22LR 400 yards. Subsonic vs High Velocity ammo?

[Timmis2]

I'm looking at my ballistic calculator to compare MOA with various muzzle velocities for 22LR at 400 yards. I'm wondering what the consensus is here for those of you that have shot 22LR at 400 yards. High velocity ammo with fewer MOA to dial that goes transonic? Or standard velocity/subsonic ammo with more MOA to dial that remains under transonic velocity. Obviously both can work if the ammo's accuracy agrees with your rifle and you have the travel in your scope to dial and holdover enough.

For one of my 22LR rifles, I only have 80 MOA of travel plus a 30 MOA reticle and a 20 MOA scope rail. This rifle is not ideal for distances past 250 yards because I'd need to dial close to the end of it's travel plus holdover over a minimum of 15 MOA for 400 yards and would have to use high velocity ammo. Another rifle I have has 110 MOA of travel, a 30 MOA reticle, and a 30 MOA scope rail. With this rifle I could use SV/subsonic ammo but would have to combine dial with holdover. With high velocity ammo I may be able to just dial (but it would be close to the end of travel). I plan to test quite a few ammo brands that are both SV/subsonic and high velocity to see what my rifles like.

For those of you who have hit steel at 400 yards with 22LR, what combination did you have the most success with? SV with a high travel scope, or high velocity ammo with fewer MOA to dial?

 

[MarkS]

You are not going to have the accuracy with HV ammo. You will with SV match ammo. Going past 250yds. it takes better ammo, I like SK Long Range use in my guns. My long range 22lr gun's, I have Vortex Strike Eagle scope with 110 MOA in the scope. I have 50 MOA with 30MOA in the Burris XTR Signature rings and 20 MOA rail. I can zero at 50 yds and can dial to 500yds. My scopes are near the bottom of the adjustment and have almost the full range of the scope.

It will take around 70 MOA ( with SV ammo ) with a 50 yds zero. By what you are saying you using 55 MOA, you have 25MOA left now. The Signature XTR rings can get you the 15 to 25 MOA, or so, you need.

 

[PhilD]

I don’t have any problem dialing to 400yds to the center of my scope with subsonic ammo (1075-1105fps. My Sightron SVIII has 40mils or 140MOA internal stop to stop. I have a 30MOA rail and 50yd zero. My Dope at 400 is just shy of 20mils.
My DNT “the one” scope has a lot less travel but I can still reach 400yds with 30MOA rail.

I saw a video by Mark and Sam after work they were shooting CCI Velocitor ammo at extreme long range so I bought a brick. It’s NO BUENO! ES was like 118fps and LOUD. I could hold windage pretty good but it shoots over and under. It’s so loud the match director would eject me from the range if I tried to shoot it in competition.

If you want to be consistent stick to the best sub sonic match ammo you can afford. I use Lapua Long Range to compete and SK LR Match for practice.

 

[grauhanen]

Accuracy performance with .22LR has nothing to do with the MV of the ammo but everything to do with ammo quality and consistency.

High velocity .22LR isn't made in match ammo quality. As a result HV .22LR accuracy is generally poor, and it gets worse with distance. Match ammo is made to higher quality standards than typical .22LR HV stuff.

There are varieties of .22LR match ammo that have faster MVs than standard match ammo. They are not faster than RWS100 ammo's nominal 1130 fps (345 m/s).