Remington’s line of 22LR ammunition hasn’t always had the best reputation in the rimfire world. While the classic Remington Bucket O Bullets is still a staple of many a rimfire plinking sessions, many people swear up and down that the ammunition is majorly flawed in one way or another. Thankfully, I’ve been able to get my hands on what has to be the last of what I think is the end of the old generation of Remington Cyclone 22LR 36 grain Hollow Points. As we’ve discussed in the past, Remington has been under new management, and with that, they’ve reformulated a few of their most popular ammo lines, including 22LR and Cyclone. While I’ve yet to get my hands on some of the new stuff, I thought it’d be fun to take a look at some of this infamously dirt-cheap 22LR plinking ammo and how it performs out of our stock 10/22 test platform.More Rimfire Report @ TFB: The Rimfire Report: The Phenomenal Angstadt Arms Reticent 22 Silencer The Rimfire Report: First 1,000 Rounds – S&W M&P 22X The Rimfire Report: ELEY Subsonic 38gr Hollow Point The Rimfire Report: Is Remington Cyclone 22LR SpecsRemington Cyclone 22LR 36 Grain Lead Hollow Point Product Link: https://www.remington.com/rimfire/29-21222.html Above, you’ll see the new packaging design for what is allegedly the reformulated 22 Cyclone that’s supposed to be cleaner, more reliable, and more accurate. The couple of thousands of rounds of this stuff that I have were shipped back in the summer of 2025 and have been stored in good-condition ammo cans for the entirety of the time that I’ve had them. Remington specifically advertises this ammunition as a flexible “do-it-all” loading, mentioning that “Prairie dogs. Tin cans. Or a bulls-eye. No matter what you put in your sights, Remington® Cyclone is the perfect 22 rimfire ammunition for any occasion.” While on the surface it appears that nothing has changed about the high velocity Cyclone loading, Remington claims that underneath the hood, they’ve changed their process to get you better results for a relatively low price. Below are the stated specifications of this loading, at least according to the current iteration of the official Remington website: CONTINUOUS IMPROVEMENT - Revamped rimfire processes allows for greater consistency, lower chamber pressure, but the same muzzle velocitiesHIGH VELOCITY - Increases downrange energy, extending your effective distanceHOLLOW POINT BULLET - Ideal for varmint hunting and pest controlSpecs Caliber22 LRGrain Weight36Bullet StyleLead Hollow PointMuzzle Velocity1280Ballistic Coefficient.104Package Quantity50UsageSmall Game It’s officially listed for $6.99 per box ($0.14/rnd), you can find older stuff for as little as $4.99 per box ($0.10/rnd) at places like Palmetto State Armory. As Remington Cyclone 22 LR is intended to be a cheap, bulk high velocity ammo, it’s only fair that we run it out of the Ruger 10/22, as I think this is probably the firearm the ammo is most likely to end up in. That’s also probably true for a lot of the other ammo we test on The Rimfire Report. While I didn’t deep clean the 10/22 before the test, I did wipe the bolt, breech face, and ejection port area down with my favorite CLP to make sure anything from our previous tests wasn’t gumming up the works. I anticipated that things were about to get pretty dirty, and I was right. When loading the mags up to test my zero out with the ammo, I noticed that the wax used was particularly sticky, and I was even able to get rounds to stick to the bottom of my fingers with light pressure. I also noticed that after loading only a handful of mags, there was lead all over my fingertips. This is one ammo that I’d highly recommend that you make certain that you use some sort of lead neutralizer to wash your hands with right after you’re done using it. Velocity DataTo stay fair and consistent with past tests, we're only running a single 50-round box for my official velocity data with the 10/22. As most of you probably guessed, the results aren't exactly "match" performance, which is totally fine since that's not what Remington is trying to advertise with Cyclone. For bulk ammo, it's far from the worst in velocity, with an SD of about 38 and an impressive extreme spread of 159 fps (which I think tops the charts so far in our new 10/22 ammo test series). A handful of rounds beat the advertised velocity by ~20 fps, while a few dipped a full 140 fps below. Given our 1,240 fps average, Remington's test barrel is likely 20-22 inches. Our 18.5-inch 10/22 explains the small gap. Accuracy DataI think here the groups can be kind of deceptive, especially if what you’re expecting is pinpoint accuracy. However, to not make excuses for it, this is probably the worst ammo I’ve tested so far out of the 10/22. These groups were shot at 25 yards, from the prone position, using a 3-12X Maven optic we’ve used in the past for other tests. I had to bring the target in from 50 yards, as the groups were getting so big it was impossible to tell them apart from one another on the standard 6x6 targets I use. Out of the 5 groups I shot, the best one was probably no smaller than two inches in size, at 25 yards, that’s soda can work, but even as a pest control round, that’s pushing it if you like to actually hit what you’re aiming at. To get a better idea of what this type of accuracy looks like over all 50 rounds, I took another box and ran all 50 rounds back to back on the same single bullseye on a Re-Nine Safety Silhouette target. Overlaying an entire box of 50 like this, I think, is actually pretty helpful in demonstrating that while Cyclone isn’t the most accurate ammo out there, it is at least somewhat capable of putting together what some could call a consistent group. Final ThoughtsAfter this, I ran an additional 50-round box of ammo through the gun just to plink some steel with it and had a good enough time. Even the smallest soda can target wasn't too difficult to hit repeatedly with the relatively crude ammo, and I think that's where the ammo is meant to really shine, despite the marketing talk about pest control and small game hunting. Cyclone is loaded hot and light, so it can cycle out of virtually any semi-auto pistol or rifle, and is cheap enough to blast through bricks of it without getting hit too hard in the wallet. That cheapness, however, does come at a cost, and it has been historically very typical for Remington Rimfire ammunition. It's absolutely filthy. While all 150 rounds I used for this test fired reliably, by the time I got to actually plinking (100 rounds), the freshly wiped-down 10/22 had already started showing signs that it was getting gummed up, with failures to extract and stovepipes being the only two types of malfunctions I observed. The ammo and the 10/22 are likely produced with loose enough tolerances that they complement one another, but the fact that cheap Remington rimfire ammo is some of the dirtiest in the game means that in some guns, you might have to step up the cleaning routine if you want your gun to run like a sewing machine during your plinking sessions. Personally, I consider malfunction clearing as part of the training, and I tolerate it till I can take a break to swab the bolt and breech quickly. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this particular ammo, as I'm more than certain you've at least tried it. What have your experiences and results been at the range with Remington Cyclone 22LR 36 gr? Thanks as always for stopping by to read The Rimfire Report, and be sure to stay tuned to a future edition where we'll test the "new" updated Cyclone ammo in the same series of tests. Remington 22LR Cyclone Ammo Buy on Optics Planet We are committed to finding, researching, and recommending the best products. 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