I almost never read the mass  market gun magazines. 'Rifle" is about the only one any good.  When the March issue featured an article on rimfire Accuracy was skeptical.

Experienced smallbore shooter ran 50 lots of ammo thorough the same Winchester 52 with a Unertil 10x  50 yards. Outdoors though and was not real clear how he accounted for conditions test to test.  I would have preferred indoor machine rest testing, take all the other parts out of the equation.  Important thing is 3 fowlers ,then sighters, then 5x5 shot groups with all results published. The article seems to be accurate and surely informative

Not a lot of surprises, top 20 or so all expensive match ammo with Tenex top of the pile. My favorite Federal 900B no longer available was 6th.  Eley Club Extra that I used when shooting smallbore prone was pretty high on the list  too.  It's not the best ammo but I did have confidence in it at the time which is worth quite a bit score wise.   20 top all under 1 moa both average and all single 5 shot groups.  Rimfires that can shoot 1 moa for long runs are capable of winning any hand held position match.   

Have hardly any 900 B left and need to stock in something new. Federal has gone sour for sure. I have fooled with some new Federal Gold metal target 711B recently and it's junk. His list confirms it, way down.  Think I am going to look at the suppliers see whats available and lay in a supply off this article.   Was going to go Eley only but may broaden my horizon some this time.

Boats

If you plot cost vs performance looks from the chart in Rifle Wolf match extra is the value.  If ultimate performance is what you need Eley is the way to go. Federal used to be pretty good stuff, no more.   This test showed Tenex average of 5 groups @ 50 .204 none larger than .389  That's just 3/4 MOA. Wolf Match Extra same test average .340 none larger than .502 or 1 MOA  At Schetzen distances which are more difficult than the 50 yard test 1 MOA will not clean the target. 3/4 moa will

Reservation is outdoor bench rest, not machine rest, his test may not be absolutely valid. This fellow might have belived in Eley and paid more attention to his shots.  My take is all the good ones from name manufacturers that have won major matches are good and the bad ones are not worth even trying.

I just checked Champions Choice, Eley Tenex is 33 dollars per 100  Wolf match extra 14 dollars per Hundred. My old favorite Black Box Eley is 22 dollars per 100.  

When I shot Smallbore prone for 3 years in Australia Black box Eley is all I used mostly because of limited choices.  Club ran 150 20 shot record matches per year every score logged and top 10 displayed on the chalkboard in our club house.  Schedule was one match Wed night two on Sat. Another 100 practice matches.  I shot about 100 matches each year or 4 bricks of Black Box  Last year there jumped my classification up to the next level by only 7 points.

Schuetzen traveling to matches cost me several hundred dollars and most times 3 or 4 points make a major difference in match standings.   I use 2 or 3 boxes of rimfire, that's all. Extra cost for Tenex is very small in the overall venture. Confidence is a major part of it though and I may just get a few bricks of Black box & pull out the Tenex when it gets serious.  Boost the confidence factor. Other way to go is buy all Wolf.  Best thing for me to do is run one smallbore rifle one brand 2nd the other see how it goes.

Boats

Being the tightwad that I am I have spent a lot of time sourting bulk 22s from walmart when u could get them. I sorted by weight and rim thickness. Dump them out and rebox them.Dosnt seem to matter what i use in the mkll martini. I've had the bulk federal shoot as well as the eley. It and my mk1 ruger auto like the remington target. available and reasonably priced.  I think the lube is the most important factor in the 22 rf.
Tom

I am a 22 RF shooter.  I'm hoping to have a Winder ready to go for our summer prone league.  It will not hang in there with the Anschutz crowd, but I'll have more fun.   

Eley Club Extra is no more, & that is too bad. I have been told that the Eley Club Extra with the red-orange plastic inner box is better than the same brand with the black plastic inner box.  Eley is marketing something called Team that is supposed to be the same stuff.  If your rifle likes it, Wolf Match Extra is very close.  Eley Club is not as good.   

A year or so back, I bought a book called "The Rifleman's Guide to Rimfire Ammunition" by Steven Boelter.  It's a pretty good discussion of what was available in 2005 in Long Rifle, WRM and the 17s, and of high-end bolt rifles & autojammers.  He really dropped the ball on 22 Short, and as some of us have old Schuetzens, Winders, 414s etc in 22 Short, we are left hanging.  I don't think the guy ever heard of a single shot.

waterman

Hope I don't bore you guys  but mid February is not all that far from the shooting season and I need to look at what I am going to use and get topped up with Ammo. It depends on the match and how serious I am about it.

Schuetzen I only shoot perhaps one Rimfire Hudson per year and possibly the ASSRA offhand postal.  I do shoot my CPA with it's rimfire barrel a lot in practice for CF events.  Good strategy would be two grades of Eley.  One for practice, couple of bricks, and  4 boxes or so of Tenex for shoulder to shoulder matches. Same brand assumes same lube and less time for the rifle to settle down after a change.  Looking at the Tenex box alone ought to set some of my friendly competitors back a notch.  It's a mind game in the end. When I shoot the rimfire barrel in a match every point makes a difference.

Smallbore Silhouette has a lot higher round count and I may shoot 20 40 shot matches, more if going to the state match.  I would sure like to knock over 10 rams one time and all the performance I can get is not a bit too much.  Need at least 3 bricks to get though the season 4 would be better. If the Wolf will shoot in my rifle that may be the way to go. Or could go with one of the Eley's all the same grade.

We also shoot a rimfire lever action match, mostly Marlin 39A's   Big pistol silhouette targets. Something cheap, is OK and have a brick of Eley Sport that's doing well. Will stick with it.

You might ask why it's important to use good ammo offhand. Might not be able to hold center however you can see exactly were the shot broke. It's real important to have a hole were you saw it go.

Boats

DWS trouble with 100 or 200 is it's nearly imposable to rule out the conditions.  Charlie Dell used to have underground range going out of his basement shop with a rail gun mounted inside.  He was very careful to rule out variables when testing bullets.  I think it was 100 yards. Somebody who knows please correct me if wrong.

Our club I used to be able to set up targets ODark 30 sit at the bench and break my shots in calm air as soon as the bull was visible.  Now we have a county enforced 9 am rule and have to get mechanical zeros at dusk instead. Not enough time to do anything but get windage zero's and on many days the wind does not go down like it does at dawn. It's a real pain.

Testing as a sport is a fine way to spend time at the range. However I am of the opinion that most testing of ammo is not valid because you can't rule out the non ammo variables given the conditions most of us have available.  Always been a lot of opinion that distance changes performance. Some short range stuff won't shoot long; long range ammo won't shoot short.  Not sure which side I fall on that argument.  My instinct tells me the group size in MOA increases with distance and unless the bullet is not stable for one reason or another does not change as distance increases, purely a question of angle.  I can't confirm it though.

You guys shoot rimfire 250 at Etna Green tell us what you used, save me from trying to find out on my own. As far as I know 250 has never been shot on the ASSRA target rimfire. But could be wrong

Boats

DWS it will happen. I suspect the difficulty in spotting shots at 200 is the primary obstical.

Back to the article again some of the groups fired with all the top match ammo extended to 200 yards would have cleaned the target. Problem is getting 10 shots to stay inside 3/4 MOA  Whole lot harder than 5 shots.

Keep at it.

Boats

The rumor on the smallbore circuit is that the organization that owns Lapua bought both SK and Wolf.  Now all the lower end Lapua (but not Midas, etc) and all the SK and Wolf come out of one factory in Germany.  They just change the cardboard boxes.