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Ammo Matters, Noobs Only, Old-Timers Cover Thy Ears

Posted: Mon Jul 01, 2013 7:01 am
by drjoker
OK,

I've been trying forever to sell my 22lr AK47. It is a crap gun made in the Phillipines with a user manual written by speakers of pidgin English. It is crap becaause I cannot understand the user manual so I cannot take it apart for cleaning. Also, it jams every other shot... or so I thought.

Anyways, once upon a time, I purchased a lifetime supply of 22lr ammo, or so I thought. I used to shoot infrequently. However, recently, I joined a gun club so now I shoot frequently. So, that lifetime supply of Remington Golden Bullets is now out. So, I bought some CCI mini mag, Federal Auto Match, and Federal bulk .22lr ammo.

That AK47 used to jam with every other shot on Remington Golden Bullets. However, now, it never jams with Federal Auto Match, CCI mini mag, and Federal bulk.

The Remington Golden Bullets work fine in other semi autos, though. I have a .22lr Glock 19 and a Ruger 10/22 that it shoots fine out of without any jams.

I am still trying to take it apart for cleaning, though.

Re: Ammo Matters, Noobs Only, Old-Timers Cover Thy Ears

Posted: Mon Jul 01, 2013 7:16 am
by ChillMickelson
Not sure what the question is, but:

1) not all ammo (regardless of quality) is liked by all guns.
2) try looking on YouTube for a video on breaking down your rifle. That's where I go for instructions when the paper ones are subpar.

Hope that helps and good luck!

Re: Ammo Matters, Noobs Only, Old-Timers Cover Thy Ears

Posted: Mon Jul 01, 2013 8:29 am
by Cedar Park Dad
.22s are also especially finicky on their ammo, both for reliability and accuracy. Even pistols/rifles known for eating all types of ammo will have definite preferences for accuracy.

I had a ruger pistol that shot golden bullets like a laser and never jammed but would jam up with thunderbolts, whereas the other ruger pistol liked the really bad Thunderbolts and would jam with the golden bullets. Weird.

Re: Ammo Matters, Noobs Only, Old-Timers Cover Thy Ears

Posted: Mon Jul 01, 2013 9:26 am
by jimlongley
Cedar Park Dad wrote:.22s are also especially finicky on their ammo, both for reliability and accuracy. Even pistols/rifles known for eating all types of ammo will have definite preferences for accuracy.

I had a ruger pistol that shot golden bullets like a laser and never jammed but would jam up with thunderbolts, whereas the other ruger pistol liked the really bad Thunderbolts and would jam with the golden bullets. Weird.
I used to shoot in competition with a Wincheter Model 52D target rifle. For day to day practice I shot plain jane subsonic Winchester T22 ammo, bought by the brick, and adequate for club and league matches. For serious matches I switched to Eley Tenex and achieved admirable results, at least for me, placing highly and consistently in national postal matches (I won a Pewter medal once) and regional league matches, but Eley was out of my price range for regular practice, if not out of my skill level, so T22 was the fodder I fed my gun most of the time.

One weekend I got to the range for the usual club match and found that I had missed the announcement that we were going to be competing in a team postal, and all I had was box ofter box of T22 in my range bag, I had run dry on Eley and not bothered to resupply. A friend offered me a loan of some of his Eley ammo, but not Tenex, Eley Match, which he used in his Remington and consistently won matches with.

My rifle, which was perfectly happy with Eley Tenex did not like Eley Match at all, and my results in the first stage were so poor that I switched back to T22 and was consistently better in the later stages. I did not place well individually and only the superior scores of my team mates allowed us to place well as a team.

My Ruger 10-22 cheerfully chews through just about anything I put through it, but does not like the ultra velocity stuff.

Re: Ammo Matters, Noobs Only, Old-Timers Cover Thy Ears

Posted: Mon Jul 01, 2013 11:57 am
by drjoker
Thank you and nice try, Andy, but no dice. My gun is not the nice german one in the video, but the
Armscor AK-22 made in the phillipines, yes, the phillippeines. I should've just bought a s&w 15-22 instead, but, no, I wanted to be "cool" and be the only one at the dpc matches with a ak instead of an ar. Dumb me.

I've already bought the mags and I'll probably have the m&p 15-22 sometime next month. I'm giving up on this ak-22. I saw a guy at a gun show trying to sell the exact same gun. I asked him how he cleaned it and he said it is impossible to field strip for cleaning. He just cleans the bore with a snake. He said that he figures he'll sell it before the bolt needed cleaning. Ugh. I'm not the only one with this problem.
AndyC wrote:[youtube][/youtube]

Re: Ammo Matters, Noobs Only, Old-Timers Cover Thy Ears

Posted: Mon Jul 01, 2013 12:26 pm
by drjoker
Found a video. It was posted after my purchase so I didn't know it existed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EfDMrNSlGw

The poster of the video agrees. The gun sucks.

