.22 Rimfire Are some cleaner than others?

[Uncle Grinch]

I shoot my Ruger Mk II pistol quite frequently in our monthly matches, either bullseye or silhouette and have tried quite a few of the more common brands. Of course some group better than others and some group ok, but feed unreliably.

As I get older, I start looking for ways to make life easier, such as cleaning my Ruger. The standbys are Hoppes #9, spray disc brake cleaner and Breakfree CLP. After a dozen or more patches, I got to thinking about the relative cleanliness of .22 LR ammo. Almost everything I shoot is really dirty, especially after 90 rounds or so and I shoot mostly Winchester Super X or Federal.

What are your success stories on finding a cleaner brand of .22 rimfire ammo? Now, I don't shoot that $10 box of Eley or Green Tag stuff, but if it's that much cleaner, I may try it.

[twotoescharlie]

absolutely.


TTC

[Lee]

I feed my Ruger MkII whatever is on sale, and my experiences are the same as yours. It's all pretty dirty, I suspect the semi-auto is dirty 'cause all the powder doesn't have a chance to burn.
I wonder if "hotter" rounds might be cleaner than "standard" rounds? Which category might be expected to be cleaner??
Along the same lines, I posed the question in another forum..."what product does the best job of removing carbon fouling???"
I'll post the results here, let's see what the guys on this forum have to say also................................Lee ;-)

[BruceB]

Just this morning I tested several different loads in my Ruger "Government Model" MKII pistol. Shooting with iron sights from a solid rest in Der Schuetzenwagen at fifty yards, I found that CCI Green Tag (competition ammunition, they claim) shot groups which were HALF the size of four other brands or versions of Long Rifles.

The same results were obtained with a scoped Anschutz .22LR sporter; that is, the Green Tag stuff shot MUCH smaller groups than anything else, under an inch for ten rounds at fifty yards.

If a given load shoots better than something else, I simply don't care about any other factor except reliable functioning. In many years of competitive shooting, I very rarely, if ever, cleaned a .22 LR barrel. The actions have to be cleaned, of course, but the bores were left untouched.

I'd find the best-shooting load for your particular gun, within your budget (Green Tag costs $11.79/100 here!) and not worry about cleaner or dirtier. Accuracy and good functioning are more important.

[Buckshot]

................The only so called match ammo I ever bought on purpose was a brick of the Wolf brand 'Match' or 'Match Extra' (I don't recall now). It hurt 8) as I was used to paying $9-$12/brick and these were like $29. I've never shot enough of it by itself to see or notice if it was cleaner. First concern was accuracy and that is what I was paying attention to. Cleaner or not, it wasn't to a degree to casue me to notice.

The 22RF is an exceedingly filthy little cartridge. Cheap, fun, and darn accurate but filthy nontheless. By it's very nature I doubt there is one that is cleaner enough to really matter. Let's consider that they are ALL outside lubed, the slugs are all of about the same hardness and the consistancy of the brass is of no consequence to cleanliness.

High dollar full house match grade ammo has the exact same faults.

The action plays a more important part of cleanliness then the ammo does, in my mind. My Martini match rifle is a single shot. It stays very clean. Maybe once a year I'll drop the guts out of the action and wipe out a bit of unburned powder, re-lube and re-install it. Normally when I put it up I run an oiled wool mop through the barrel and that's it.

Next dirtier (or less clean) are a couple bolt actions. After some period of use you'll get a certain amount of scraped off lube, the inevitable tiny little flakes and slivers of lead, powder flakes and residue in the cracks and crevases. My Rem 582 will after a certain point begin to leave the occassional empty in the chamber.

Filthiest by their very nature of operation are the automatics. You get the same scrapped off lube, lead slivers and flakes and more unburned powder in the mix. My only 22 Semi-Auto is a target model MkII Ruger 678. I've always cleaned it before I had functioning problems, but it is by far as bad as both the rifles put together. A semi auto rifle is the same. Their operation literally scatters crap all over the place inside.

....................Buckshot

[Dale53]

Yes, .22 ammo does vary between dirty and dirtier. You just have to try different brands. Like someone stated above, I am primarily concerned with accuracy. I mostly use Ely Yellow Box in both my pistols and my rifles. However, you need to try different brands in YOUR rifle or pistol. What shoots well in my gun absolutely may NOT shoot well in yours.

