Marlin 25 hates stingers

I own a bolt action 22 RF rifle in almost factory new condition. No more than 200 rounds fired. At a 25 meters (about 22.5 yards), using winchester or remington RN ammo, a ten shot group from a rest can be covered with a dime. With Stingers, the result have been constantly an arch of this shape ) to the right of the intended spot. On a forum I submitted the problem and the answer I got was that my rifle doesn't like Stingers. Could it be true. I wonder if the speed of the stinger bullet doesn't allow it to stabilize enough or isn't adequate for the barrel length. Anybody can got an idea or an answer. I intend to use the rifle for small game hunting with humane head shots.

It sounds like your rifle likes win and rem ammo, how did you get so lucky??

Don't know starmac. Is it a good performance? or are You kidding?

starmac,
come on man, I live in exile, a desert. You live in an Oasis. Forget luck, give an answer or a solution. Pleaase.

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I intend to use the rifle for small game hunting with humane head shots.

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Standard .22 Long Rifle ammo has been doing this for over 100 years. High velocity for slightly less than 100 years.

Hyper velocity loads such as the Stinger (which started the hyper velocity craze) for about 35 years. Normally with less than stellar accuracy.

Your rifle appears to like Win and Rem, and dislike Stingers.

Count your self lucky. Oh, and your conversion from meters to yards was backwards.

Robert

There's a hunnert reasons why a rifle "likes" one brand or style of ammunition over another. In my experiments, it seems that the biggest factor is the fit of the bullet in the throat. Ideally the bullet should actually engrave the rifling for .060" or so when the cartridge is inserted, although with the exception of dedicated target rifles it rarely does. The Stinger nose shape isn't conducive to this.

Then there's the ammo itself. Ammo has to be very , very uniform to print good groups. Bullet weight, bullet form, powder charge weight, the amount of primer compound, the uniformity of the crimp, the rim thickness, and and and. If the factory keeps a tight rein on it's process, you get uniform ammo. If not, you get ammo that goes all over the place. Any given make of ammo can vary from lot to lot, depending on how well the machinery was "tuned up" that week.

The one kind of hunting ammo that I've weighed and measured and found always to be very consistent is CCI MinMags. Sure enough, most people find them to be very accurate (for "cheap" ammo). Stingers on the other hand have never had a reputation for accuracy, so I've never even bothered doing a study of them. One ammo brand I strongly recommend avoiding like the plague is Remington Thunderbolt. Weight variance is horrible, and sure enough they shoot patterns, not groups.

If you have the interest, there's a trick of "bumping" the bullet in a die that actually expands it a thou or two, which makes it fit into loose throats much better, and can cut your groups in half. It did wonders for a 10/22 I have. Doubt it would work for stingers though. The bullet nose is too skinny.

Sorry shooter in exile, no kidding I think you are lucky, especially if you are talking about bulk ammo. If it shoots them well, i would just as soon use them for hunting as any other.
I bought some shorts a couple weeks ago, but haven't gotten around to trying them in the old marlin yet. If they shoot good enough, they will be used for rabbit and grouse.

Forgot to mention, I regretfully traded off one of those M25s last year. STUPID move, I replaced it with a remington 597, then promtly gave that thing away. lol

Rimfire central has a dedicated forum for the M25, all the fine tuning info you would ever want to know in it.

Shooter, if you have a rifle that shoots well with the inexpensive ammunition, enjoy it. No, the plain box bulk stuff won't blow up a small rodent the way a Stinger will -- but a head shot with a 40 gr. solid will anchor them just as well as a head shot with a 28 gr. hollow point. Shoot what shoots well and pocket the money saved (or use it to buy a scope so you can extend your head shot range).

Just like any barrel, some will like this and some will like that. I have a pistol that really loves CCI standard velocity and sub sonics, but it shoots CCI minimags into double sized groups.
I don't know if its the velocity or the lubed heads that make it so, I just feed it what it likes.

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Originally Posted by uscra112

If you have the interest, there's a trick of "bumping" the bullet in a die that actually expands it a thou or two, which makes it fit into loose throats much better, and can cut your groups in half. It did wonders for a 10/22 I have. Doubt it would work for stingers though. The bullet nose is too skinny.

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Would you mind explaining this bumping a little more? I am interested if you have time to elaborate.

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Originally Posted by Para Cassatt

Would you mind explaining this bumping a little more? I am interested if you have time to elaborate.

