Every month Shooting Sports USA (SSUSA), an NRA publication, releases a new issue with a variety of feature stories on gun industry products and important pistol, rifle, and shotgun competitions. SSUSA also regularly posts valuable guides for handloaders, plus instructional articles that can help shooters improve their skills.

The March 2023 Digital Edition of Shooting Sports USA is packed with interesting content. There is a guide to Sighting in New Shooters which covers Eye and Hand Dominance. In addition, there is a big 6-page article on the Best New Products from SHOT Show 2023. But the feature that really caught our attention is a summary of new .22 LR rimfire ammunition.

Match Grade .22 LR Ammunition Offerings for 2023

With the rapid growth of NRL22, NRL22X, PRS 22 and other rimfire rifle sports, we were pleased to see a four-page SSUSA feature on match grade .22 LR ammunition offerings for 2023. This covers new (or notable) rimfire ammo from Lapua, ELEY, Norma, SK, RWS, Aguila, and Wolf.

New for 2023, Norma has released innovative XTREME LR-22 ammo, which features a unique, patented bullet design. This has a special base with a cone (see diagram). Norma claims that this “rocket tail” design reduces drag by creating less negative pressure at the back end of the bullet. It will be interesting to see how this new bullet design works in rimfire ELR competition.

Lapua recently introduced its impressive Super Long Range and Long Range rimfire ammunition. These two new ammo types are optimized for long range accuracy and consistency. The goal was to have extremely low extreme spread (ES) and standard deviation (SD), to yield the highest precision down range. Shooters competing in disciplines such as NRL22X and Rimfire ELR should benefit.