.22 Pistols at the Range

As I wrote earlier, Project Appleseed has recently developed a course of instruction for pistol shooting, and we are beginning to conduct pistol clinics around the country. As with the rifle program, most people will probably bring their own pistols to the course. But I want to be prepared to offer loaner pistols to students in the event that they either cannot bring their own pistol, or something goes wrong and they cannot shoot the pistol they brought along.  I recently made a couple of trips to the range to test a variety of .22 Long Rifle (.22LR) caliber pistols with several different types of ammunition, to see how each would function and determine combinations would be most suitable for the purpose.  

A caveat before getting into the details:  These tests were primarily useful for me, as a test of specific pistol/ammunition combinations that I may want to use either for my own purposes or as loaners for Project Appleseed pistol clinics.  .22LR pistols (and especially .22LR conversion units for full-caliber pistols) are notoriously finicky about what kind of ammunition will work well in them. To make things even harder, .22LR rifle ammunition is currently very difficult to obtain, and chances are that people will have to settle for whatever they already have or whatever they can find (if any). Odd lots of older ammunition are currently surfacing in gun stores and on auction sites, either from estates or from people cashing in on the shortage by selling ammunition that they have had for awhile.  Even when they do get new production ammunition in stock, many sporting goods stores are limiting purchase quantities or reserving their ammunition for customers who buy guns from them.  This means that while my results may perhaps serve as a starting point, you would be well-advised to conduct your own range testing before spending a lot of money on .22LR ammunition for use in a pistol.  Nonetheless, I thought it would be useful to make these comparisons using the ammunition that I personally have on hand, which is at least a representative sample of the types of ammunition people may be able to obtain.  

Over two range sessions, I tested eight different pistols with four different kinds of ammunition. All shooting was done off the bench using a Caldwell "The Rock" shooting rest (a recent upgrade from the cheap but functional plastic Midway shooting rest I used for the last 20+ years until it finally broke). The targets were Appleseed drill targets placed seven yards in front of the firing line. These targets are actually designed for zeroing rifles at 25M, but the pistol course is fired at seven yards, and I thought these would be useful as aiming points and to compare the results for the different pistol/ammunition combinations.  

For combat handguns shooting at larger targets at defensive ranges (e.g. seven yards), most people prefer to have their sights regulated so that the point of impact (POI) is the same as the point of aim (POA), and use a center hold for their sight picture. The black squares on the Appleseed drill targets are small enough that I decided to use a six o'clock hold (aligning the top edge of the sights with the bottom edge of the target square) for consistency, as it is much easier to hold a consistent sight picture on a target this way. The POI was generally only about a half-inch above POA at this range, which was perfect for the one-inch black target squares. 

The following four types of ammunition were used in my tests:

The four types of ammunition used in my test.

1. Remington High Velocity (HV) "Golden Bullet", 40 gr. copper washed round nose.  This is high velocity ammunition that was sold by the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) in the late 1990's / early 2000's. It has been available commercially for decades and is a popular plinking and small game hunting round.

2. Remington Standard Velocity (SV), 40 gr. lead round nose.  This is training ammunition produced in 1995, released as surplus by the Army and sold through the CMP in 2012. (Don't feel badly if you missed it - they sold out the entire 5,000 cases in 3 days).  It is representative of the typical run-of-the-mill SV ammunition from Remington, Winchester, etc. 

3. CCI SV, 40 gr. lead round nose.  This CCI "blue box" ammunition is considered by many to be about the most accurate non-match grade .22LR ammunition available.  I only have one brick and had never shot it before this.

4. PMC "Scoremaster", SV 40 gr. lead round nose.  This is target ammunition that I bought in the late 1980s or early 1990s to shoot in pistol matches at my club.  Although it is not match grade, I always found it to be very accurate.  This specific variety is discontinued, but since I still have several thousand rounds of it I wanted to see how it would work in semiautomatic pistols, as I had only ever shot it in one revolver.

The pistols I used were a representative variety of popular .22 pistols:

From top to bottom: Ruger Single-Six, Ruger GP-100, High Standard Supermatic Citation, Ruger Mark II.

1) Ruger Single-Six:  A single-action revolver with 6 1/2"  barrel.  Although it is completely unsuitable for qualifying on the Appleseed Pistol Qualification Target (too slow to shoot and reload), it is a popular, fun plinking pistol and is fine for practicing the various points of pistol marksmanship.  This is the revolver I used to compete with in silhouette target matches using the PMC Scoremaster ammunition.

