Mini-mag
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Wow, haven't been around rimfires long? CCI has been producing "Minimag" (.22 LR hollowpoint, 38 grain high velocity) ammo since I was a kid. The magnum ammo is known as "Maximag". It's just a trademark for CCI. They also produce the 33 grain hypervelocity "Stinger" which has been around at least since the early 70s. Every discount store and sporting goods and any general store that sells .22 ammo carries the stuff.
Maximag comes in solid or hollowpoint. I like the solid for small game, doesn't tear 'em up so bad. .22 solids are my choice for squirrel hunting, too, due to the fact that a squirrel don't take much killin'. Actually, unless I'm hunting tall pines, I'll often hunt squirrel with CCI CB shorts, silent and deadly out to 25 or 30 yards.
CCI stuff is well primed, always goes bang in picky guns in my experience. It costs a little more than the bulk pack, but it's more reliable ammunition. There are more accurate loads, but not many more accurate HV loads. Of course, all .22s have preferences. The hypervelocity stinger us usually not quite as accurate due to the light bullet at the high velocities, but my 10/22 likes the stuff. So, you just have to try out different loads before settling on what works for your gun. But, overall, minimag works at least well enough in about everything I have. I keep it around.
Maximag comes in solid or hollowpoint. I like the solid for small game, doesn't tear 'em up so bad. .22 solids are my choice for squirrel hunting, too, due to the fact that a squirrel don't take much killin'. Actually, unless I'm hunting tall pines, I'll often hunt squirrel with CCI CB shorts, silent and deadly out to 25 or 30 yards.
CCI stuff is well primed, always goes bang in picky guns in my experience. It costs a little more than the bulk pack, but it's more reliable ammunition. There are more accurate loads, but not many more accurate HV loads. Of course, all .22s have preferences. The hypervelocity stinger us usually not quite as accurate due to the light bullet at the high velocities, but my 10/22 likes the stuff. So, you just have to try out different loads before settling on what works for your gun. But, overall, minimag works at least well enough in about everything I have. I keep it around.
Up until this month, I had not bought but one box of 50 22LR, and I bought what the store had up front. When I bought the new single action revolver with both calibers, I bought two boxes of MaxiMag, and two boxes of MiniMag. Then to top it off when I bought a 1000 rounds of 9 mm, I added 500 of the Thunderbolt 22LR to plink with. I even cleaned up my old JC Higgins semi auto tube fed 22, which has been in the closet for most of the last 40 years, and found my 44 year old 22 Derrringer to play with too.
Thanks for the rundown. I've shot .22 since the early 50's, but I had never heard of mini-mag before. (The guy at Walmart said they were magnums. Apparently he hadn't run into them either.) I'm not certain I had seen CCI until recently. The small towns I grew up in had Peters, Remington, Federal and Winchester from shorts through LR.NativeTexan said:
JimL
Depends on where your from I've bought ammo in several towns in a lot of states and I think the local mom and pop shops carry the brand that costs the least in shipping. If you got a an ace or hardware hank that you think is a chain store most times it's a franchise and the corporates don't really care what brand of bullet you have as long as the cashflow is steady.
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I've always found CCI minimags to shoot cleaner and have more pop for semiauto rifles. This helps prevent misfires and misfeeds. I don't use them in .22 revolvers as a general rule.
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