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Well, we had a couple of pretty good threads going on it a while ago, but I can't get the search engine to find the best one now.. Here's the one I was able to find: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...ght=paco+kelly

Read the whole thread.

Basically it involves pushing the cartridge into a die with a blind end, using just enough force to squash the nose a bit. The original intent was to put a flat on the bullet nose for better "terminal effect", but it also expands the diameter of the bullet to match the inside of the die. THAT makes the bullet a better fit in the throat, which improves accuracy.

I made a die set that works like the Neal Waltz system, which is much better than the Paco Kelly tool. I can send you my sketch of the die and the punch if you like. You'll need a lathe and an old .44 Magnum die with the 1/2" thread top plug, and a .2250 to .2255 chucking reamer.

I did a lot of testing of this, using an old 10/22 (stock barrel) and cheap bulk ammo, and found that it really did improve accuracy quite a lot. But simply bumping cannot make up for other deficiencies such as bullet weight, primer compound uniformity, and such. The best combination in that 10/22 was weight-sorted and bumped CCI MiniMax ammo.

Dont forget stinger brass is longer than standard 22. dont know if this could be causing your problem.

Don't feel bad. most guns hate stingers

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Originally Posted by uscra112

There's a hunnert reasons why a rifle "likes" one brand or style of ammunition over another. In my experiments, it seems that the biggest factor is the fit of the bullet in the throat. Ideally the bullet should actually engrave the rifling for .060" or so when the cartridge is inserted, although with the exception of dedicated target rifles it rarely does. The Stinger nose shape isn't conducive to this.

Then there's the ammo itself. Ammo has to be very , very uniform to print good groups. Bullet weight, bullet form, powder charge weight, the amount of primer compound, the uniformity of the crimp, the rim thickness, and and and. If the factory keeps a tight rein on it's process, you get uniform ammo. If not, you get ammo that goes all over the place. Any given make of ammo can vary from lot to lot, depending on how well the machinery was "tuned up" that week.

The one kind of hunting ammo that I've weighed and measured and found always to be very consistent is CCI MinMags. Sure enough, most people find them to be very accurate (for "cheap" ammo). Stingers on the other hand have never had a reputation for accuracy, so I've never even bothered doing a study of them. One ammo brand I strongly recommend avoiding like the plague is Remington Thunderbolt. Weight variance is horrible, and sure enough they shoot patterns, not groups.

If you have the interest, there's a trick of "bumping" the bullet in a die that actually expands it a thou or two, which makes it fit into loose throats much better, and can cut your groups in half. It did wonders for a 10/22 I have. Doubt it would work for stingers though. The bullet nose is too skinny.

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I hear what you say about Thunderbolts but back in the 208 ammo shortage when 22 ammo even Thunderbolts was going at darn near 40 dollars a brick I found three bricks at a garage sale for ten dollars a brick. I have never been too much of a fan on Remington 22 ammo since the 70's when shooting the golden bullets I got a lot of duds. But at that price I snapped them up. I found my Marlin 80 DL loved them they were accurate and I used almost a brick shooting them at 22 Silhouettes. Not one dud either. I still got two bricks which I am hanging on to considering the current 22 ammo shortage. My Sears branded 80 DL also likes them go figure.

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Originally Posted by uscra112

Well, we had a couple of pretty good threads going on it a while ago, but I can't get the search engine to find the best one now.. Here's the one I was able to find: http://castboolits.gunloads.com/show...ght=paco+kelly

Read the whole thread.

Basically it involves pushing the cartridge into a die with a blind end, using just enough force to squash the nose a bit. The original intent was to put a flat on the bullet nose for better "terminal effect", but it also expands the diameter of the bullet to match the inside of the die. THAT makes the bullet a better fit in the throat, which improves accuracy.

I made a die set that works like the Neal Waltz system, which is much better than the Paco Kelly tool. I can send you my sketch of the die and the punch if you like. You'll need a lathe and an old .44 Magnum die with the 1/2" thread top plug, and a .2250 to .2255 chucking reamer.

I did a lot of testing of this, using an old 10/22 (stock barrel) and cheap bulk ammo, and found that it really did improve accuracy quite a lot. But simply bumping cannot make up for other deficiencies such as bullet weight, primer compound uniformity, and such. The best combination in that 10/22 was weight-sorted and bumped CCI MiniMax ammo.

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Sorry for the late response but thank you.

Stingers do not feed smoothly in my 39D. As far as accuracy goes, all I've demanded of them is mInute of 6" gong at 25 yards and that I've gotten.