CCI Quiet 22

Depending on where you live, you can shoot in your own backyard for plinking or pest control, but even if you can lawfully do so, you probably don't want to incur the wrath of your neighbors by making all that racket. If that describes you, you'll want to check out the new Quiet-22 .22 Long Rifle load from CCI. It's so quiet — a quarter the noise level of standard .22 — you can even shoot it without hearing protection.

CCI Quiet 22 employs a standard .22 LR case. The company claims a velocity level of 710 fps, although my test sample yielded 676 fps from the muzzle of a CZ 452. For comparison, Remington, Winchester and CCI high velocity loads clocked around 1,200 fps in that rifle. Standard deviation for Quiet-22 was 11.8, and extreme spread for 10 shots was 35 fps, so it's pretty consistent ammo.

(RELATED: G&A quick clip of Quiet-22 at the range)

Is it accurate? My first group out of the CZ 452 topped two inches at 50 yards. Man, this isn't good, I thought. But then I realized this bullet is traveling at super-slow speeds, meaning barrel time is a big factor. In fact, it's so slow that with good follow-through and the right color target, you can actually see the bullet hit the paper.

I bore down on my fundamentals and groups immediately shrank. Best group was 0.88, with the average for six five-shot groups running 1.4 inches. I typically get 0.75 50-yard accuracy from most high-speed hunting-type rounds out of this rifle.

One note: CCI says this load is safe for semiautos, and while that's true, don't expect it to cycle a semiauto action — or at least it wouldn't run in my 10/22. It goes "bang," but you have to cycle the action manually to extract/eject/feed.