Winchester Model 9422

Accuracy

When I was 10 years old (1975) my Dad bought me a new Winchester  Model 9422 at Ross Bros. in Uniontown, PA.  I've always loved that rifle and I'll never give it up. In addition to being really fun to shoot because of the lever action, it was well suited to my then significantly shorter arms.  We spent the first  few years of its life plinking things at relatively short distances, which it excelled at.  Later we moved to an area where a neighbor had a 100 yd shooting range with a bench. Now this rifle was never designed for the bench but I tried anyway. It was always frustrating that I couldn't get even remotely consistent groups out of it and it just wasn't any fun to plink with at that distance if I had real trouble even hitting a coke can.

Well, you live and learn. I don't think in 33 years, the gun had ever seen anything but inexpensive high velocity ammo (CCI Stingers of course, Federal and Remington HV loads etc.).  It was always  reasonably accurate at  25 or 50 yards but not farther out.  When I finally bought a piece of property where I could shoot at 100 yds I set out to build a 100 yd 22LR tack driver.  In that process I learned a lot about ammo and it got me to thinking about my Winchester again.  Subsonic ammo tends to be more stable at 100 yds. than faster ammo which usually goes subsonic over the distance.  My little Winchester had never seen slow ammo but I thought that maybe it would solve the 100 yd accuracy issue. The other day I pulled out some Eley Match EPS, Eley Club Xtra, Lapua Midas L, CCI Green Tag, Remington "22 Subsonic" and some CCI "Standard Velocity" which is also subsonic, and tried it. The take home message is that it didn't become a sub-MOA bench rest rifle but with the right ammo, and a big scope for my now aged eyes, it does very well.  You can see in the photo that the scope (a Barska 10-40X) just barely fits on the thing and that I had to use those funny clip style rings to make it work.




The results were really impressive. It isn't that it can't reach out, it just has champagne taste. The result was that this rifle that usually shoots around 5-8" at 100 yds with cheap HV ammo can consistently shoot at an average of 1.4" with high quality ammunition.

I shot everything at 100 yds, from a bench with bags. The rifle is totally stock (except for the scope) and was warm for all groups counted.  Measuring was done with a digital caliper, center to center of the outermost holes. There was a very slight intermittent breeze.  This is me shooting, not a pro, but my error should be the systematic. The Remington Subsonic and CCI standard are unlubed, the rest are wax coated.

Among the ammo there were a  couple of  disappointments.  The expected one being  the Remington 22 Subsonic.  It hovered around 6"  and never did better than  4".   The unexpected one was the Lapua Midas L, which is the most expensive, but it consistently stovepiped and I never got a full 5 shots out of it.  It also never got below 3"  for 3 shot groups.  The Lapua has a thicker wax on it than the other lubed rounds and the bullet diameter is .001 bigger than Midas M so that might have had something to do with it.

Among the others, the CCI standard averaged near 3". I only did 3 groups with the Green Tag which was very similar.  The Eley Club Xtra was very good with all 20 groups under 2.5" and an average of 1.82".  The Eley Match EPS was the star of the show though. It averaged 1.4" over 20 groups and had a best of .97" with no groups going over 2". A typical group is shown below.



It isn't a scientific evaluation but it might help someone with this great little Winchester.