Bad Luck with Remington Golden Bullets

[Scotty]

I purchased some Remington Golden Bullets from Walmart at a good price: $14 for a 550 round box. These are .22 LR high velocity hollow points. Took a couple of hundred to the range and I had failure-to-feeds about every 3 or 4 rounds in my old Ruger Standard pistol. They strip from the magazine OK but get stuck crossways before they enter the bore. This gun has always fed any kind of ammo I put in it without fail. Afterward, I shot 100 rounds of 25 year old standard velocity Federal ammo without a failure.

Just my experience with these. Think twice before buying some to use in any semi-auto. I'll save the ones I have left for my old bolt action rifle.

Wayne: Have you ever considered adding a .22 rimfire forum?

[Moe]

My experience was the same. They are JUNK! I did buy some Remington target .22 in the 100rd. plastic container that did quite well in my BIL's .22 S&W revolver.

The other .22 ammo that is overpriced and not very good for accuracy is the CCI mini-mags. My Kimber .22 conversion kit instructions recommended these so I bought a brick. There was no failure to fire or feed but the accuracy was terrible. The standard 40gr sub-sonic Remington stuff worked great and the RWS-R50 subsonic pistol ammo was the best for accuracy. The RWS stuff is all I shoot in my HS and S&W 41.

A rimfire forum would be great!

[Scotty]

It's hard to believe a reputable company would put their name on this kind of stuff. I understand that they have to make ammo work in a lot of different guns. But still...will not work in a Ruger?

I've put at least 15k rounds through this gun over the years--every kind of ammo under the sun. Never seen anything like this.

[wwillson]

I ran a bunch of this cheap Remington ammo through my Ruger MKII and ended up with my barrel leaded so bad that it took an hour to get it all out - never again. Up to that point I had never even heard of leading in a 22LR.

Wayne

[wwillson]

I will add a rimfire forum sometime tomorrow - thanks for the suggestion.

Wayne

[Moe]

If you think that the ammo is bad, look-up the recall on the Remington Model 597 rifles and ammo. This is a disgrace!

I am not a Lawyer, but I would guess that someone will challenge this buy-back program in court. IMHO, Remington really dropped the ball on this one.

I was a big Remington fan, but now......

[wwillson]

I read the recall notice on Remington's website, but it doesn't say what the actual problem is? Any idea?

Wayne

[Moe]

It's the design of the blow back action on the rifle. It's not strong enough for the SAAMI pressure from ANY of the .17 HMR ammo, no matter who manufactured it.

The real bad part is that many people bought these rifles and paid more than double what Remington is offering on their buy back program. And then, it's only a credit for another Remington product. The return of Remington ammo gets you $10. The Remington .17 HMR ammo is O.K. in bolt guns, but not the Remington 597 autoloaders. Sounds like the rifle is at fault to me, not the ammo. I think the ammo buy back is a CYA thing.

[wwillson]

That's really pathetic on Remington's part - what a shame.

[Scotty]

Sounds like Remington has some serious issues. Hate to see a once respected name go bad.

[RLH70]

I've had nothing but trouble with Remington 22LR ammo for several years now, I always try to give them the benefit of the doubt and buy some more, but I always have the same result. I guess I will stick with Winchester.

[Arkie_Lefty]

Of the cheap bulk, my favorite's allways been the Federal 550 packs. Buy it all though, sooner or later I'll buy a gun that likes it!

Bob

[steves]

WELL!!! after reading this post I looked at my stash and I had 2 550 round boxes I went to the range and tried them ,yes they suck . Lots of stove pipes in the 10/22 and some miss fires . When I have a 22 misfire I try the round again in a different position to see if there is priming in another area of the rim all the rounds fired after rechambering. The goldens aren't very good.

[JSharp]

I'd avoid buying .22 ammo right now unless you really need it.

I don't think the Remington .22's are the only bad .22 ammo available right now. Production is so high thanks to current demand that the quality is down on almost all of it.

I was at a local gun club meeting in November and a guy had a formerly very nice Winchester Model 63 that had a case head separation with Federal ammo. The case head was gone, the case was still stuck in the chamber, the extractor was blown completely off, the stock had a crack, and he had a cut on his face. He was waiting a day or so more before calling Federal.

One of the local gun shops has been sort of a clearing house for this info and has spoken to a number of manufacturers about the recent problems. Of course no one seems to want to take any blame, but one did offer a "theory" on what might might be happening -

A partially plugged nozzle on the priming machinery that ultimately clears itself. This reduces the priming compound in a number of cases followed by a huge overcharge in one case when the clog finally clears.

What you end up with after they're loaded is a few dud or under pressure rounds followed by one that gives massive overpressure thanks to excessive priming compound.

As far as all brands being a problem, the only brand the local shop hadn't seen any problems with was CCI. In his experience, everything else has issues right now.

Just FYI and YMMV etc...

[Scotty]

I recently bought bulk packs of Winchester and Federal but haven't had a chance to use any yet. It will be interesting to see if results are similar to the Remington stuff.

[Scotty]

Shot 100 rounds each of both the Federal and the Winchester bulk pack stuff through the Ruger yesterday. No failures whatsoever. Verdict: The Remingtons pretty much stink.

[steves]

I went through the second 500 round box there was 1 fail to fire and I rotated the cartridge 180* to get a different hit in the primer and it shot. This batch was much better in all ways than the first box of 500.

[Bill_in_Utah]

I've shot quite a few bricks of Remington "golden" bullets and they have the most duds of any other brand brink to date. They used to be good but since 2008 they have gone downhill.

Federal seems to be the best as far as firing. They have gone from a few duds per brink to about 10-15. Winchester a few more in their 555 brinks. Remington a easy 50-60 per brick. And it does not matter to Remington if the weapon is a auto-loader or bolt/revolver.

Accuracy wise, I'd give it to Winchester in my Marlin or Savage bolt actions.

Take care, Bill

[xtell]

I like the CCI- Standard Velocity and Federal 510. When I shoot in a CMP Rimfire Sporter match, I go with Wolf MT. The Wolf ammo is just a tad more accurate than the CCI-SV ammo out of my CZ 452 but both shoot to same point of impact so no sight adjustment is needed when switching between the two.