Review of Winchester’s M-22 Rimfire .22LR Ammunition

As I’ve talked about in the past here on ThruMyLens, I consider the useage of .22LR rimfire weapons as a critical part of my training.  I have two firearms (the M&P 22 and the M&P15-22) which I’ve gone to some expense and effort to set up as closely as possible to their centerfire counterparts which I also own.  Shooting .22LR means I can shoot more for the money, so I’m always on the lookout for reliable, inexpensive .22LR ammunition.

In 2011, Winchester released their M-22 Rimfire .22LR – a new competitor to the “tactical rifle” segment of ammunition designed to meet the needs of semi-automatic tactical rimfire rifles:

• Velocity: 1255 fps
• Grains: 40
• Bullet Type: Plated Lead Round Nose

I first learned of M-22 ammunition while looking for some CCI’s .22 Long Rifle Tactical Ammunition while attending a local gun show.  Not only has CCI’s .22LR Tactical Ammunition proved to be quite accurate in my M&P 15-22, it’s proved to be quite reliable in my somewhat ammo picky M&P 22 pistol.  I usually find it for about $25.00 per box of 375 rounds – about 7 cents a round.  Shooting my 9mm can cost me about 22 cents per round, so it’s quite a bargain by comparison.  But the good old .22LR Federal Value Pack of ammo can cost as little as 3 cents a round – more than twice as expensive as the CCI ammo.

My problem is that while Federal Value Pack .22LR ammo shoots quite reliably and reasonably accurately through my M&P 15-22 rifle, it does not shoot reliably through my M&P 22 pistol.  So I generally end up buying the CCI .22LR Tactical Ammunition more than anything else.

When I cam across Winchester’s competing product, I was initially hesitant to purchase it – it’s only sold in 1000 round bricks (which actually contain two separate boxes of 500 rounds each) for about $50.00.  1000 rounds is a lot to commit to when you’re not certain if the ammo will reliably function in your equipment.  But I risked the $50.00 because A)if worked in both my .22LR firearms, I can save almost 30% on Winchester’s M-22 ammo versus CCI’s Tactical Ammunition and B)even if it didn’t fire reliably in my picky M&P 22 pistol, I was reasonably certain it would shoot out of my M&P 15-22 rifle.

I took one of the 500 round boxes out to my local range the following weekend and began loading up and shooting my M&P 22 pistol:

I’m sure I fired a couple of hundred rounds out of my M&P 22 and was extremely impressed.  No failures of any kind to report, no matter how fast I fired the gun.  I was also impressed when it came time to clean my gun – Federal bulk .22LR ammo is pretty nasty, dirty stuff but the Winchester M-22 was noticeably cleaner.

Next it was time to load up some magazines with my M&P 12-22:

As expected, it fired flawlessly through my M&P 15-22 and grouped quite nicely at 50 yards.

Comparing Winchester’s M-22 ammo to CCI’s .22LR Tactical Ammunition, I see little in any difference in performance which is a good thing.  Both are very accurate, reliable, and seem to run more cleanly than other cheaper ammo.  Given the price difference, I’ll definitely be picking up more M-22 ammo, though it does seem to be harder to find for me locally.