2) Ruger GP-100: A double-action revolver with 4" barrel.  This is another fun field and plinking pistol, good for practice but still probably too slow to reload within the Appleseed PQT time limits (unless you're Jerry Miculek).

3) High Standard Supermatic Citation:  A highly-regarded target pistol with a 5 1/2" heavy match barrel and adjustable sights.  Probably my most accurate .22 pistol.

4) Ruger Mark II:  A single action pistol with a 5" standard barrel and fixed sights.  This family of pistols (Mark I, II, and III) are among the most commonly-owned .22 pistols.

Top: Colt 1911 with Ciener .22LR conversion unit.
Bottom: GSG 1911-22

5) Colt 1911 Combat Target frame with Ciener Platinum .22LR conversion unit.  This Colt Series 80 1911, produced only in 1997, is sometimes called the "poor man's Gold Cup" (a high end Colt 1911 target pistol in caliber .45 ACP).  The Ciener conversion unit consists of a replacement slide, barrel, and magazines that convert it to shoot .22LR ammunition.  The "Platinum" unit has adjustable sights.

6) German Sport Guns (GSG) 1911-22: This moderately-priced .22LR pistol is a full-size 1911 with standard 1911 controls. I installed aftermarket adjustable sights.  Made of alloy, it is considerably lighter than all-steel 1911's. 

CZ-75 with CZ Kadet .22LR conversion unit.

7) CZ-75 frame with CZ Kadet .22LR conversion unit.  This is a 1983-vintage CZ-75 9mm pistol frame fitted with a CZ Kadet .22LR conversion unit.  In 9mm this is one of my most accurate and shootable pistols, and I often shot it in PPC competition.  I hadn't shot the .22LR conversion unit very much before this test.

Ruger Mark IV .22/45

8) Ruger Mark IV .22/45: This is a brand-new out of the box .22LR pistol with a 5" heavy target barrel and adjustable sights.  The Mark IV series has a much-improved takedown system which greatly simplifies disassembly and maintenance compared with the earlier Mark I, II, and III pistols.  It also has a polymer frame, which surprised me.

So that was the lineup.  I shot the majority of the targets during one range session, with a followup session to zero and re-fire the GP-100 and to zero and test the Ruger Mark IV, which I had not had for the first session.

I debated the best way to organize the tests, and settled on creating a separate set of targets for each type of ammunition, but firing one gun at a time at each target successively.  I shot each gun at the same square (upper left, etc) on each target.  I thought this would minimize the time spent switching between guns, while making it easier to compare the performance of each type of ammunition in the various guns. 

The target setup for Remington HV and Remington SV.  The targets for CCI SV and PMC SV were set up the same way right next to this one.

I recorded the results in my range notebook, including group sizes and function information such as misfires, failures to eject, failures to feed a new round, failure to cycle, etc.  Rather than posting all that detailed data here,  I will simply post photos of the targets with some comments afterwards:  

Remington High Velocity Targets

Remington HV:  All the guns performed reliably with this ammunition.  The only hiccup was the Colt 1911 with the Ciener conversion unit, which had many malfunctions (one misfire and 8 failures to cycle the action) on the first go-around. Because it had not been fired in many years, I gave it another chance by disassembling and re-lubricating it.  It worked fine the second time around.  

Remington Standard Velocity Targets

Remington SV: The ammunition worked well in all the guns except the Colt/Ciener combination.  Although reasonably accurate, the action failed to cycle every time.  The standard velocity ammunition doesn't have enough power to cycle this action.

CCI Standard Velocity Targets

CCI Standard Velocity:  This ammunition also worked well in all the guns except the Colt/Ciener combination, which it consistently failed to cycle completely.

PMC Standard Velocity Targets

PMC Standard Velocity:  This ammunition performed dismally in all the semiautomatic pistols except the Ruger Mark II, in which it worked fine.  It apparently has even less power than the other SV ammunition.  This illustrates the fact that even ammunition that is ostensibly the same may or may not work reliably in a given pistol.  It's best to test it out before buying a large quantity.

Ruger Mark IV Target 

Ruger Mark IV:  I didn't have the Mark IV for the first range session, so I fired it separately with all four types of ammunition.   Discussion is below.  It worked well with all but the PMC ammunition.  It had quite a few failures to cycle with this ammunition during initial zeroing, but after about 30 rounds or so it began to function better.  This might be because it was a brand-new gun just getting broken in.  Once again this illustrates the need to check for reliability with a specific ammunition. 