Re: Ammo Matters, Noobs Only, Old-Timers Cover Thy Ears

Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 7:45 pm
by MeMelYup
Try this page. http://stevespages.com/pdf/armscor_mak22.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Re: Ammo Matters, Noobs Only, Old-Timers Cover Thy Ears

Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 9:48 pm
by Jumping Frog
I've always found Remington Golden Bullets to be absolute garbage. They've got a horrible online reputation as well.

Re: Ammo Matters, Noobs Only, Old-Timers Cover Thy Ears

Posted: Thu Jul 04, 2013 11:39 pm
by puma guy
Serious .22 ( or any caliber really) shooters like jimlongley know you have to find the "sweet" ammo for any particular rifle or pistol. If you're interested in .22's read C. Rodney James' "Gun Digest Book of the .22 Rifle" He has lots of comparisons and examples of that phenomenon. Lots of interesting info about rimfires and field tests.

Re: Ammo Matters, Noobs Only, Old-Timers Cover Thy Ears

Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 9:26 pm
by SigM4
Jumping Frog wrote:I've always found Remington Golden Bullets to be absolute garbage. They've got a horrible online reputation as well.
This. I've never bought them of my own free will, but have been given a few boxes over the years. The only gun I have that will reliably shoot them (out of 5 .22s) is an old single shot Winchester 67a.

Re: Ammo Matters, Noobs Only, Old-Timers Cover Thy Ears

Posted: Sat Jul 06, 2013 9:50 pm
by C-dub
We're shooting those Remington Golden Bullets in our Colt 1911-22 and M&P15-22 and only have a problem about every 100-200 rounds. Even then all we do is clear it manually and go on. We did have fewer problems with the Winchester M22 stuff, but the Remington GBs haven't been a nuisance.

Re: Ammo Matters, Noobs Only, Old-Timers Cover Thy Ears

Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 3:09 pm
by SigM4
C-dub wrote:We're shooting those Remington Golden Bullets in our Colt 1911-22 and M&P15-22 and only have a problem about every 100-200 rounds. Even then all we do is clear it manually and go on. We did have fewer problems with the Winchester M22 stuff, but the Remington GBs haven't been a nuisance.
Was this recently, or a while back? I've heard that the GB is "new and improved", but have yet to see/shoot it. Maybe they've made a turn for the better.

Re: Ammo Matters, Noobs Only, Old-Timers Cover Thy Ears

Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 3:41 pm
by puma guy
SigM4 wrote:
C-dub wrote:We're shooting those Remington Golden Bullets in our Colt 1911-22 and M&P15-22 and only have a problem about every 100-200 rounds. Even then all we do is clear it manually and go on. We did have fewer problems with the Winchester M22 stuff, but the Remington GBs haven't been a nuisance.
Was this recently, or a while back? I've heard that the GB is "new and improved", but have yet to see/shoot it. Maybe they've made a turn for the better.
I have Remington "golden bullet" ammo that's 50 years old and have never had any problems. I don't know how long prior to that the "golden bullet" has been around but I bet a long time. It's just bronze powder in the wax lubricant. Other manufacturers use copper. Some of my old "golden bullet" ammo got submerged during tropical storm Allison and it still shoots fine. This is ammo left over from what I sold in my job in the 1960's and we sold hundreds of thousand of rounds. Never had any complaints. That's not to say Remington hasn't changed it (powder type, priming, crimp pressure, etc) but much of the time problems with ammo are related to a particular gun not liking it or perhaps magazine issues; a semi auto weapon may prefer higher or lower velocity ammo. My daughter was having problems with some Remington standard velocity ammo I got from the CMP in her Buckmark Camper. She usually shoots CCI Mini-mags. I had her change the magazine and when that didn't work I sprayed some lubricant into the gun and mags. We took both of our Campers out last week with this same ammo (400 rounds) without a single problem.

Re: Ammo Matters, Noobs Only, Old-Timers Cover Thy Ears

Posted: Sun Jul 07, 2013 4:24 pm
by XGC Radioactive
slightly different from the 22s, but I bought a Citadel 1911 off a guy for $100 bucks. He said it was a that it jammed constantly.

I broke it down, gave it a good scrub and lubbed it up. from what I've found, It's very particular about the ammo types, rather than brands. Didn't like anything that was soft or hollow point. Only ate FMJs. but who cares? It's a great "plinking" gun out on the farm.