What happened to Remington?

[eric123]

It's a shame that the quality of Remington rimfire ammo has degraded to this point. In the late 80's to about '93 I burned up tens of thousands of rounds of Golden Bullets and Thunderbolts and the accuracy was always great. I hardly ever had a misfire either. I took hundreds of groundsquirrels and probably a few hundred grouse. My last trip out to the desert, I had probably 15 misfies per 100 rounds and accuracy was horrible. When I switched by to CCI, I had no misfires and great accuracy.

[Jim]

I spent Sunday afternoon shooting my little Stevens 15-A. A friend gave me a box of Remington something. I started shooting at dirt clods on the berm with it. I got less than half way through the box and after about 6 duds, I threw the rest of it in the trash barrel.

[eck0313]

Eric, I think you might have gotten the last of the good Remingtom ammo! I had someone give me the better part of a case that just wouldn't reliably fire in any of his target pistols, circa 1995 or so.

20 years of consistently bad ammo is a deep hole for any company to dig themselves out of.

[paul s]

Had a horrible experiance with a 597 .22, Im done with Remington. Very sad!

[nwellons]

I inherited 2 bricks of Remington golden about 10 years ago. The boxes were seemed to be newer but I don't know the age. Anyhow, they had somehow deteriorated in storage and the lead had changed enough that they would not chamber in any of my .22s.

I do buy the Remington subsonic and like it but have not bought anything else from them.

[FergusonTO35]

In my experience cheap, loose pack ammo from R-P, Federal, and W-W is all problematic in different ways. R-P tends to have lots of dead priming and rounds that need a second strike. W-W will not cycle in autoloaders worth a poop and ballistics change from lot to lot. Federal is iffy about whether it will cycle an autoloader and has produced a fair number of slamfires for me. I buy the cheap stuff when its on sale for practice ammo. For hunting or any other situation where the ammo simply has to work its CCI Mini Mags.

[Hardcast416taylor]

About a year back some neighbors wanted to sight in some new .22 rifles and pistols on my range. I was told to bring my rifle and pistols and they would supply the ammo and targets. To make this story short and sweet the Rem. Golden HP ammo was a disaster. If they didn`t sound funny they wouldn`t eject because they wouldn`t engage the extractor. They were very dirty and my very accurate S&W m-17 was all over the paper. About the only new thing I`ll get from a Rem. seller now is the calender at X-mas time.Robert

[gewehrfreund]

I spent Sunday afternoon shooting my little Stevens 15-A. A friend gave me a box of Remington something. I started shooting at dirt clods on the berm with it. I got less than half way through the box and after about 6 duds, I threw the rest of it in the trash barrel.

I hope they don't burn that trash!

[KCSO]

1973 Smith and Wesson 22 ammo... One carton of 500 first 50 rounds 18 ftf, groups up to 3 times that of Remington golden bullets. Now Remington has finally caught up. But I do use Remingtons for testing in the shopp because if it will feed 'em and set 'em off iit shurely working.

[HABCAN]

Rem 541S (no longer made) with an old Bushnell 1" fine-wire (NOT duplex!) 4X, and a big stash of Yellow Jackets = still very deadly, and shoots gophers to 200 yds.+........what's not to like?? But yes, NEW Savages are better quality and NEW Rems 'ain't whut they uster was'. Next gun show I'll try those Minimags y'all are so hyped on........always willing to learn.

[RSOJim]

My friend and I have ruger 10-22's, ruger single six's, I have a winchester 190. The last few months we have been shooting the remington golden bullit improved from wal-mart in the 225 bulk pack. We shoot clay birds at a measured 64 yards on a berm. We shoot all clays then shoot all the small pieces until not much is left. We are not having any trouble with fail to fire or fail to eject and all rounds sound good. Maybe remington is doing better with quality control. I will buy more. I know a few years ago the 550 packs were not very good.

[GARCIA]

Guy's, has anyone gotten any of the 22lr ammo that the CMP is selling?
It is from a Remington government contract for target shooting.
Hope I did not piss away $140 for 5K of worthless ammo!!!!

Tom

[marshall623]

If we are talking bulk ammo, I have had issues with any and all of them. I really like the Remington Target 22LR. I do not go hunting with bulk ammo unless it is ground squirrels or such. I have shot hundreds of dollars of the bricks in the past and one is pretty much as good as the other. Now that the bricks are going up, I think mini mags are a better value but still better than double the value packs. I still have quite a few of the $9.98 Walmart Golden Bullet bricks, they work alright.

I do not think that I could have afforded to shoot the volume I did if it were not for the price fueds between Win and big green and Federal. Some days I would shoot several bricks between three or four pistols and rifles. That is the kind of volume that I think any shooter needs to hone their God given instincts of instinctual aiming from the hip and doping wind and range. I have no complaints they are a good company that has taken a lot of heat lately. They employ a lot of good Americans, and one of my friends works for them and he loves his job.

