.22 LR ammo via Widener’s

Last month I received an email from Widener’s. This is the important part of our conversation:

I’m reaching out to see if you’d be interested in reviewing some ammo on blog.joehuffman.org. Product reviews are an opportunity to increase website traffic and build a stronger relationship with your audience.

Think of your readers for a minute. They likely see ads for ammunition placed by manufacturers every time they go online. Wouldn’t it be better if they were receiving real information from a trusted resource like your website? Given your experience in the industry, I thought you would be interested in receiving some free ammunition to review.

If you are interested in receiving some free ammo for an unbiased product review. I’m sure we can find a caliber or two to send your way. 

If there’s anything I can help you with, just let me know. Thanks!

What type of ammo do you have in mind?

My primary calibers are .22LR (Steel Challenge type matches and practice), .40 S&W (Steel Challenge and USPSA matches) , .223 Remington (precision rifle out to 500 yards), and .300 Win Mag (precision rifle out to 700 yards).

Thank you for the fast reply. That sounds great, below is a $250 gift card code for you to use to get started. After you add items to your cart, enter the gift card code and the website will walk you through the rest of the checkout process. Orders are processed through a secure server and fulfilled remotely by our warehouse, so your blogger identity remains anonymous to us.

I ordered 1,000 rounds of CCI Mini-Mags 22 LR 40 Grain CPRN and 500 rounds of Federal American Eagle Suppressor 22 LR 45 Grain CPRN. That was on a Tuesday. The following Tuesday the ammo arrived at my underground bunker in remote Idaho:

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I was a little concerned because the package had been damaged in transit. I’ve opened ammo shipments that looked similar to this and found hundreds of rounds rattling around loose in the box.

This time the interior packaging was more than adequate and the ammo was contained:

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I’ve fired many thousands of rounds of the Mini-Mags with excellent results. Because of the high reliability it’s the only .22 ammo I use in competition. Hence, I didn’t bother to test it.

I was really interested in the Federal American Eagle Suppressor 22 LR 45 Grain CPRN. Would it work in my somewhat finicky competition gun? I had thought I had my suppressor in my range bag but I couldn’t find it. Without the suppressor to give some additional backpressure I thought there was zero chance of it working. I was wrong. I fired two magazines without even a hint of malfunction and with excellent accuracy.

That was almost a month ago.

Last week I put in an exhaustive search for my suppressor to finish off the review. I finally found the suppressor laying on a shelf in the gun safe rather than in a range bag or gun case like I expected. I went to the range for a late lunch one day (it’s about five minutes from work) and, as I had hoped, I had a few minutes when I was the only person in the bay. I put on the suppressor and took off the ear protection. There was the usual mildly intense pop with the first round then the rest of the rounds were not much more than the sound of the action of the gun cycling. Again, with perfect reliability and excellent accuracy.

Nice!

Thanks Widner’s!

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6 thoughts on “.22 LR ammo via Widener’s

  1. Just wish 22 WinMag wasn’t so expensive for what it is. But it has never really been cheap. Oh, well. At least the prices and availability for common stuff like 9mm are getting better, if not good. Quality rifle ammo is still stupid, tho; I mean, less than 10% of SKUs of 30-06 Springfield available at MidwayUSA, and only 3 of those reasonable hunting rounds for less than $2 a shot.

    On the other hand, I was pricing 50BMG for reloading. A buck for powder, 50 cents for primer, $2.30 a bullet minimum, $3 each (might be reusable 5x, so 60 cents) so even reloading it, it’s $4.40 each shot, best case scenario, so I guess it’s all relative. 🙂

      • Not at this time, but I occasionally price it out, as it is the most expensive “likely” (for some very broad definition of likely) new round I might pursue. Three years ago it was much closer to $2.25 a round reloading.

  2. Just doing some quick math here, 1500 rds @ $250 works out to $0.16 per round which.includes shipping. Seems a bit steep for .22lr. What am I missing?

  3. Widner’s is a couple of hours North of me in Tennessee. I’ve bought a few things from them over the years and have always been happy with their service as well.

  4. Your certainly right about mini-mags, Joe. At the store, we use to tell anyone buying a new semi-auto 22LR. To start with a box of mini-mags. The logic was that if your gun didn’t work with them, there was something possibly wrong with it.
    As we found them to operate even the most cantankerous of pistols, as well as rifles.
    And my all time favorite, is my CMMG 22LR conversion for my AR. With Aquila 60gr. 22sniper sub-sonics. As the tighter twist of the AR stabilizes the longer bullet. Suppressed, the thing is close to Hollywood quiet.
    But even without. It’s a total whoot.
    We use to sell those conversions like hotcakes. And there one of the best ways out there to train new shooters to AR15’s. As an adjustable stock makes a shorter length on pull for the little ones. And a cheaper way to get in trigger time for all.

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