The Rimfire Report: Remington Magnum Rimfire 22WMR 40gr JHP Tested

Hello and welcome back to another edition of The Rimfire Report! In this ongoing series, we’ve been spending a lot of range sessions testing out various loads of rimfire ammunition, ranging from run-of-the-mill bulk ammo to more obscure and specialized rimfire loads like 22 rat shot, 17HMR, and today, some underloved Remington 22WMR. This 40-grain load, like most other 22WMR offerings, is meant to be a more potent and potentially ethical varmint and small game hunting round. Today, we’ll use the Henry .22 Magnum Express rifle to test out this relatively affordable 22 Magnum offering from Remington.

More Rimfire Report @ TFB:

• The Rimfire Report: Henry’s Golden Boy Revolver
• The Rimfire Report: Smith & Wesson FPC 22LR First Impressions
• The Rimfire Report: The Henry Golden Boy 22LR Rifle

The Rimfire Report: Remington Magnum Rimfire 22WMR 40gr JHP Tested

Product Specifications - Remington Magnum Rimfire 22WMR 40gr JHP

Product Link: https://www.remington.com/rimfire/magnum-rimfire/29-21170.html

Product Overview

Looking for a rimfire cartridge with a centerfire attitude? Remington's got you covered with our complete line of Magnum Rimfire ammunition. Available in 17 HMR and 22 Win Mag, Magnum Rimfire Ammunition is loaded for incredible shot-to-shot consistency, flat trajectory and explosive expansion. Upgrading your rimfire rifle or handgun is as easy as shooting the right ammo. Think Magnum Rimfire.

PIN-POINT ACCURACY - Super tuned cartridges that deliver consistency every shot

HUNTING LOADS - Ideal for hunting small game and varmints, delivering devastating performance upon impact

NEW AND IMPROVED - Tighter tolerances, revamped primer mixes and industry-leading technology allows for greater consistency and lower chamber pressures for the same muzzle velocity

Remington’s Magnum Rimfire line of ammunition offers rimfire ammunition, which is quite extensive. This particular offering has the same price as their 40-grain soft points, jacketed soft points. Meanwhile, a slightly more potent 33-grain AccuTip-V version exists, which we will be testing at some point down the road. However for this particular 40-grain JHP offering is meant to offer a combination of velocity, accuracy, and terminal performance along with a more agreeable asking price. While $0.44 per round isn’t exactly cheap, you can find this stuff for sale at distributor sites for about $18 a box or $0.34 per round.

Velocity Data

From everything I’ve learned over the years about 22WMR, it is that with a much larger case capacity, the 22WMR load can definitely take advantage of much longer barrel lengths to achieve greater velocities than its anemic 22LR cousin - sometimes reach up to about 2,000 fps with an optimal 18-19” barrel length. Today’s load has an advertised muzzle velocity of 1910 fps, and that, combined with the Henry Magnum Express’ slightly longer 19.25” barrel, we should see only slightly lower performance out of the round. Let's see what our Garmin Xero C1 chronograph data has to show us out of the combo.

I am unsure as to how exactly Remington is getting their number, as not even a single round managed to approach within a reasonable velocity of the advertised velocity on the box (1,910 fps). In fact, a majority of the rounds fired were well below that, at about 1790-1810 fps, with a mean velocity of 1,804 fps.  This gives us what I’d consider a “below average” standard deviation (anything above 20 fps) of 31.8 fps, and an extreme spread to match of 150.7 fps. In a perfect world, we should be able to observe this in the accuracy data as well, but this time, there are a few caveats to go with that.

Accuracy Data

When it comes to extrapolating what you can reasonably expect from a cartridge in terms of overall accuracy, velocity is a pretty good indicator of at least one metric - vertical stringing. A higher standard deviation typically means your rounds will have a wider vertical spread, and that’s exactly what we’re seeing with this particular lot of Remington Magnum Rimfire. This doesn’t mean the ammo is “bad,” just inconsistent when it comes to a reliable point of impact. Ironically enough, my first group was the best out of the bunch and saw the least amount of vertical spread, with only a single round falling outside of a 1” group. For a varmint hunter who wants dead-nuts-accuracy, the remaining 4 groups are probably sub-optimal with some extreme vertical stringing even at just 50 yards.

The lateral spread can probably be attributed to both my personal input into the rifle, as well as the necessity for me to manually cycle the action every time, meaning that there could be slight variations in my parallax. I tried to mitigate this by reducing the apparent parallax by reducing my magnification from 12x to a more reasonable 10x, which I think helped give me a good balance of a consistent aiming point and a repeatable head position behind the scope. In short, this accuracy is pretty much what I had expected from a “budget” .22WMR cartridge. If I had to guess, you could probably pull these loads and find some pretty drastic differences in the powder charge consistency.

Final Thoughts

If you’re one of those guys who likes to plink with .22WMR in a different gun other than a varmint gun, then I think there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this particular load - it’s supposed to be budget-friendly, and in order to make that happen, cost has to be cut somewhere. I think in this case, it's likely somewhere in the QC process when it comes to checking the powder load. I’d like to see it improved, but maybe doing that might make the ammo too expensive and start tipping into the territory of some self-defense and specialized hunting loads.

In short, I think the load is a great plinking and target practice round, and is likely a better fit for some of the more “fun” 22WMR offerings like the Walther WMP, or the KelTec PMR-30 - both pistols and both great for sub-25-yard engagements. However, as I always say, this is just this lot of ammo, out of this particular gun, and in my hands, on this one day - your results may vary, and I’d like to hear what your results have been if you have any with this ammo! Thanks as always for stopping by to read The Rimfire Report, and we’ll see you again next week!