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Testing my new Voodoo V22 Apparition.

Roc Doc

Roc Doc

2A SNBI
Joined
May 20, 2020
Member Number
580
Messages
2,935
Loc
Way out West.
Decided to get into the .22lr PRS game. The top finishers are almost always shooting a Voodoo, with the occasional CZ, Tikka, or Anshutz thrown in. Anyway I ordered a V22 Apparition with a threaded 22" MTU barrel, (Ace is their supplier), 30 MOA top rail in a MPA BA Competition chassis in the Tungsten color. Put a Vortex Viper PST II 5-25x with EBR-7C reticle in an American Defense QD mount. It comes with a Timney trigger which is what I use in most of my other rifles, so didn't have to do anything in that area.

Capstone Precision represents Berger Bullets, Lapua ammo, SK ammo and Vihta Vuori powder, and they have a facility that is local to me, (about 50 miles from my casa), that has testing facilities for various explosive products including ejection seat motors and such. They also have a dedicated rimfire testing system that is comprised of a 100m tube with shot marker cameras and data logging capabilities. With this testing system you can bring in, or ship, your rifle for testing with various lots of Lapua rimfire ammo. On this day I elected to test Center-X, Midas+ and X-Act, which are all the same bullet and load, but varying levels of QC with the very best being X-Act, followed by Midas+ and finally Center -X, with pricing in relation to the quality. I knew going in I wasn't going to buy the X-Act at $0.73 per round :eek:, but wanted to test it to see if it was that much better than the cheaper variations. The cost for this testing? $50 and it included the ammo tested, and the technician for as long as required...about 2 hours in my case. Dude was super cool and knew his shit top to bottom, (fun fact, he prefers archery to firearms, :laughing:, for hunting anyway.). I signed up online and selected a couple dates/times that would work for me and they confirmed my appointment and I was set to go.

They recommend getting 150-200 rounds down the pipe before testing, so I grabbed some Federal Automatch and CCI standard velocity which are both waxed bullets, and some Aguila Super Extra which is plated, also some CCI Green Tag but the Voodoo magazine didn't like them so I only shot a few of those. Got a good zero at 50 yards, set the turrets to 0 and then started shooting thumb sized rocks in the berm at aprox 110yds till I got to my barrel number, practiced some tripod shooting and various positions to make good use of the time.

Anyway, here she is.

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I arrived at the Capstone facility just before 8am, and the technician was summoned to meet me at the gate and escorted me back to the testing facility. They took serial numbers off the gun, had me fill out some brief paperwork and then we headed over to the actual shooting area. Devan started by removing the barreled action from the chassis then mounting it in a fixture they custom machined to fit the V22 receiver, torquing it to spec and with a quick bore sight to the 50m target, we were ready to begin. He asked if I had any ammo I wanted to test, and yes I did bring one box each of Gold Medal Match and Wolf Extra (by Eley), but told him I didn't know if it was bad manners to bring in other mfg's ammo, and he pointed out that it was an opportunity to show how much better Lapua ammo is, so we started with the GMM, which gave us a 62.56 mm group at 50yds, then the Wolf Extra which shot better at 49.1mm, so about 5 moa and 4 MOA respectively. Now according to Voodoo, the V22 is specifically chambered for Lapua ammo, it will shoot other brands of course, but it's optimized for Lapua.


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Then we tried about 8 different lots of Center-X with two lots showing promise. We then moved on to the Midas+, and I didn't see any real gains over the two best Center-X, and same with the testing of the X-Act. So we went back to the two good lots of Center-X, tested them again and decided on the lot that gave the most consistent groups (#1), which was right at 30mm, so just about 1 MOA at 100m. #2 gave a smaller ultimate group but the second group was bigger so the consistency of #1 was the lot selected for purchase. I was able to place my order after the gun was put back in the chassis, and 5,000 rounds of Center-X showed up at my house less than a week later.

All in all it was a great experience and I highly recommend you take advantage of it if you're serious about rimfire shooting. They have a second facility in Ohio as well, and like I said you can attend in person or ship your rifle to them.
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Also, we didn't test the GMM or Wolf at 100m, but the group sizes were roughly twice the size at 50m compared to the best Lapua lots at 100, so that would make the Lapua 4x more accurate than the GMM or Wolf. Pretty amazing in my book.
 
Johann said:
Very cool. Did not know an ammo company would do that.

If I had a high performance expectation out of something I owned I would do that in a minute.
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It's pretty common for high level sponsored shooters, and military marksmanship teams, etc., but making available to anyone IS very cool.
 
Oh, and after we were done selecting the lot, I put my Harrell Precision tuner brake on it to make sure it wasn't going to fubar the groups, and it shot the same, just under 30mm, so I'll see if I can tune the harmonics and get even tighter groups. I have one on my 20" AR, and it did shrink my groups. Sounds like a good Saturday morning project.


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Steve300xcw said:
So how do those work?
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The brake portion is fixed to the barrel, and you turn the part with the numbers from 0 to 2, shoot a group, from 2-4 shoot a group, 4-6 shoot a group, till you find that the groups have either stopped shrinking or are opening back up. You're changing the harmonics of the barrel by moving the weight back from the muzzle. I have the Erik Cortina tuner brake on my 6GT, as do a lot of the guys I shoot PRS with, it's good for addressing barrel wear, you can keep the same load as the throat wears and compensate with the tuner instead of having to change seating dept on your rounds.
 
surpip said:
That mag looks giant for 22LR
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It's one they make. It's AICS pattern so it fits a variety of chassis, not just MPA. It's mostly solid plastic with the front portion actually feeding the rounds with a standard spring follower setup.
 
