Hello and welcome back to another edition of The Rimfire Report! This weekly series is all about the rimfire firearm world and its various firearms, sports, ammunition, and trends. Last week we talked about the oddball Magnum Research Mountain Eagle 22LR pistol. The Mountain Eagle is an interesting piece and kind of blends in the best of worth worlds between high capacity, and lightweight design. The Mountain Eagle in my opinion might have been a little ahead of its time but unfortunately never really took off and was eventually discontinued by Magnum Research. Speaking of new things, the subject of this week is Norma’s relatively new Eco Power and Eco Speed lead-free 22LR ammunition. Today we’ll explore how they perform in a number of tests to give you guys a read on whether this ammunition might suit any of your rimfire needs.

More Rimfire Report Articles @ TFB:

• The Rimfire Report: NEW SIG P322 – 6,000 Rounds Later
• The Rimfire Report: What Does $1000 of Upgrades Look Like on a MKIV?
• The Rimfire Report: Testing The New BCA 22WMR Upper

The Rimfire Report: Testing Norma’s ECO Speed and ECO Power 22LR Ammo

.22 LR – 24 GR – LEAD-FREE – FRAGMENTATION HOLLOW POINT – NORMA ECO POWERKey Metrics:

• Caliber: .22 LR
• Bullet Type: Fragmenting Hollow Point (Zinc core, Copper plated)
• Weight: 24 grain
• Case Type: Brass
• Muzzle velocity: 1,706 fps
• Muzzle energy: 155 ft. lbs.
• Lead-Free
• Quantity: 50
• Price Per Box: $9.99

.22 LR – 24 GR – LEAD-FREE – EXTREME VELOCITY – NORMA ECO SPEED

Key Metrics:

• Caliber: .22 LR
• Bullet Type: Zinc core, Copper plated
• Weight: 24 grain
• Case Type: Brass
• Muzzle velocity: 1,706 fps
• Muzzle energy: 155 ft. lbs.
• Lead-Free
• Quantity: 50
• Price Per Box: $9.99

Link to Both Products: https://normashooting.com/product-category/caliber/rimfire/22lr/

Reliability Testing

I tested both types of ammunition in various rimfire pistols and rifles and found that both the ECO Speed and ECO Power cartridges worked very well in both bolt-action and semi-auto rifles. I tested the ammunition using my Ruger 10/22, Ruger Precision Rimfire, the previously mentioned Magnum Research Mountain Eagle, and the new SIG Sauer P322. While the ammunition worked great in the rifles, it tended to struggle in most semi-auto rimfire pistols with the exception being the Mountain Eagle.

The reliability issues observed had to entirely do with there not being enough energy for the slides of these firearms to cycle. Given that rounds use a lightweight 24-grain projectile, this could probably be expected. However, if the intention is to use this ammunition for hunting, I would strongly recommend that you avoid trying to use this ammunition in pistols that don’t have longer barrel lengths.

In regards to the rifles, my Ruger Precision Rimfire has always had issues with extracting any type of ammunition and so I won’t attribute the failures to extract to the ammo itself – just the rifle which apparently has a weak extractor. In fact, for the Mountain Eagle and 10/22, I didn’t have any sort of feeding or extraction issues whatsoever and the rounds remained perfectly reliable throughout testing. By that, I mean that the primers detonated every time regardless of the firearm that they were used in. So a rating for reliability? Good out of rifles and questionable for pistols.

Velocity Consistency

I ran 50 rounds each of the ECO Speed and ECO Power through my Ruger Precision Rimfire which has an 18-inch barrel featuring a 1:16 twist rate. I chose this as my test platform as it was the rifle that had the longest barrel length out of all of my rimfire guns and would hopefully give each ammunition the barrel length it needed to accelerate close to its advertised velocities.

I took my ProChrono Digital chronograph out to the range with me and got started testing the ammunition. I recorded 50 shots each using my BX-15 magazines and only let the barrel cool in between loadings. Since my Digital Link Module inexplicably broke before I went to the range, I wasn’t able to get a nice neat digital readout for each ammunition that would automatically calculate performance so I had to do all of that by hand after I got back from the range.

