The Rimfire Report: Back to Basics With the 10/22 & CCI Standard

In my ongoing ammunition testing series here on The Rimfire Report, a lot of you have said that you’d rather see me test most of this ammo out of a more normal gun, like a plain old Ruger 10/22. For 2026, we’re going to be doing exactly that. In the upcoming months, we’ll be going back through our already tested ammunition, but this time put it through a setup that is far more accessible for most firearm owners. While I would have loved to do this long ago, most of my 10/22s were held up in other builds, but I’ve finally been able to acquire a bone-stock Ruger 10/22 Sporter, which MSRPs these days for a very reasonable $359. We’ll get into the build specifics below, but for now, let me know what budget-oriented or reasonably priced ammo you’d like to see run through this new setup next.

More Rimfire Report @ TFB:

• The Rimfire Report: Rimfire At SHOT 2026 - What Did We See?
• The Rimfire Report: Reviewing the FN 502 Tactical Rimfire Pistol
• The Rimfire Report: Is the Jennings J-22 Really that Bad?

The Rimfire Report: Back to Basics With the 10/22 & CCI Standard

To start with the rifle, as I said before, we’ll be using something that is more likely to be in your gun safe than the absurdly ostentatious Bergara B14R I’ve used in the past. While that gun isn’t gone for good, for this new series, I think the 10/22 sporter is a far more appropriate measure of what to expect out of the average gun and the average .22LR ammo we have available to us.

I looked up my specific 10/22’s serial number on the Ruger website, and my particular gun was manufactured and shipped in 2017, but the specific model (01102) is no longer in production. There is a similar updated model on the Ruger website that has virtually all of the same specifications and features, although my older version features distinct checkering on the stock. Either way, there likely isn’t much of a difference between my older 2017 10/22 and older or younger 10/22s; the rifle’s formula really hasn’t changed much over the years.

The rifle features a standard 18” non-threaded barrel, standard Ruger 10/22 trigger, a regular walnut stock, and, of course, regular internals. This should also give us a better opportunity to test how most of this ammo functions in a semi-automatic platform, as the B14R only measured performance out of a bolt-action system. The only things I’ve added to the rifle are a simple sling and a very budget-friendly Maven CRS.1 3-12x40 SFP scope. This is a huge downgrade from our Leupold Mark V HD 5-25x56, but for the sake of being consistent with our budget for this series, I thought it was an appropriate compromise.

Revisiting CCI Standard 40gr 22LR

Maybe it's appropriate that we’re doing this during CCI’s 75th anniversary year. CCI Standard has long been the staple of many an aspiring marksman, including myself. Throughout its history as a product, CCI Standard 40gr has always been a great combination of affordability, consistency, and quality. It’s great at just about everything, and decent at stuff it’s not even meant for. These days, a 100-round box will cost you about $10.00 from most online retailers, including CCI. Sometimes, you can find it on sale for a few bucks less at your local sporting goods store or even some online retailers.

During my 50-round test, I encountered no failures to fire and had flawless ejection and loading out of the single BX-15 magazine that I used for the test. Although this rifle is new for our Rimfire Report series, the receiver, stock, trigger, and barrel have been in my inventory for quite some time, and the bolt/receiver/barrel combo probably has several thousand rounds through it in various other configurations. I cleaned the gun before starting these tests, and have thus far only shot enough rounds through the gun to have it zeroed with whatever ammo was left in my magazines. In between ammo tests, we’ll be wiping down the bolt and inside of the receiver with some CLP so we can take note of any abnormal fouling during tests.

Velocity Results

Right around the same time that Garmin announced the next generation of their very popular series of Xero chronographs, they also rolled out a nice update for the software on your phone, and in this new version of the software, we now have access to shot-to-shot graphs, which should add some extra context to what we’re seeing on paper. With that said, CCI Standard continues to impress me, even out of a budget platform. Similar to when we shot it out of the Bergara B14R, CCI Standard out of the Ruger 10/22 has a nice low standard deviation of about 16 fps, which is below my personal 20fps threshold for a “good” rating in the velocity consistency department.

Looking at the shot-to-shot graph, it's clear that most of the shots are taking place within a fairly tight spread, with an expected amount of outliers for this relatively inexpensive ammunition. So while the ammo itself still produces consistent velocities out of both semi-auto and bolt-action platforms, downrange the results couldn’t have been any more different.

Accuracy Results

If you can excuse the errant #8 shot that made its way onto my target, the best group I was able to pull off out of the entire 50-round string (one round failed to pickup), was about 1 inch in size. Similar to our previous tests, we’re of course testing this setup at 50-yards and while a reduction in magnification would typically hurt, I don’t find that I feel like I am at a disadvantage in the accuracy department, especially as I’m still shooting from the prone position using a couple of shooting bags from Armageddon gear.

Final Thoughts

Both the Ruger 10/22 and CCI Standard 40gr have been around a lot longer than I have, and it's no wonder why, given the results we’ve seen today. An off-the-shelf 10/22 with very affordable off-the-shelf ammunition is entirely capable of giving you extremely consistent and accurate results at range. CCI’s ammo, in addition to being consistent, are aslo relatively clean compared to other budget or standard velocity ammunition. The bullets themselves are not heavily coated, if at all, and despite being mostly bare lead, the 10/22 didn’t seem any dirtier than when we started. A quick wipe down with a rag was all that was needed to get the bolt nice and shiny again.

If you’re like me, and you like to have at least one type of ammo that you know works well in a vast majority of the plinkers you have in your inventory, CCI Standard is a great way to feed those guns - especially the budget ones. While some designs may suffer with the relaitlvey low-velocity of CCI Standard, a lot of modern builds, especially suppressed ones, benefit from this lower velocity. For everything else, there’s CCI Mini-Mags, which are what we’ll be testing out of the Ruger 10/22 next time.