I was recently able to pick up a handful of sleeves of this often overlooked 36-grain offering from Remington. Their 22 Viper 36-grain Copper Plated Truncated Cone load is primarily intended as a small game load, but according to Remington also serves you just as well on the target board. Today we’ll put this fast-striking ammo through our typical series of tests with the Angstadt RPR to see what it can give you. More Rimfire Report @ TFB: The Rimfire Report: Is CCI’s Uppercut A Knockout 22LR Cartridge? The Rimfire Report: ELEY’s Penultimate 40 gr Match Flat Nose The Rimfire Report: Master Chief's Favorite .22? FarrowTech's FT-M Kit For complete clarity here, we’re talking about the ammo, not the gun, which happens to share the same model name and manufacturer. The Remington Model 522 Viper 22LR Rifle was only produced for about 5 years in the mid-90s when I was just being introduced to firearms. They’re about as rare these days as the Nylon 66s that they aimed to replace. Remington’s Hyper Velocity Viper 22LR line was originally released sometime in the early 80s, a full decade before the 522 Viper would hit the shelves. It’s a shame we can’t test them together. Product Overview Link: https://www.remington.com/rimfire/29-21288.htmlPlated truncated cone bullets pack plenty of bite for small game of all types and fast-paced .22 excitement of every sort. These hyper-velocity loads are ideal for small-game and hold their own at the target board as well. For fast-striking, 22 performance, Viper® can't be beat.Improvement - Industry leading technology has improved consistency and lowered chamber pressures while maintaining the high-speed velocity of 22 Viper.Flat Nose Bullets - Our bullet design allows full weight retention which creates spectacular terminal performance.Plated Truncated Cone - Solid bullets known for smooth feeding and weight retainment for adequate penetrationSpecs: Caliber22 LRGrain Weight36Bullet StylePlated Truncated Cone SolidMuzzle Velocity1410Ballistic Coefficient.103Package Quantity100UsageSmall Game When it comes to rimfire hunting loads, rather than emphasizing expansion, which rimfire ammo often does poorly at distance, Remington 22 Viper focuses on penetration and weight retention. For speed, Remington has spiced the load to ideally run at 1410 fps, but that figure is probably out of a 20” barrel, and not the 18” integrally suppressed Angstadt RPR barrel we’re using today, which typically bleeds off quite a bit of velocity from even the hottest of rimfire loads. The truncated bullet is another interesting design choice. It is somewhat interesting to see a truncated cone when I am very used to CCI’s segmented and traditional hollowpoint designs. From what I could tell from looking at the ammo as I was loading it, the consistency of the projectiles is fairly good, with a rather thin coat of copper plating that seemed to be almost non-existent right above the driving bands of the bullet. This might be less of a big deal for fouling but more of a deal for handling with bare hands - wash your hands whenever you handle rimfire. Another thing worth noting is that this might be great ammo for firearms that have trouble feeding regular round nose or hollow point bullets, as the truncated cone does indeed seem to play quite well with a wide variety of feed ramps, chambers, and magazines. Velocity ResultsEach of the 100 rounds I tested out of this particular sleeve loaded, fed, cycled, and ejected just fine out of the Angstdt RPR’s match Bentz chamber. The chronograph data is pretty telling already, with a fairly decent standard deviation, but an extreme spread that leaves some room for improvement if this is truly to be trusted to be a reliably accurate or consistent load for small game hunting. As expected, the ported Angstadt barrel cut a lot of the bite off of the Viper’s advertised 1,410 fps muzzle velocity down to an average of 1,196. This cuts the muzzle energy down from an advertised 159 ft-lbs down to our observed 114 ft-lbs, which is only slightly more powerful than our 32gr CCI Uppercut ammo we tested last week out of the same rifle. From a shooter's perspective, there was quite the audible difference between rounds since many of them on the lower end of the spectrum dipped very close to or below the transonic threshold - about 1,115 fps - for my altitude (about 1,000ft above sea level). This kind of inconsistency, especially at this critical threshold, is usually not a good sign for longer-range accuracy. Downrange, a bullet that’s already exiting the barrel at only slightly above the transonic threshold is likely to divert off course far earlier in its flight path due to interfering with its own wake as it slows down. However, better than the numbers, the groups tell much of the same story in visual clarity. Accuracy ResultsI personally believe the ammo is capable of being accurate, but perhaps its implementation in the Angstadt RPR is cutting its velocity down to a critical number that’s causing some of this inaccuracy. It hadn’t occurred to me at the time, but I should have used my remaining ammo to group some of it through my factory Sporter 10/22, which might offer slightly more velocity, keeping the ammo from dipping too close to subsonic. That or this ammo just doesn’t play consistently well with this barrel. The best group I was able to pull off was just a touch over an inch center to center at 50 yards, so about 2.5 MOA worth of accuracy out of this load. Not terrible, and certainly accurate enough for pest control or some cheap plinking at closer ranges, just not very inspiring for anyone looking to use this for target shooting. In some of the other groups you can see where some rounds were significantly higher than others, and our graph data from the Garmin Xero C1 Chronograph also seems to indicate that this particular load’s velocity inconsistency can lead to some rounds falling a half inch or more above or below the point of aim. Final ThoughtsI’d be interested to see what your accuracy results or experiences have been with this ammo. This is one of the more “accessible” ammo types we’ve talked about in a while since we’ve mostly been diving into match-grade ammunition, which is already niche in and of itself. I’ve recently purchased a handful of sleeves to test as the summer goes on, so we’ll have a good mix of both high-end and budget-tier ammo that I think you guys will like. I'd still default to something more consistent, like CCI Mini-Mags or Remington's own 40-grain Subsonic load. The Remington 40-grain Subsonic CPHP proved remarkably accurate across several different guns, and it doubles as excellent suppressor-host ammo if you don't mind paying a few extra cents per round. Next up, I've got some more "fun" ammo to share, so stay tuned and thanks as always for stopping by to read The Rimfire Report. We’ll see you again next week! Remington 22 Viper Ammo Buy on Optics Planet We are committed to finding, researching, and recommending the best products. We earn commissions from purchases you make using the retail links in our product reviews. Learn more about how this works.