I have used "Ed's Red" for years to clean my guns. It is a superior product and is a home mix (thanks to Ed Harris). See:

http://www.building-tux.com/dsmjd/tech/eds_red.htm

Dale53

[Linstrum]

I've never paid too much attention to the amount of debris left behind by the different kinds and brands of .22 rim fires but I did notice that when the original CCI Stingers came out in 1974 that they were real dirty at first. Then about twenty-five years ago I read an article in The American Rifleman that advocated the continuous testing of the various brands, kinds, and lot numbers of .22 ammo to specifically find good-shooting lots of ammo and avoid excessive powder residue and the other problems mentioned here. The article’s author said that if you were a big .22 shooter to buy all you could afford when a particularly good lot of ammo was discovered, paying particular attention to that lot number to make sure it was all the same stuff that you’d just tested. In the summer of 1979 I found some really good lots of .22 LRs and bought a bunch of bricks of the stuff. They were Remington Lightning and Federal Thunderbolt brands (I think) and I still have probably five bricks each of those really good shooting “oldies” left, plus I still test and buy .22s when I see it on special. My brother-in-law took my little sister and me shooting yesterday and we bought a 550-round carton of Remington Golden Bullet High Velocity Hollow Points for the occasion and fired about a third of them in an antique break-open 8-inch barrel single-shot target pistol and an old Firearms International 8-shot Regent revolver. Neither of them had much in the way of powder grain "mummies" in their barrels and the one cylinder, or any other place. Of course neither of them are autoloaders, either, but as far as autoloaders go, I do have a High Standard Sport King carbine .22 autoloader that I bought in 1962. Since I bought it 44-years ago I have only needed to clean the action a few times and it has never really had a lot of burnt powder residue left in it. Because of its design it is hard to look down the barrel, so I don’t really know how much residue it has had from the various lots of ammo I have run through it in the last two-score of years. It is still a good shooter and last year when I put the scope back on it I tested it with some of my 1980 .22 Thunderbolt/Lightning oldies and I was putting five out of five shots in the 2”x4” board I had set up at the 200 yard line. That is two inches at 100 yards, not bad for a .22 rim fire rifle at all, and no comparison whatsoever to the lousy 12-inches at 25-feet five-shot groups I get with my Walther P38 9mm!

[Frank46]

Mike, you should see my marlin semi auto after firing about 200 rds. All the junk blows back into the action and even into all the mechanics. I say 200 rds because about that amount extraction starts becoming iffy. If I go beyond that sometimes I get misfires. The crud builds up on the bolt and barrel faces and the firing pin cannot reach the case. The surplus sellier and bellot 22rf ammo I sometimes shoot is great stuff. But has been stored for so long 1985 that a lot of the lube migrated down to the nose of the bullet. Split a case with a friend. Normally in my martini single shot 22 I shoot russian brass cased junior. That rifle is very easy to clean and I do not get a lot of junk inside the action. So my answer is definitely yes, the 22rf cartridge is a dirty little bugger. Frank

[Uncle Grinch]

Well, I guess I'll break down and try some of that high dollar ammo. After all, if it's going to get dirty anyhow, I may as well get the best group out of it for my efforts.

[KCSO]

If it were me I would buy one box of Eley and one f CCI mathc ammo and try them first. I had a BSA Martini that shot W/W el cheapo ammo better than Eleys or CCI's. In the last couple of Ruger 10-22 target rifles I made up neither one shot expensive ammo better and in one the best group was with Federals bargain basement and one was with Russian. My current target gun shoots Remingtons the best and will put 5 shots into 1 1/4" at 100 yards on a windless day.

[OldBob]

I shoot in a .22 Sporterifle league during the Winter and heres what I have seen;

All .22 rf ammo is dirty, I don't think you can escape it.

Wolf match ammo @$30 a brick is real popular and real accurate.

CCI Green Tag is real good but very expensive, most of our group replaced it with Wolf.

Fereral Champions shoot excellent in my rifle, ragged one hole group at 50' (this is an offhand match,bullseye is slightly less than dime size) I can't see any great improvement with the match ammo so I use the cheap Federal. This would probably not be as true at 50 or 100 yds.

