I shot a full bulk box with my son mostly fed through a Taurus Pump 22 and a Winchester model 290 with no malfunctions or FTF either. I have found it to be very decent ammo through the years.

 

Between me and two friends over the past few years we've shot several thousand rounds of the bulk Remington Golden Bullets bought through Wal-Mart. It was all the local Wal-Mart had in bulk. We would have the occasional misfire and a weak round now and then, but it was never more that two or three issues with any 500+ round box and some boxes had no issues at all. We had great service from these rounds and they were 1" @ 100-yds accurate with scoped rifles, nothing like the horror stories I've been reading. They were no dirtier than any of the other bulk 22lr I've had the chance to shoot lately. Although the CCI Blazer seem to be the cleanest I've shot so far.

The rifles being used were a Model 60, Ruger 10/22 and a Mossberg 702 Plinkster.

 

Always heard how dirty they are. Neighbor brought his 22-45 for me to clean.
He had it a few years and never cleaned it. Took it apart. looked down the barrel
and it was clean. Not a lot of build up in the rest of it. Think it's as clean as most
22 ammo.

 

I've always had great luck with it. My 10-22 functions reliably with them, whereas it jams often with Federals and I get quite a few ftf with Winchester 333's.

 

I get no jams with Federals in my 10-22's, or any other .22's, nor do I ever get any FTF's with Winchester 333's. I really like the Winchesters because they're so very accurate. I love Federal Auto Match for the same reason.

 

I remember the golden bullets. Used them about 3 years ago. They worked very well in my marlin 60 as does most federal bulk ammo.

 

I bought a box as an alternative to Federal value pack. Opened the box this weekend and fired 30 rounds thru my Marlin 81TS. Experienced my first failure to fire, three weak rounds and one bugger that I could not get to extract. Probably a little worse than Federal since I've never had a failure to fire or a stuck case with it after many 100s of rounds. I have experienced weak rounds with Federal though.

 

I have had crud, dirt, and deposit problems with the Remington ammo, especially the golden bullets througout the years, and I have been hunting and shooting the 22 rimfire since 1954.

The swedge system they use to make the bullets leave a lot to be desired. right where the ogive meets the full diameter of the bullet, there is small ring of lead flakes, chips, and lube goo. The bullets are usually very loose fitted into the cases.

In semiautos, they gum up the actions and lead foul the barrels faster and to a greater extent than any rimfire round I have ever used. Their flat nose on the hollow points has been the most problamatic feeding, failure to feed, even in a couple bolt actions of any round I have ever used.

I cannot remember any failure to fire problems with them, once you actually got them into the chamber. I never found them to be inaccurate, but, no where near the accuracy of the CCI MiniMags.

The powder and primer combo they use is just so dirty and the swedging process leaves so much debris and goo to foul things up, quickly.

 

I think it's a combination of the gun and the ammo. My 60 doesn't like the Rem GB ammo very much at all, but eats the Fed bulk ammo like candy. On the other hand, my Firestorm 22 pistol can't get two consecutive rounds of any Fed ammo to feed reliably, but will shoot the Rem GB all day long, except for the occasional dud. ???

 

I don't shoot rem golden bullets since this happened.

I had a fail to fire a few rounds before this. Checked gun and all seemed to be ok, Switched over to some other rounds and all went off and no powder on the hand or face with them. I just chucked the 20 or so left in the box into the trash at the range.

I have no idea how old the ammo was. I am a horder and get stuff at flea markets and garage sales also. I am now shooting the Winchester X-perts in the 39a. The case seperation happened in my stevens model 15 trapping rifle while sighting it in for up close and personal work on the future trap line this winter. The rifle and I am OK and it shot another 10 rounds of X-perts without and problems. Just weird as I have never had a 22 round come apart before in the last say 30 years or better.

 

Bullets are always on my mind when it comes to my Marlin 39A. I have had several issues from FTF and a few FTE's. As I've shot more through it and stoned down the bottom lobe of the firing pin (not the nipple part of the actual striking end) it seems to get better and better. I have shot alot of different ammo through it and have found hands down, that the Federal Champion AM22 or the bulk packaged AutoMatch bullets are the best, smoothest, accurate, clean, no FTF's, etc. The gold Remingtons were awful,bad feed, FTF. Some of the cheap CCI wouldn't fire at all. The Winchester bulk (375rds.) would feed and eject very roughly and chew bits of lead, the Federal bulk (350 rds) was rough. With all of these I had average 3-5 FTF's in 20.
In all fairness the rifle is relatively new. I have shot about 500-600 rounds through it and have worked on smoothing the action, which was extremely rough in the beginning and as mentioned before,I made the firing pin strike a bit deeper into the shell, so it has improved over time. I'm hoping eventually that it will fire all brands. My 39 Century seems to be less finicky, but alot of the previously mentioned ammo does not run through it very well either.
So while I was on vacation in New Mexico last week I stopped in several Wal-Marts and stocked up on the AutoMatch as my wife and I were doing a fair amount of shooting in the Nat. Forest out there. I brought 12 bulk boxes back home to California, so I'm good to go. I have a hard time finding this ammo here. I am going to check out the CCI mini mags since I've read they seem to shoot well and they seem to be more readily available. Adios

 

You get what you pay for. It's that simple.
I sure don't want to go plinking with a $70 brick of Velocitors.
There are 3 kinds of ammo I shoot through my 39A, almost exclusively.

