On a recent trip, the Dove hunting wrapped at sunset, but the dark nights that followed were chock full of other opportunities. After dinner, after cigars, after men-around-the-fire style chitchat time, Steve and I broke out the .22s and the thermal optics and went after rabbits for meat and rats for fun and pest control.
With about a dozen rabbits and eight or more rats taken out, we were super happy with the consistent performance of this rimfire load . . .
Though I’ve owned a couple boxes of these CCI Mini-Mag Segmented Hollow Points for about a decade, I had never shot an animal with it until our south Texas dove hunt a few weeks ago. Dedicated to shooting suppressed, I had always used subsonic ammo when dealing with raccoons around my chicken coop and other little critters.
On a mission to put more rabbit meat on our plates, however, it was time to step up to a more effective hunting round. At the same time, I realized this ammo was unlikely to hit its stated 1,235 FPS velocity from the 6-inch barrel in my Black Collar Arms Piglet Takedown SBR, seen above, which may well put it under the speed of sound.
Sure enough, the ol’ Garmin clocks these Mini-Mag SHP rounds at an average of 1,127 FPS from this shorty build. That’s is subsonic if it’s warmer than about 72 degrees outside. Not a problem most of the year here in the Lone Star State, and it was well subsonic on the hot nights down on the Gulf of America near the Mexico border.
Visually, these 40 grain projectiles are clearly a hollow point. Copper plating makes them cleaner on your fingers and in your suppressor and barrel.
The fact that the bullets are designed to break into three segments isn’t visually obvious. There’s nothing like clear grooves, cut lines, or indentations to give it away, though if you inspect inside the hollow point you might notice it’s slightly triangular rather than perfectly round.
Frankly, with the small size and thin skin of a rabbit, I wasn’t confident these rounds would expand/segment at all anyway. Maybe they’d just perform identically to the plated round-nose subsonics I had shot little critters with previously.
That, however, was absolutely not the case! I’m pretty sure these CCI segmented HPs would fully segment before they exited a chicken nugget-sized field mouse.
Every single little animal we shot showed clear signs of these bullets doing exactly what they’re supposed to, and the effect on the animals was solid. We could hear the ‘whump’ of the impact — a different, deeper whump than the more click-like sound of the round nose ammo’s impact.
The animals noticed, too, as nearly every last one was immediately dispatched right where it stood.
Even better, the Mini-Mags were very accurate out of both guns.
The vast majority of the animals were hit in precisely the same spot on their anatomy, minus a couple of intentional head shots and the rat above, who was facing away from me and took what you’d call a “Texas heart shot” were he a deer.
While laying that big chungus of a rat down for photos, a shiny object behind his ear caught our eye.
Is that?…that couldn’t be…
It is! That little shiny piece of lead just behind the rat’s ear was one of the three bullet segments.
There was no visible exit wound(s) on this animal, but this segment was pretty dang close to leaving one. It’s certainly possible that the other two segments escaped the rat and I couldn’t see the hole(s) under its fur. I think it’s more likely, though, that they were still inside the animal.
So there you have it. The CCI Mini-Mag Segmented Hollow Point 22LR ammunition will penetrate the length of a big ol’ chubby rat darn near the size of a rabbit. I didn’t dissect the thing, but based on the shot placement and orientation of the rat, I’m fairly sure the bullet passed through some combination of bones — hip, spine, ribs, shoulder, etc. — in its travels.
With 100% reliability from the quality CCI ammo — not just on these nights but through years of use — extreme efficacy, and solid accuracy, the Mini-Mag Segmented HP is a winner for hunting varmints, pests, and small critters in general. I’d absolutely use it on coyotes, too.
Rabbit is delicious, BTW! Pick up some CCI Mini-Mag Segmented Hollow Points at Brownells HERE and get after those tasty varmints.
My Marlin Model 60 doesn’t like hollow points, but I haven’t tried these.
That is a well fed rat!
I’ve been using a .22 cal pellet rifle to kill nuisance rabbits and squirrels for 20 years, or more.
But no e CCI advertisement.
Bud I purchased this ammo and CCI has no idea this article exists. It’s obviously a very positive review, but it’s an honest review based on my personal experience with ammo I bought from a store. We built our entire reputation on honest reviews and burned — in some cases very seriously — bridges with major manufacturers because of it. Your sarcastic cynicism can eat a satchel of richards.
I think he gets that impression from the way you write about and present the ammo in the article, which is acceptable and informative and ‘review like’ but the way its worded and presented makes it seem sort of ‘advertisement’ like.
Its titled ‘This Great 22LR Load Puts Pests Down Fast’ then uses wording a graphics that ‘showcases’ the ammo and use then at the end you go “…Pick up some CCI Mini-Mag Segmented Hollow Points at Brownells HERE …” (with ‘HERE’ being a link to Brownells).
So it does sort of read like an ‘advertisement’ with the way its worded and presented even if you didn’t intend it to be.
I nailed many a rabbit and squirrel and field rat with my trusty .22 when I was a child. Still have that .22.
Lots of 6 and 7 year olds had .22’s where I lived back then, I wasn’t the only one. We never wanted for .22 ammo, there was always someone who would supply us, for example parents, the local grocery store (for doing chores for them), even the sheriffs department patrols would just stop when they saw us kids out with our .22’s and give us some ammo as they carried .22’s in their trunks for the occasional ‘varmint’ calls and always had .22 ammo for those.
Of all the guns I have in many different calibers and as much as I enjoy them, for me the .22’s are still the most fun to shoot.
got friends on their way back from okie wedding, the pickup is full.
there won’t be any of these in there, but i would like to try some segmentation.
They also make a reduced power version of this cartridge. Same bullet that runs at ~700 fps out of my AR with the CMMG conversion bolt. It won’t reliably cycle, but a quick pull on the charging handle will take care of that if needed. The wife’s bird feeders are 35 long paces from the back door, and I seldom need more than one for anything from starlings to coons. That “whump” you heard is even more pronounced when plugging coons.
Jeremy,-(who may, or may not have, spoken in class today) –
How much more expensive is this than the standard HP CCI 36 gr. Mini-Mag, please?
I bought about 600 rounds of that stuff for my EDC NAA Mini-Revolver. I won’t be changing over to the segmented stuff for that one, I want that slug to stay in one piece for the pesky two-legged varmints. For the four-legged variety, I may give the segmented stuff a try…