Legit or Trash? (22LR accuracy gauges)

[alamo5000]

I rather recently stumbled across a series of accuracy gauges for 22LR that made me curious. Apparently they measure critical dimensions of ammunition. In theory that should work but in actual practical application how good are these things?

Links to a few examples are below. I am sure there are probably more than this out there but I am wondering if anyone has tried anything like this and if so what kind of real world results came of it?

Amazon.com

SINCLAIR INTERNATIONAL Products for Sale Online - 237 Products

237 SINCLAIR INTERNATIONAL Products For Sale Up To 91% Off including Reloading, Tools & Cleaning, and Gear.

www.sinclairintl.com

RIMFIRE GAUGE

Neil Jones Custom Products - Accuracy tools and components for the precision shooter

www.neiljones.com

Hornady Rim Thickness Ga 17-22 Cal

The Hornady Rim Thickness Gauge is perfect for rim fire enthusiasts who demand nothing but the utmost consistency. The gauge allows the shooter to sort...

www.midwayusa.com

 

[AZ Dan]

Don't bother. I've tested this for a long time....just buy high end ammo. Unless your time isn't worth much, and you have a lot of it to spare...it's easier to just buy Center-X, etc.

It *might make a mid range ammo shoot better, but that's just because you spent hours sorting it into lots of similar rim thickness dimension....*might reduce flyers.

 

[justin amateur]

Let's suppose you sorted a brick of rimfire cartridges by rim thickness.
Will it in any way fix any of the other problems inherent in the manufacture of rimfire cartridges?
Will it ensure uniform amounts of primer compound in the correct location?
Will it fix irregularly seated or out of spec bullets?
Will it improve crimp tension or change the way the cartridges fit the chamber?
Will it modify powder or primer chemistry and burn rate?
Can it realign the bullet if it was seated at a skew?
Will it change anything with respect to poor handling of components at the factory
that cause damage to the heel of the bullet?

Weight sorting, rim thickness, cartridge length do not fix any of the actual problems
responsible for poor results on target. It's just another way to spend time and money
and making you feel like y'er accomplishing something useful.
You ain't.

Go ahead, ask me...how do you know? Have you tried it y'erself? ...Well, I'm not proud of it, but yeah, I have.

Major waste of time. Just another internet claim that turns out to be less than accurate.

 

[grauhanen]

While they promise improved accuracy, they can't deliver. Rim thickness gauges appeal to those who hope to get "good ammo" out of inexpensive ammo or hope to make an average barrel shoot better. The only reliable way to improving accuracy is to use good barrels (and chambers) with good ammo. There are no shortcuts.

 

[BuckeyePrecision]

I will agree with the above for the most part. I had read about that years ago and having some free time while I was recovering from a broken ankle I made my own rim thickness gauge and tried it just to see. I tried measuring rim thickness of bulk pack Federal, CCI SV, SK Std, and Center X. After I measured out a couple of boxes of each, I tested the results compared to another box of the same lot that was unsorted I did get better results but it was no where near the effort. In all, I had 6 or 8 hours in sorting ammo to get less than a .1 improvement on most ammo.

All groups were shot at 50 yards, I shot 3, 10 shot groups and took the average size using a CZ455 with a Lilija barrel.

Fed Bulk Pack - 200 rounds sorted - Sorted Group 1.2 in. - Unsorted 1.5
CCI SV - 100 rounds sorted - Sorted Group .72 - Unsorted .81
SV Std. - 100 round sorted - Sorted Group .71 - Unsorted .79
Center X - 100 rounds sorted - Sorted group .49 - Unsorted .54

The results of the measurement were as you would expect. Bulk pack rim thickness was all over the place, and each step up provided more consistent results. With center X I only had to take 16 rounds out for being to far out.

 

[alamo5000]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'm typically skeptical of these kinds of things but I saw that even Hornady makes something similar. It at very least made me curious about what it could do.

 

[oldfatguy]

Thanks for the replies everyone. I'm typically skeptical of these kinds of things but I saw that even Hornady makes something similar. It at very least made me curious about what it could do.

Have sorted a lot of CCI SV and Wolf Match Extra. Some improvement but not going to turn it into Eley or Lapua.

OFG

 

[mrt949]

BUY CHEAP GET CHEAP .
IT'S ALL OVER PRICED NOTHING IS CHEAP.

 

[Funcpottr]

I will agree with the above for the most part. I had read about that years ago and having some free time while I was recovering from a broken ankle I made my own rim thickness gauge and tried it just to see. I tried measuring rim thickness of bulk pack Federal, CCI SV, SK Std, and Center X. After I measured out a couple of boxes of each, I tested the results compared to another box of the same lot that was unsorted I did get better results but it was no where near the effort. In all, I had 6 or 8 hours in sorting ammo to get less than a .1 improvement on most ammo.

All groups were shot at 50 yards, I shot 3, 10 shot groups and took the average size using a CZ455 with a Lilija barrel.

Fed Bulk Pack - 200 rounds sorted - Sorted Group 1.2 in. - Unsorted 1.5
CCI SV - 100 rounds sorted - Sorted Group .72 - Unsorted .81
SV Std. - 100 round sorted - Sorted Group .71 - Unsorted .79
Center X - 100 rounds sorted - Sorted group .49 - Unsorted .54

The results of the measurement were as you would expect. Bulk pack rim thickness was all over the place, and each step up provided more consistent results. With center X I only had to take 16 rounds out for being to far out.

I second this! You can improve your chances with what you can find and these days I have more time than access to any kind of ammo. Not saying I have any time... And at the end of the day, a good shooter can be excellent (not necessarily perfect) with CCI SV while a bad shooter will still suck whether at 50 cents per round or a nickel a pull.

 

[mrt949]

VERY TRUE

 

[accurate obsession]

All that sorting is for the hard-core benchrest crowd, in prs-nrl, waste of your time.

 

[grauhanen]

All that sorting is for the hard-core benchrest crowd, in prs-nrl, waste of your time.

Hard-core BR guys don't sort their ammo. They test for the lot(s) that shoot best in their tuned rifles. They know that sorting doesn't yield meaningful results.

 

[mrt949]

IF YOU CAN BUY IT

 

[Mythbuster]

Weight sorting and rim thickness sorting does help cheap bulk pack ammo. I used to do this a lot I know it works. The better the ammo is to start with the less sorting helps. Sorting good consistent match ammo is a waste of time. It's that simple.

 

[308pirate]

PT Barnum invented reloading and ammo gimmicks

 

[Mythbuster]

Years ago we shot smallbore three position and Dewar matches. We practiced a lot and in those days it was hard to find any local gun shops that kept any good match ammo in stock plus it was too expensive to practice with all the time. My rifle likes CCI Blazer ammo. But many lots of Blazer in those days had weak rounds mixed in. It became very clear at 100 yards. You could shoot several 10s in a row and the next round would make a different sound and drop low into the 8 ring. Weight sorting this ammo completely eliminated this problem.

 

[1813Benny]

If you purchase quality match ammunition, results will be - at best - negligible. If you want to improve the plinking level stuff, it might help but it will not elevate cheap ammo to anything other than sorted cheap ammo.