Plinking = Winchester Super X 40 gr solid (in the red plastic box)
Small game = CCI standard velocity mini mags 40 gr solid
Varmints = CCI Velocitor or Aguila Interceptor (both 40 gr solids)

I sight in dead on at 25 yards with the mini mags. All of the ammo I shoot is then MOSH (Minute Of Squirrel Head) out to 75 yards.

ALL of the bulk packaged ammo has had FTF's or reduced load ammo in them. The worst has been Rem GB's. Fed Automatch has been OK, but lacks good accuracy (even after batch sorting by rim thickness).
The only bulk ammo I have had the fewest problems with has been the Winchester Xpert 37 gr HP and the Winchester Wildcats.

I have narrowed it down to: CCI, Aguila and Winchester (in that order). They shoot the best in all of my houses rimfires: Marlin 39A, Marlin 7000T, Walther P22, North American Arms Black Widow (22LR cylinder) and my sons Magtech.

For some reason these 3 have the best quality control at their factories.

 

When it works, the remington GB shoots well.

Funny thing on the Federal automatch. The Federal bulk is more accurate in my rifles than the automatch (Marlin 60, 795 and Henry Frontier)- go figure.

Had about a 1/20 FTF from golden bullets in my Henry Frontier. No FTF when using Federal or Winchester bulk. Using up the GB box in the Frontier and keeping it away from the semi-autos.

 

Most bulk cartridges are 2nds. When the dies start to wear out (something that happens frequently during production) they back track a boot full of rounds and package them as bulk ammo. I tested all the bulk ammo I could find,l1500 rounds each, and Remington was the worst for FTF. Winchester X-Pert was the worst for fouling and accuracy. Remington had an 8-12% FTF rate in 12 different rifles and handguns. It is junk.

My top ammo is Aguila SE 40 grain High Velocity. When I got my new computerized chrono last summer I tested it by matching the Aguila High Velocity against the local favorite: Wolf Match. The Aguila kicked it's tail in Standard Deviation and extreme spread. I wasn't that surprised....~Andrew

 

The Remington Golden Bullet 525 pack I just went through had great variability in recoil and loudness in a semi-auto pistol, and 2 or 3 hard extractions every 10 rounds in a M39A. Very inconsistent mechanically. The interesting thing is that it remained fairly accurate on target. I get about 1275 average fps with a standard deviation of 22 fps, which is about average for "high velocity" ammo.

 

It is amazing the variation experienced by everybody here, I wonder what is going on. Perhaps the 39A is just super finiky and varies alot in it's ability to shoot a variety. As stated before, my 39 Century shoots a wider range of ammo so I guess only time will tell with my 39A (it's newer)

 

I maxed the BDT years ago with the Golden's.. I have noticed that in the last two years they have changed some and not the same as before..

I switched to CCI and Winchester when I wan't accuracy.. Winny 36gr HP's seem to shoot most accurate out of all my 22's.. with the CCI's next ..

 

What's going on is that most 22's are finicky about the ammo they like. Any match shooter will tell that you have to fire a lot of different rounds to find out what any rifle likes. The federal bulk packs are my go to 22 plinking ammo, seem to function well, and reasonably accurate in anything I've tried them in. The Wolf match is surprisingly good for the price, Federal Gold Medal match works very well in my Anschutz Match rifle. IF you want to try something Really good and not too pricy as match ammo goes, Try the S-K Standard Plus, this is real quality match ammo. My Anschutz will put every round through one hole at 50 ft, and I don't mean one ragged hole either, one 22 caliber hole. I sold a match rifle to a fella a while ago and he wanted to shoot it first, so we go to the range and set up a rest on the 50 ft indoor range. I give him the rifle and a five round mag of the Plus. He shoots three rounds and looks at me funny, so I ask whats wrong. He says I fired three rounds but there's only one hole in the target. I said, lets walk down and look. We look at the target and you can just barely see that there are three bullets in the same hole. He was amazed, he had never shot a really accurate 22 rifle before. I told him it would do the same thing at fifty yds if he could hold it that tight, he bought it right there.You can learn a lot about how good a marksman YOU are with a really good 22 rifle.

 

Back in the early 90’s I use to have the best accuracy out of my 5.5” buck mark target pistol with 22lr Golden bullets. I sighted in my same pistol with a new red dot last summer using a few boxes of a newer run golden bullet and my groups were horrible. The Winchester HP 333’s grouped all in the same hole at 25 yards. My cz452 ultralux hates the Golden bullets as well and also loves the Winchester HP 333’s, cci 1640fps quik shok and stingers.

 

I love the golden bullets. They shoot superbly out of my model 581.