Thursday, May 01, 2025

Wideners

  Back at the turn of the century, I was doing a lot of handloading and writing at The Frugal Outdoorsman with the late, great Junior Doughty. One of the companies I got powder from was Wideners. They sold all manner of stuff for the handloading enthusiast and were in my bookmarks when I was looking for supplies.  

Over the years, I changed direction.  Junior died, and the old website went into archive.  But, a month or so ago, I got an email from Wideners asking if I would review some ammo.  Sure, I'd be happy to review some ammo.  As it turns out, I have a grandson who is now on a 4-H rifle team. He is always looking for ammo. High-grade, match, .22 LR ammo.  He currently shoots SK red label, which does the best in his rifle, but he's tried Eley and just about everything that we can get at a big box store.

Grandson shoots what started life as a Ruger 10/22.  His dad has become fairly adept at customizing it, and I believe that the only things on that rifle that came in the Ruger box are the magazine and the receiver.  This rifle is custom, and it is sweet. But, I digress.

So, with Wideners offer, I clicked on the ink and found something called Federal AutoMatch.  It's a 40 grain, target grade ammo packed in a 3250 round box and comes in at under 7 cents a shot.  So, I ordered a box and we'll see how it shoots in grandson's rifle. If it beats what he is using now, it will last him a season of competition. If not, we'll use it for varmints and other things.

If you haven't looked at Wideners in a while, give them a look-see.  There are some pretty good ammo deals there.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I remember that web page (The Frugal Outdoorsman) which had a lot of great content and tips on how to smooth out the edges of the outdoors. I had no idea you wrote there. MUCH THANKS TO YOU AND THE OTHERS WHO WROTE IT.

I thought for a short while I was a customer of Wideners as well but I was mistaken. It was Whittakers, who at the time had a lot of of the CZ 452 rimfire rifle owners hanging about.

Thanks for the tip on rimfire ammo there.

Old NFO said...

I was sorry to see y'all shut that down. You did an excellent job of getting info out there!

Anonymous said...

I like Automatch a good deal-most of my 22s shoot pretty well with it, and a couple do even better (Rem. 511s). That said, the SK is better match ammo because it truly is match ammo, while Automatch is better-than-average (in my guns) bulk ammo. I would be very surprised if Grandson's .22 did better w/the Automatch..but, who knows, the bulk ammo might just surprise.
-JLM