Federal Target seems identical to Champion.......

As with all guns, each is a law unto itself, try a bunch of different brands and don't discount the cheaper ones, sometimes they will suprise you.

My Mark II gets dirty fast with anything, its the blowback action, I don't believe any .22 load will burn clean fast enough to avoid blowing carbon into the action, up side is its easy to dissassemble and clean and they shoot GREAT.

[lovedogs]

Buckshot is on the right track. Naturally, some .22's shoot dirtier but a lot of it has to do with action types. Think, also, of chamber dimensions. A good example is my Contender .22 match chamber barrel. Since it's got a shorter barrel than a rifle you'd think it'd not burn all its powder and be dirtier than a rifle. But that's not the case. Its chamber was sized to fit Federal ammo tightly. It engraves the bullets on closing the action and the case fits snugly in the chamber. The barrel dimensions are tight, also. So upon firing the cases fill out and seal the chamber quickly. There's no scraping, rubbing, blow-by, or any of the things that normally make .22's "dirty". The only thing that will foul the barrel is if I shoot cheap, poorly lubed ammo. So I figure the dirtiness of .22's has more to do with action type and how the chamber seals upon firing. If the action type allows, or causes, accumulation of debris, or if the chamber is loose enough to allow blow-by it will shoot dirty. Just compare revolvers and semi-autos to a closed breech tight chamber and it becomes obvious where the problem lies.

Rarely does this dirtiness cause inaccuracy unless it accumulates enough crud in the chamber to affect the accuracy. This is why some shooters can shoot for years without cleaning their guns barrels.

There have always been two camps concerning cleaning or not cleaning barrels. But the tests I've seen done on this, not only with .22's but with all calibers, show that a clean barrel shoots better than a dirty one. That's assuming a good, quality barrel in the first place. Some poor or pitted barrels shoot better after "smoothed" by fouling. If a good barrel is cleaned properly cleaning won't hurt it. Even a properly fitted and properly used bronze brush won't harm a barrel in the least. Soft bronze brushes won't abrade steel. Look at the stats. Almost all top match shooters are fanatical about keeping their barrels clean.

In my own experience, I keep my barrels clean. I've got pistols and rifles that are over 30 years old and have untold thousands of rounds shot through them. They are all still more accurate than you'd believe if I told you about them. They clean easily and shoot great! Almost any solvent will work for .22 rimfires. You'll need a copper solvent (I prefer Barnes) for jacketed bullets. For lead fouling I prefer copper Chore Boy, Shooter's Choice Lead Remover, J-B paste, and Rig Lead-Wipe clothes. Others may have some of their own home-made concoctions that they advocate. I don't doubt their choices. I just don't have the inclination to mix them up or try them. With proper useage of solvents and other cleaning products and a little common sense it's not difficult to keep things working right for a long time. Good luck!

[slughammer]

The standbys are Hoppes #9, spray disc brake cleaner and Breakfree CLP. After a dozen or more patches, I got to thinking about the relative cleanliness of .22 LR ammo. Almost everything I shoot is really dirty, especially after 90 rounds or so ....



Make sure you wipe out the excess oil. Oil is a dirt magnet. Perhaps try a different oil, some just attract more junk.

I have a 22/45 and had the same dirt problems when I was shooting it. IIRC I ended up using a solvent instead of an oil, WD40.... Actually could replace all three of the products you are using now. Try it, then wipe it out.

[Uncle Grinch]

I too have found that Federal seems to shoot better than most "standard brand" ammo. Believe it or not, Winchester Widcats shoot very good also, but throw too many shots and is really dirty.

It makes sense about the blowback being inherently dirtier and about oil attracting the fired debris. Most of the stuff can be washed out with the various spray cleaners. One thing I don't use is WD-40 on my guns. I have heard too many bad stories about the lack of protection it gives.

Since oil tends to attract unburned powder and shavings, what about the various dry lubes. I found a can of spray Rem DriLube today and am considering using it after I wash out all the fouling in my Mk II pistol. It states that it is "excellent for high speed moving parts... and leaves no oily film to attract foreign matter".

This may help stop the accumulation of fouling.