Ruger GP-100 Target

Ruger GP-100: This revolver needed sighting in at the first session, but I did not have a narrow-bladed screwdriver so I made the adjustments at the second session and fired again.  Discussion below.

One more caveat:  The lenses in my prescription shooting glasses had become "crazed" (delaminated), and so were very difficult to see through (like looking through a shattered windshield).  Except as noted, minor variations in group size may have more to do with my own errors in sight alignment and sight picture than actual differences in the functionality of the pistol/ammunition combinations.

That said, here are my pistol-specific results and observations:

Ruger Mark II:  Although this pistol is an old favorite and functioned reliably, it shoots low at the seven yard range used for the Appleseed PQT.  The fixed sights cannot be adjusted, meaning it would be very difficult to use this pistol to shoot the PQT.  The heel-mounted magazine release could also prove challenging for making magazine changes within the time limit.  The pistol would be fine for practicing marksmanship skills, focusing on group size rather than POI.

High Standard Supermatic Citation:  This pistol was accurate with all types of ammunition, but did not function reliably with the PMC.  Unfortunately this pistol is out of production (mine was made in 1975).  This and similar pistols from the same manufacturer are fairly common on the used-gun market, so it is still a reasonable choice for a target pistol.  Magazine changes are somewhat slow due to the recessed magazine release in the heel of the grip, so it would be challenging to qualify within the Appleseed PQT time limits.

Colt 1911/Ciener Platinum .22LR Conversion:  This gun absolutely requires HV ammunition to function reliably.  The value of a .22LR conversion unit (at least in a "normal" ammunition market where there are choices and reasonable availability) is that it is cheaper to shoot, while using the same exact frame and controls as the full-caliber gun.  This platform would be a good choice for the Appleseed PQT in either .22LR or full caliber.

GSG 1911-22:  This pistol functioned very well with the Remington ammunition, both HV and SV.  Surprisingly, it failed to cycle about half the time with the CCI and never cycled at all with the PMC.  It seemed to group better with the HV, so this is probably the ammunition I would choose to shoot in it.  This pistol would also be a good choice for the Appleseed PQT, with the caveat that the pistol as manufactured comes with fixed sights, so you'd need to see how the POA relates to the POI at seven yards. 

CZ-75 Kadet .22LR Conversion:  This combination worked very well with Remington HV and SV as well as CCI SV, and even worked most of the time with the PMC SV (although it did have 3 failures). The best group was with the HV ammunition, but I think the differences were mainly shooter error, and would be confident using this combination with either HV or SV ammunition.  The adjustable sights can be fine-tuned to the ammunition and the range to the target. 

Ruger Single-Six:  This is a great revolver for plinking, as well as for target competitions where speed of reloading is not a factor. As I said earlier, it is completely unsuitable for an Appleseed pistol clinic if you want to have any hope of qualifying, but is a great platform for practicing basic pistol marksmanship skills.  It was most accurate with the Remington and PMC SV ammunition.  

Ruger Mark IV .22/45:  This pistol, like the Mark II, was very reliable after the first few break-in rounds (even with the PMC ammunition). Being brand new, it had a fairly stiff trigger, which I believe should become less stiff with use.  I suspect the stiff trigger affected my ability to shoot as consistently as the gun is capable of shooting. In this session it showed the best accuracy with HV ammunition, but the brand-new barrel still needs breaking in and this may change. I'd be equally confident with either HV or SV ammunition.  Because the Mark IV .22/45 has the magazine release located behind the trigger guard (instead of the heel of the grip like its predecessors), magazine changes can be quick enough for this pistol to be used to qualify in the Appleseed PQT.  

Ruger GP-100:  While this is a fun field and plinking revolver, it is not really suitable for precision target shooting because of the sights.  The front sight has a fiber optic insert that creates a highly visible green dot. This is great for plinking and for hunting in low light, but makes precision sight alignment on a target more challenging. The effect of this can be observed in the vertical stringing in all my groups, even after I managed to get the sights properly zeroed for seven yards.  Perhaps I would do better with proper prescription shooting glasses.  The single-action trigger letoff is crisp, and it would be faster to reload than the Single-Six, but would still not be a recommended choice for an Appleseed pistol clinic, except as a platform to practice marksmanship skills.

Mood:  Happy

Music:  Silence