The Rimfire Advantage

Think rimfire ammunition is low-tech? Think again.

Reared on a farm in Washington state, Justin Ruegsegger’s love for all things mechanical came from working alongside his father who was a farmer and diesel mechanic. He received a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Idaho, where he had the opportunity to work as an intern at CCI/Speer one summer. When he was offered full-time position at CCI/Speer, he grabbed it immediately. His first title was rimfire new product engineer, where he was fortunate enough to work under Brett Olin, one of the creators of Speer Gold Dot. After working on CCI rimfire new products for a number of years, he changed gears and took on new challenges as a manager, most recently as director of engineering.

SHOT Business: What do you see as the biggest challenges facing the industry in the next five years?

Justin Ruegsegger: I think our biggest challenge in the next five years is similar to what other manufacturing industries are currently facing. Continued supply chain constraints make it more difficult than ever to keep factories running smoothly. Delivering quality products on time to our customers continues to be our top priority, and we’re doing our best to be nimble and adapt.

 SB: What opportunities do you see?

JR: Necessity is the mother of innovation. A tough market and supply constraints force you to reevaluate your approach and adapt, which leads to discovering new opportunities you didn’t see before.

SB: When you get up in the morning, what gets you excited about working in the industry?

JR: The answer to this question has evolved over the years. In the beginning of my career it was developing new, innovative products. In other words, I was focused mainly on the widgets we produce. Today, I’m most excited about the awesome people I get to work with, growing our sport, and sharing it with future generations that will carry the torch after I’m gone.

SB: How will you meet the expectations of your customers?

JR: I think the best way to meet customer expectations is to be a user of the products we produce. A true love and passion for the sport will help keep us aligned with our customers.

SB: CCI has a well-deserved reputation for reliability and accuracy. How do you achieve this?

JR: We have a wide range of quality measures in place that provide data at all points in the manufacturing and assembly processes. We use this data to track and improve quality. Years of doing this has paid dividends.

SB: Rimfire shooters have benefitted greatly from product developments at CCI recently. Maxi-Mag Segmented HP 22 WMR is just one example. What makes this ammo so special?

JR: The advantage of rimfire ammo in general, when compared to centerfire ammo, is its low cost, light felt recoil, compactness, and overall user-friendly appeal. The Achilles Heel of rimfire ammo, especially in a varmint hunting application, is a direct result of its advantages, in that bullet weight, velocity, and thus energy are comparatively low. The key to producing a successful rimfire varmint hunting cartridge is to have a bullet technology that transfers as much energy as possible into the target.

In the past, a segmenting bullet wasn’t possible because conventional copper jackets didn’t allow for this type of expansion while maintaining bullet integrity in flight. We were able to build on the innovation of our Clean-22 coating technology from our .22 LR line and apply it to .22 WMR, resulting in a bullet that’s completely encapsulated in a polymer coating. That gives us a bullet that’s robust enough to hold together in flight, yet allows for immediate expansion upon impact, creating three separate wound channels for maximum energy transfer. The Clean-22 coating also has lower in-bore friction than a copper jacket, which allows us to drive the 46-grain Maxi-Mag Segmented HP .22 WMR at 1,875 feet per second, resulting in the highest energy rimfire cartridge we produce—359 foot-pounds of energy at the muzzle. (cci-ammunition.com)