The Rimfire Report: The Classic Pair - Ruger 10/22 + CCI Mini-Mags

Much like other rifle pairings, the Ruger 10/22 and CCI’s high velocity Mini-Mag ammunition is one that almost everyone out there has experience with. While the 10/22 can often be picky with ammo, CCI’s Mini-Mags are often offered up as a flat-out cure for almost any stubborn .22LR autoloader. While this isn’t true in a lot of specific cases, in my decades of shooting rimfire, I’ve found that Mini-Mags do indeed help get a lot of stubborn, dirty, or finicky guns up and running.

Similar to how we ran CCI Standard through a standard 10/22 Sporter rifle, this week we’ll be running what has to be one of the most common 22LR ammunition SKUs in the United States - CCI Mini-Mag 40gr. For the tests, we’ll be using the same off-the-shelf Ruger 10/22 Sporter equipped with the Maven CRS.1 3-12x40 SFP riflescope.

More Rimfire Report @ TFB:

• The Rimfire Report: Supreme Consistency - ELEY Target 40gr
• The Rimfire Report: Back to Basics With the 10/22 & CCI Standard
• The Rimfire Report: An Ode To The Marlin Model 29 Pump Action

The Rimfire Report: The Classic Pair - 10/22 + CCI Mini-Mags

While not budget ammunition, CCI Mini-Mags are definitely on the more affordable side of the aisle when it comes to 22LR ammunition overall. I have used CCI Mini-Mag 40gr ammunition for well over a decade at this point in Steel Challenge competition, both from rifles and pistols, and have found it to be one of the most reliable 22LR loads in terms of ignition reliability out of a broad spectrum of guns. I can personally count on one hand in the 10 years and tens of thousands of rounds of 22LR I’ve shot in that time, the number of times that a CCI Mini-Mag has failed to go off in a functioning gun. Today’s experience was no different, and yours shouldn’t be any different if you’ve been shooting this stuff for a while. It’s typically $0.02-$0.03 more expensive than CCI Standard, and what I believe you’re paying for is just the extra powder and the oftentimes copper-washed bullet.

CCI Mini-Mags are available in several variants, including a lighter 36-grain hollow-point and a segmented hollow-point designed specifically for varmint hunting. The load featured today is Part #30 (as noted on the box label), which I’d consider the most common Mini-Mag variant. It features a standard copper-plated round nose bullet with an advertised velocity of 1,235 fps and retails for about $0.13 per round and typically comes in 100-round sleeves. This variant is specifically marketed as “target” ammunition.

Velocity Testing

With different goals and limitations come different results, and that couldn’t be more true than when it comes to the vast difference there is between the CCI Standard we tested last time, and the Mini-Mags we’re testing out of the 10/22 this week. In my mind, the primary goal of CCI Mini mags is to consistently deliver a higher-than-standard-velocity round, partly to increase ballistic power, but also to help cycle semi-auto guns more reliably. CCI Mini-Mags almost always hit well above the 1,100 fps mark, making them an easy choice for rifles like the 10/22 or pistols like the SIG P322 and Ruger MK IV. They don’t, however, offer the same level of shot-to-shot consistency that CCI Standard does.

In our 50-round test string, the 10/22 and this ammunition produced a standard deviation of 21 fps. That’s decent, though not exceptional, especially compared to CCI Standard and ELEY Target loads we tested a few weeks ago, which both recorded standard deviations in the low teens and delivered noticeably tighter groups. While this level of variation may affect long-range precision, at typical pest control or rimfire match distances, CCI Mini-Mags should still offer solid consistency and reliability, minimizing the likelihood of failures to fire or cycle while delivering “acceptable” accuracy for those jobs.

Accuracy Testing

To state the obvious caveat, this may simply be a case of my particular 10/22 not favoring this specific load or even this lot of CCI Mini-Mags. These groups were fired from the same rifle used in our CCI Standard 40-grain testing, yet the results were drastically different. Of the five 10-round groups fired, only two showed anything resembling a consistent cluster, and even those exhibited noticeable horizontal stringing and were at best about 2” in size from center to center.

While that’s not great from an accuracy standpoint, if your primary goal is to maintain higher velocity and ensure reliable cycling in a wide variety of semi-auto guns, this level of precision loss is a fair tradeoff, especially at the Mini-Mag’s price point. A 2-inch group at 50 yards still falls comfortably within “soda-can accuracy” and is more than adequate for small-game hunting or general plinking. It will not win any accuracy awards, but it will keep your rifle running smoothly, and the added velocity provides a modest boost in terminal performance compared to standard velocity loads. You tend to also see this with bulk cheap 9mm ammunition, which is loaded so hot you might mistake it for +P ammo - it's just to make sure it’ll cycle in whatever pawn shop find you happen to be shooting that day.

Final Thoughts

CCI Mini Mags, despite their lack of precision at range, are still some of my favorite 22LR loads to run through my guns. On top of being insanely reliable and relatively affordable, CCI Mini-Mags are also one of the cleaner loads in CCI’s non “Clean” series. While their copper wash/electroplating is minimal and is scratched off easily, it does provide an added layer of defense against additional fouling, and CCI’s primer compound and propellant seem to burn extremely clean, especially compared to other high velocity ammunition like Aguila Super Extra.