New Buckmark, what should I feed it for grouse?!

[syoungs]

My wife bought me a new you for our 1 year anniversary, a Browning Buckmark, with a 7.5" fluted bull barrel. I'm absolutely in love with it!

Took it out shooting yesterday, worked flawlessly with federal automatch bulk ammo, as expected. It's all my wife runs through her buckmark for steel challenge and plinking. The accuracy using this ammo was decent, always been more then accurate enough for plinking steel plates, but I'm. Thinking with other ammo, I'll truly unlock the potential of this setup.

I haven't spent much time paying attention to 22lr ammo, short of buying it when I see it. Can anyone give me some recommendations of what I should try for grouse hunting? It seems I've read use standard velocity ammo and it passes more energy into a bird, compared to the high velocity stuff.

Was almost thinking I'd go buy a 50round box of 5-10 different brands and see what it likes, but if I could borrow that to 3-4 boxes it'd be a whole lot easier!

[firepin]

I have a Hunter and use CCI mini mags. Having a few thousand rounds I have not shot anything else.  I put a 2x scope on it and at 20-30 yards can cover 10 rounds with a quarter. Got it for grouse, should be good.

[thinkingman]

On a 7.5" barrel, I don't think ammo is going to change POI. Fed Automatch is pretty good for bulk loosepack and if it runs, use it.

[yorketransport]

Congrats on the new gun!

I have a Ruger Mk III Hunter and it will function with any ammo, but groups vary dramatically! I have the best luck with Federal 38gr HPs for all round shooting and hunting. CCI Mini Mags are my favorite for varmints like possums and porcupines. They tear up the rabbits and grouse a bit more than I like.

[Bofire]

  nice .22, that said .22 s can be finiky, try a few brands of quality ammo, HP or solids, besides its fun to try them out. take a rest of some kind.
Carl

[runamuk]

My markIII does not like round nose anything, will stovepipe and jam.  It loves those old federal blue box copper hat were 500+ rounds for likec16.00.  Too bad I can't ever find it now.   It also likes the CCI stuff.  But anything cheap shoots like garbage.  Buy small quantities of a bunch of stuff and compare.  My pistol also hates being clean, shoots,way better after 6-12 magazines after a cleaning.

[syoungs]

So any standard velocity round or hp bullet will work fine for grouse right? Doesn't seem like it's take much more then standard stuff.

I have a few boxes of Remington yellow jacket, and some cci stingers, I'm hoping it'll shoot those good for varmint plinking!

Thanks for the help so far, I think I'll go grab some 50 round packs of various stuff and just go play till I either find one substantially better, o un out of ammo! The automatch stuff we pretty much always have on hand, I think I'm at around 3500 rounds right now, so no problems with filling the bill there.

[outdoorsdad]

I'm a rimfire fanatic and can honestly tell you that you can have three identical brand new guns and all three of them will have a different "best" ammo preference.  Not meaning to be sarcastic, but on rimfires it really doesn't matter what works best in someone else's gun, it's what works best in your gun.  That being said, your idea of buying a box of several brands and types is the best plan.  "Typically", the super/hyper velocity rounds work pretty well in rifles but don't work very well in handguns.

[KFhunter]

nice .22, that said .22 s can be finiky, try a few brands of quality ammo, HP or solids, besides its fun to try them out. take a rest of some kind.
Carl

Just what I was gonna say.  Try a mix of different rounds, it'll settle on one or two being the best and most accurate and feed the best on. 


Nice pistol/plinker 

[HardCorpsHuntr]

My dad picked up a Buckmark last year after doing some research at his request.  We put the reflex sight on it and it's a dream to shoot and provides consistent groups tighter than I could with the iron sights.  Well worth the purchase and it's easy to replace the top piece to mount the sight on.  Below is what we used.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002GC2L1Q/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

and

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0038OW1W0/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

As far as projectile choice, I would go with a hollow point.  Good luck this fall.

[syoungs]

Are there any brands I should avoid from a quality standpoint? I've pretty much always shot federal for rimfire, so have no idea what most of these foreign sounding brands are all about that I'm seeing!

[syoungs]

Me and the wife were eyeballing those sights today, I've got a Burris fastfire I'd love to use on it, but not sure how great the 8moa dot would be.

[700xcr]

I have a Millet red dot with a 3MOA dot on my Ruger MKII Side Slab that I use for ground squirrels. I have killed out to 80yds with this 3MOA dot scope. I had this scope on a Ruger Super Redhawk 44mag shooting heavy reloads and held zero with no problems.

[winshooter88]

The only ammo I won't shoot in a semi auto rifle or pistol is any kind of Remington, they shoot fine but are the dirtiest 22 ammo I have ever shot in my 50 years of shooting. Like others have said try several different rounds until you find the one your gun likes. 

[Bofire]

It depends on what you demand, head shooting a moving grouse is hard!! I have a friend that builds and sells high end .22 rifles for precision match, $3-5 thousand each!! He got me a Remington target 22 bolt gun, 12x scope parallax adjusted. Anyway that gun will not chamber standard 22 shell, must have match ammo. I have 1-3 boxes of every kind of match ammo I can find to test them. Even the lot numbers of the ammo change it. He demands .25 bullseye at 50 meters with .125 'X'. but its fun.
you are gonna love experimenting with this pistol
Carl

[CP]

So any standard velocity round or hp bullet will work fine for grouse right? Doesn't seem like it's take much more then standard stuff.

I prefer subsonic.  Not as loud and is just as effective.  HP isn't needed.

[Wingin it]

I have had the best luck with CCI. If you want to get really dialed try buying a bunch out of the same lot and then weight them on a grain scale. They will vary and you can group them by weight and then sight in accordingly. When you run out of that weight site in with the next group. I am talking using the same brand and type of bullets. It works, at least it does for me.