New And Favorite CCI .22 Long Rifle Loads

New And Favorite CCI .22 Long Rifle Loads

- Brian Pearce

During my grade school years, I would save up my meager allowance to purchase .22 Long Rifle ammunition at Benny’s Tire store, the only place in a remote Oregon town of less than 500 people that sold guns and ammunition. Benny kept most brand names on his shelf – Winchester, Remington, Federal, Revelation, Imperial and others – but the Cascade Cartridges Inc. (CCI) MINI-MAG HYSPEED was always reliable, accurate and seemed to shoot faster from my Winchester Model 67A rifle’s 27-inch barrel. Most important, and especially impressive to a third grader, was that the term “MAG” was in the name. However, as I grew older and gained experience with a variety of guns, I began to greatly appreciate the quality of CCI rimfire loads that were coincidentally produced not far from my home, in historic Lewiston, Idaho, located on the Lewis & Clark trail.

CCI was started by Dick Speer (brother to Vernon Speer) during the 1950s by producing extruded brass cases. In the early 1950s he began supplying FA-70 mixture primers to the U.S. government but soon developed noncorrosive formulas and became a major primer source for hobby handloaders. By the late 1950s, Vernon was producing powerloads for nailguns, which evolved into commercial .22 rimfire sporting ammunition by 1963. Quality was high and CCI soon earned its respectful place among long-established, competing brands.

CCI has been an unusually progressive company and has developed many new manufacturing processes that have served to improve quality while keeping costs in check. It is the outstanding performance of CCI products, however, that has made them especially popular with shooters.