My testing found that both the ECO Speed and ECO Power performed about 300 fps slower than their advertised velocities. According to my testing with my rifle on that particular day, the Eco Speed had a mean average of 1,416 fps, a standard deviation of 99, and an extreme spread of 424 (slowest round: 1,173 and fastest round: 1,597). The Eco Power fragmenting ammunition had very similar results with just a slightly lower mean average of 1,365, a standard deviation of 124, and an extreme spread of 337 (slowest round: 1188 and fastest round: 1525).

Norma ammunition does not specify a test barrel length either on their website or on the product packaging but it is likely that they used a longer barrel to get those results. I am uncertain if the weather played a factor in my test results but just for reference, it was a pretty mild day with temperatures in the high 60s and about average humidity. Norma does advertise on their packaging that you can expect “up to a 58% increased speed” over standard velocity ammunition and if we are using CCI Standard as a metric out of an 18″ barrel, which gets an average speed of about 1100 fps, then that only comes out to a 28% increase (even less of an increase for the ECO Power). I would be interested to see if this ammunition would perform as advertised out of a 20 or 22-inch barrel.

Accuracy and Terminal Ballistics

I’m going to be completely upfront here and say that not only am I not a super precise shooter, but I also picked a really bad day to do my accuracy testing. However, the past month has been a choice between either torrential thunderstorms, tornados, or extremely windy days – none of which are helpful when testing 22LR ammunition. The day I happened to do my accuracy testing, there were winds gusting up to 38 mph with an average wind speed of around 20 mph. I tried my best to group shots during less intense winds but this proved to be a difficult task to accomplish and in the end, I decided that wind is an element we must always factor into our ammunition selection so It would be a good test of the ammunitions performance in particularly windy conditions.

I pulled each of my best 5-round groups from the day and found that ECO Speed shot a 2.878 MOA group while the ECO Power had a slightly bigger group of 3.052 MOA. Each of these groups was shot at 50-yards and translating these groups into tangible size means that each group was about 1.5-inches in size. I think that despite the windy conditions and my probably sub-stellar marksmanship this is not all too bad considering both types of ammunition are hunting loads. A 1.5-inch group at 50 yards is more than accurate enough to slay most small critters.

I also brought out some of my own homemade ballistic gel which is a close imitation of real FBI 10% ballistics gelatin blocks and I’ve found it useful for comparative testing. Both gel block tests were performed using a Ruger 10/22 with a 16″ barrel and I found that the ECO Speed plowed right through my 14-inch block without losing any visible chunks and the ECO Power worked as advertised and fragmented within the first couple of inches of the block with the bulk of the remaining projectile passing through the entire target. For hunters, this means that you’ll have fewer bits to clean out of the meat after a successful kill using either ammunition, and any bits that do remain in the meat of your target are lead-free meaning no lead exposure.

Conclusions

I think both the Norma ECO Speed and ECO Power would be decent options for avid small game hunters who plan on eating the meat they hunt or using it as food for their dogs. The ammunition is not only safe for hunting use due to its lead-free nature, any stray bits of projectile that make it into the ground won’t contaminate local groundwater.

I do think that Norma’s claims about velocity do seem to be a bit overblown but I can’t be certain until I can get solid data from them regarding their test barrel length and conditions. However, it is clear that both ammunitions have a wild spread when it comes to velocity consistency. This fact is at least partially responsible for the larger group sizes I saw when testing for accuracy with some shots landing several inches away from where the rest of the group was. For those that are curious, my Ruger Precision Rimfire is calibrated for use with CCI Standard Velocity 40-grain ammunition and I also found that using the Norma ammunition shifts the point of impact about an inch or so to the right.

However, all of that being said, I think this ammunition is good enough to be used for hunting out of a bolt-action or semi-auto rifle. Since it did work flawlessly out of my Mountain Eagle, you could probably also take this ammunition along with you into the wild to use as a light and compact hunting combo with a 22LR pistol with a slightly longer barrel length.

As always I’d like to hear your thoughts about this new hunting ammunition from Norma. Have you had any experience with it and has it been working out well for you? Do you like the idea of more companies providing lead-free or fragmenting ammunition for hunting purposes or is it simply better to just hunt with standard, reliable and consistent high-velocity hollow points? Let us know what you think down in the comments and we’ll catch you again next week for another edition of The Rimfire Report! 

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