Roc Doc said:
Oh, and after we were done selecting the lot, I put my Harrell Precision tuner brake on it to make sure it wasn't going to fubar the groups, and it shot the same, just under 30mm, so I'll see if I can tune the harmonics and get even tighter groups. I have one on my 20" AR, and it did shrink my groups. Sounds like a good Saturday morning project.


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you're going to forget all about tuner brakes when the can clears.

but youve got a while.... eforms are going to be getting to 300 days here soon.
 
Texas97 said:
you're going to forget all about tuner brakes when the can clears.

but youve got a while.... eforms are going to be getting to 300 days here soon.
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I know, going on 8 months now. One of the guys I shoot PRS with brought his Voodoo out with a can on it and subs, and you could hear the drop of the hammer over the report of the gun. It was pretty awesome.

My FFL has my can in his safe so when the V22 came in, we put the can on and did some plate shooting in his back yard. :usa:
 
Roc Doc said:
I know, going on 8 months now. One of the guys I shoot PRS with brought his Voodoo out with a can on it and subs, and you could hear the drop of the hammer over the report of the gun. It was pretty awesome.

My FFL has my can in his safe so when the V22 came in, we put the can on and did some plate shooting in his back yard. :usa:
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let my little girl shoot left over pumpkins off the porch railing with open sights on a Browning T-Bolt i put together for low-light, flashlight illuminated night pest control. she loved it. Old school one-piece TBAC can that probably needs to be cleaned.
 
Texas97 said:
let my little girl shoot left over pumpkins off the porch railing with open sights on a Browning T-Bolt i put together for low-light, flashlight illuminated night pest control. she loved it. Old school one-piece TBAC can that probably needs to be cleaned.
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I use my ultrasonic cleaner to clean my other cans. You should see the shit that comes out when you turn it on. If you leave it in long enough it will wear off the annodizing, so I just hit it with some BBQ paint after it's dry.
 
Roc Doc said:
I use my ultrasonic cleaner to clean my other cans. You should see the shit that comes out when you turn it on. If you leave it in long enough it will wear off the annodizing, so I just hit it with some BBQ paint after it's dry.
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Titanium with cerakote. I ain't scared.
 
Roc Doc said:
:lmao:
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I am being serious.:laughing: was typing on my phone and hit regime, instead of "regimen".

anyway, contrary to stories that have been completely fabricated about me, :flipoff2: i know 22lr is dirty as hell and should be cleaned for prime accuracy since its typically uncoated lead bullets, etc.

on a high end Vudoo barrel, what are you going to be doing for cleaning the barrel and keeping the accuracy you are striving for? or have you not gotten there yet? Did you clean after the 200 round initial settle-in period?
 
I'm gonna guess that if you have to ask, you don't want to know...
 
This is seriously cool. It seems pretty easy to get consumed by precision shooting as the level of detail is nuts. But doing it in 22lr should hopefully be cheaper overall.

Maybe. :lmao:
 
Texas97 said:
I am being serious.:laughing: was typing on my phone and hit regime, instead of "regimen".

anyway, contrary to stories that have been completely fabricated about me, :flipoff2: i know 22lr is dirty as hell and should be cleaned for prime accuracy since its typically uncoated lead bullets, etc.

on a high end Vudoo barrel, what are you going to be doing for cleaning the barrel and keeping the accuracy you are striving for? or have you not gotten there yet? Did you clean after the 200 round initial settle-in period?
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So I'm right about 225 so I'll clean it this weekend and then re-zero and set zero-stop afterwards. I haven't shot any of the Lapua yet, they use a waxed bullet like all the other super premium LR ammo. Been using Spartan Accuracy oil on the GT, and I'm not much of a snake-oil buyer, but it seems to be working. I'm over 2200 now and it's doing just fine, had it scoped at 2100 and my smith said it looked great, especially for 2100 rnds going almost 3k fps.
 
Yotota said:
This is seriously cool. It seems pretty easy to get consumed by precision shooting as the level of detail is nuts. But doing it in 22lr should hopefully be cheaper overall.

Maybe. :lmao:
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The best part of 22lr is no reloading, I enjoy it, but it's a serious time suck, especially when you're loading for multiple calibers and even different loads for two guns in the same caliber.
 
Roc Doc said:
The best part of 22lr is no reloading, I enjoy it, but it's a serious time suck, especially when you're loading for multiple calibers and even different loads for two guns in the same caliber.
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How consistent is good 22lr ammo? I imagine that's what you're paying for more than anything else.

Speaking of which... How much is good 22lr?
 
Yotota said:
How consistent is good 22lr ammo? I imagine that's what you're paying for more than anything else.

Speaking of which... How much is good 22lr?
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Well if you read my first couple posts it shows how consistent what is generally regarded as the best ammo is. It really depends on the gun. I did a big test with my S&W M&P15 Performance Center .22lr and the Wolf ammo grouped the best, but it was the most expensive of the types I tried, and CCI standard velocity was not far behind it for 1/4 the price.:clown: I posted the results at the other place but can't find the pic right now.
 
Roc Doc said:
Well if you read my first couple posts it shows how consistent what is generally regarded as the best ammo is. It really depends on the gun. I did a big test with my S&W M&P15 Performance Center .22lr and the Wolf ammo grouped the best, but it was the most expensive of the types I tried, and CCI standard velocity was not far behind it for 1/4 the price.:clown: I posted the results at the other place but can't find the pic right now.
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That did explain the accuracy potential. Does the high end rimfire ammo ever have any ignition quirks, or funny case issues, or all the other annoyances of cheap rimfire ammo? I'm not sure what faults are inherent to the design of 22lr versus cheap ammo just being... Cheap.
 
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