CCI .22LR Through my P22

While hanging out at a gun shop a few weeks ago, I was discussing .22LR ammo with the sales staff. There is a saying about gun shop advice, and it has something to do with the merchandise on-hand at the gun shop at the time said advice is offered. Turns out I was being told that CCI Mini-Mag is more accurate than CCI Velocitor, and guess which one they had in stock.  The stated reason was that high velocity .22LR is simply unstable. I had not heard that before. Additionally, the Browning Buckmark is not rated for high velocity .22. Also something I did not know. I don't have a Browning Buckmark, but I know somebody who does and she has used Velocitor in it plenty of times.

A few days after that I found myself plinking away with my Walther P22 and I conducted an informal match-up between the two ammunition types. I expected Mini-Mag to be more accurate (yes, I bought some based on the advice) but found that Velocitor was indeed better in my P22.  I went back to the range today to do a little more formal testing; here are the results.

CCI Velocitor at 3 yards and 7 yards

CCI Mini-Mag at 3 yards and 7 yards

In the pictures above, the smaller targets are 3 round groups taken at 3 yards.  The larger targets are 3 round groups taken at 7 yards. Of course, 7 yards at targets that small are difficult given that the front sight nearly covers the entire target area. That and my P22 is the 3.5" barrel plinker model... not a target gun by any stretch.

Certainly at 3 yards I got better grouping out of the Velocitor but at 7 yards Mini-Mag did better. Of course, the Velocitor kept jamming on me with the last round -- 5 out of the 8 shot strings. That may account for the 7 yard disparity.

The Mini-Mags didn't jam on me once. This puzzled me as it did not happen during warm-up which consisted of 10 round strings with both types. Out of curiosity, I decided to do some rapid fire.

10 rounds rapid fire with CCI Mini-Mag

10 rounds rapid fire with CCI Velocitor

During neither string did I have a jam. This is not something I've really ever practiced, especially with this gun. And I had a bit of time keeping such a small gun from jumping around in my hand. I guess that is one of the benefits of a larger gun... more gun to grip. These were both done at 3 yards, but as you can see the Velocitor string is much more strung out.

Finally, with 7 rounds left of each type, I decided to try another two strings at 3 yards with rapid fire. But this time I squeezed the grip pretty hard for both strings.

7 rounds of CCI Velocitor then 7 rounds of CCI Mini-Mag at 3 yards

The results were much better. Rapid fire of 7 or 10 rounds is an interesting thing to try, especially if your normal drills are two-to-the-heart,one-to-the-head or such... as twice my finger simply stopped moving on the third shot and I had to very consciously continue firing. That just proves that a lot of this is just muscle memory.