruger Mark II years ago. I recently purchased a Ruger Mark IV 22/45 Tactical. It's brand new and I haven't taken it to the range to test it out just yet, and that leads to my first question. I've been researching what ammunition works well in this particular handgun. I've watched numerous online videos and have seen some pros for some brands but I've also seen cons for those very same brands. I've learned to avoid any ammunition that is subsonic. While I've seen some 22LR available at a fair price per round some of it is also fairly expensive. So before I spend a lot of money on any particular brand, and in a effort to narrow down my search to purchase, what do people that own and have used this particular model (Tactical - not the Lite) found to be most reliable? If you have a #1, #2, and #3 to stock up on when it's available what would they be? I will say I saw that I thought was a decent price on a box (brick?) of Aguila 22LR HV-SP Copper-Plated 40 Grain Round Solid Point bullets selling at .076 a round so I grabbed it. I hope they are decent and don't give me a lot ot trouble. I figured it's better to have something on hand while I seek recommendations for reliable ammunition to load it with. I'm looking for reliability feeding, firing, and ejecting. So in your opinion what's the most reliable for this gun and if you can please explain why? What makes it outstanding in your opinion?

Thanks!

Tactical

Honestly, CCI Minimags. I shot 100 rounds last week of it through my Mark IV Target. 0 issues, flawless. When I moved on to Aguila Super Extra, which is decent, 5/100 malfunctions. I've seen a lot of other ammo have similar too, a few malfunctions per 50 or 100.

 

I've had good luck with Aguila in most of my guns.

 

Both my Ruger mk IV 22/45 and competition model work well with cci standard velocity and ely target.
I just ordered some cci competition which cost more to try out. My #3 go to just for practice and maybe slow fire match’s is federal 1200 fps, which are the most affordable but also give some issues that are usually rendered with a shot of oil on the top round casing of the first magazine.

 

Can i use Lapua .22 LR / Super Long Range in a ruger mk4 target bull?