Would it be an excuse if I said that this has been happening for a lot longer than most of us can remember?

X 2 on the the Rem Target that is good stuff for the price

[trooperdan]

Garcia,

The Remington is good ammo. I bought 2 cases a few months ago, shot a god bit and have had zero FTF.

[Wally]

I tried an experiment at 100~125 yards using Federal Valu Pak, Winchester 333, & Remington GBs... I set up a steel plate the size of a business card on a cable with a sand hill backstop. I couldl then see the strikes/misses. Using a Marlin 60, Marlin 980V, & a Ruger 10-22 with large scopes I proceeded to compare them. My "experiment" was to determine which brand hit the plate the most often. I had expected Federal to win hands down--I was wrong!

In the Semi-autos it soon became very clear that ONLY the Remingtons would consitently cycle the actions...had many FTE problems with the Federals & the Winchesters..in both the 10-22 and the Marlin 60. I have rep[eated that "test" quite a few times...alwasy with teh same results.

In a string of ten shots the Remingtons always hit the platee the most often in all three rifles. With any misses, I could clearly see the impacts in the sand hill...the misses were very close.....I attribute them to the wind and of couse my lack of proficency. What amzed me is the degree of misses with the Federal and the Winchester ammo. IOW the groups really opened up using them.

I have no doubts that others have had serious issues with Remington GBs...I have six different .22 RF rifles and have none of the problems mentioned. Yes, it is dirty ammo, but is functions well and is accurate. I don't mind cleaning my guns. In the Ruger 10-22, whick I've had for five years and shot quite often, I have yet to ever taKe it apart---I just oil the outside and swabe out the barrel. With the Marlin 60 (and a 795) dirty ammo will cause the bolt to be sluggish...a simple matter to field strip and wipe out the waxy gunk...takes a few minutes.

IMHO a .22 RF is only good if the ammo is cheap. I find that Rem GB's work fine for me and I can get them on sale @ 3.25¢ a round (Fleet Farm in Wisconsin)...


BTW--years ago I bought five bricks or Rem T-bolts...I have to admit when it comes to quality, there is probably no brand that is worse than it is. However at 25 yards it was accurate enough for plinking-- at a cost of 1.2¢ a round..it was ok with me.

[arkypete]

A hand full of us Bullseye shooters did well with Remington for a couple of years during 1980s. Then something changed and we were getting 5 to 10 miss fires per box. I wish I had written down the date, because it hit us all with in six to eight week period.
I went to Winchester Super X and never looked back, now I'm using Federal target ammo.

Jim

[Wally]

Remington had problems with applying the priming compound on their .22 RF ammo. No doubt they were trying to get away with using less. I have had some FTF's with theirs and have read of others having the same issues. Seems some cases had no priming compound in them at all. No dount Wal Mart pressured them into making large quantities for them at a very low cost...so the QC slipped. The latest production of their Golden Bulelts are "new & improved"..supposedly they have fixed the priming compound problem. I tried a box and they all shot just fine.

Most .22 RF shooters at the range seem more interested in seeing their guns go bang then shooting for accuracy... if they get no bang, they don't buy.

[km101]

It's not just the .22RF ammo, which is bad enough, but the poor quality is pervasive throughout the company. It starts with poor quality/process control.
I like Remington handgun brass, thieir rifle actions made before 1990, and thier rifles from the same time frame. I dont shoot thier factory ammo since I gtot a round with the primer in backwards (.270)and a round about a year later with no powder. (.308) If you REALLY want to get down on Remington, watch the CNBC Special called "Remington Under Fire". It details problems with Remington tifles going back several decades, thet Remington refused to acknowledge or fix. I think it's really sad, because Remington was once one of the best in the induxtry. But they have not kept up with quality control and updating manufacturing equipment. As soneone else noted, it's all about cheap, cheap, CHEAP!

[Tao77]

Remington rimfire ammunition has been cr@p for decades now. Every once in awhile I have to relearn that lesson so I'll buy another brick of 22rf ammo. Guranteed I'll have several failures to fire in the brick.

Federal and CCI on the other hand function 100% or if I have a failure to fire it'll be a once in several bricks occurance.

What about Winchester? New M-4 LR rounds.

[44minimum]

Last summer I bought a brick of their golden bullet ammo and it was terrible. One or two duds out of 500 rounds is acceptable to me, three duds in the same magazine of 18 rounds is not. After two magazines of ammunition thru my Marlin 60, I got tired of clearing it and gave the rest of it to my nephew to shoot in his lever action.

I also had a box of of Remington 12 gauge 00 buck. I could get it to chamber, but it was a very snug fit. It was certainly difficult to work the pump action. I fired one round, but every single round in that box must've been slightly out of spec because they would just barely chamber. I sent Remington a letter describing the problem with both types of ammunition and I even includedthe lot number on the 12 gauge ammo. They had my address, phone number, and e-mail address and I got no response from them whatsoever. That's when I gave up on Remington.