Last week I had to go to Academy for something or other that New Wife wanted me to get… and as any fule kno, this is dangerous for Yer Humble Narrator because Academy has frequent sales of ammo.
And so it came to pass that yea, they had a sale on ammo — specifically on CCI Subsonic 40gr, of which type I had absolutely none on hand in Ye Olde Ammoe Locquere.
So I picked up a few boxes thereof — at 4c per round yippee — but on the road home, a thought occurred to me:
Would the lighter-loaded subsonic ammo have a different point of aim than the Mini-Mag 40gr?
Two hours later found me at the range, duly equipped with Marlin 880SQ, ammo and sandbag to make the test.
Poop: the rifle range was closed for maintenance, so I had to use the 25-yard pistol range. The distance was not really a problem — it’s just an informal comparison test after all — but sadly, the shallow shelf in the pistol bays precluded using a sandbag, so I had to shoot off the bipod, which tends to be less accurate than a big sandbag. Oh well.
I’d recently cleaned the 880, so I popped off a few fouling shots, and then got down to business.
Double poop: since the last time I did a .22 test, my eyes have gone totally shit, ergo:
If I stare through the scope long enough, the two lines eventually resolve into one, but after while, as we all know, the gun starts to shake a little after a prolonged hold. Ugh. This getting old shit really sucks. Anyway, I decided to shoot using the right-hand cross-hairs, but it wasn’t an optimal situation. [le sigh]
Anyway, I observed the usual discipline: no fiddling with the scope between shots or strings, same hold on the target (dead center of the diamond), and so on. So we have the same rifle, same scope settings, same location, same day, same shooter (gawd help us), same bullet weight, same ammo manufacturer.
Here are the first two 5-shot strings with the Mini-Mag 40gr.
(with called flier)
…and here are the two best 5-shot strings with the Subsonic 40gr.
There’s some drop, but not a substantial one methinks. When I fired a full magazine (10-shot) string, however, the group tended well towards the bottom-right quadrant of the target circle.
On the whole, however, the Mini-Mags are consistently more accurate than any other .22 LR ammo I’ve ever fired.
Anyway, I fired off a few more strings of the subsonic, with no appreciable difference, and put the gun down to let the barrel cool and to take a bathroom break.
Comment 1: even with hearing protection, there was a pronounced difference in the sound between the Mini-Mags and the Subsonics — I mean, I’m pretty sure I could have fired the Subs without hearing protection. (I couldn’t test that, of course, because there were other shooters on the line, and they weren’t using subsonic ammo, believe me.) In the open air, though? Hmmm.
Comment 2: I’m not sure why all my shots were pulled to the right, unless I should have used the left-hand crosshairs. Aaargh.
When I came back, I decided that I’d had enough testing, and instead fired off some other .22 ammo I happened to have in the shooting bag — mostly just cheapo plinking stuff. The results were quite interesting:
To be fair, I think the Remington Golden is actually a 36gr bullet (not 40 as noted), so maybe that would explain the different fall of shot.
But the Aguila? I think MOAR TESTING is required…
…but I maintain that the CCI Mini-Mag .22 LR ammo is my go-to feed for my Marlin 880SQ rifle, and pretty much every .22 gun I’ve ever fired. YMMV.
