If you have ever spent a lazy afternoon plinking with a .22, there is a very good chance the box on the bench said CCI. The Lewiston, Idaho company is the name in rimfire — the maker of the Mini-Mag that every .22 owner trusts, the Stinger that invented the hyper-velocity round, the Maxi-Mag that rules the .22 Magnum, and the famous Pest Control shotshells for snakes and garden pests. It is also the quiet giant behind the reloading bench: CCI primers sit under more handloaded cartridges than any other brand. Here is who they are, what they make, and what is worth buying.
Who CCI is
CCI (Cascade Cartridge, Inc.) is an American ammunition and primer maker founded in 1951 in Lewiston, Idaho. It is the leading name in .22 rimfire — Mini-Mag, Stinger, Maxi-Mag and Quiet-22 — and it is the reloading world’s default primer brand. 2026 marks its 75th anniversary.
The company was started in 1951 by Richard “Dick” Speer, brother of Vernon Speer, who had just founded Speer Bullets next door. Dick had a machinist’s background from wartime work at Boeing, and CCI began life not as an ammo company but as a primer company, started in a small room of the Speer plant to feed the booming postwar handloading market. That primer heritage still defines CCI today — the two companies share a campus in Lewiston, and CCI’s little copper cups have primed more handloads than anyone can count.
CCI’s quality tier is “reliable and affordable, with a few genuine firsts.” It is not a boutique match house — Lapua and Eley sit above it for pure benchrest rimfire accuracy — but for plinking, small-game hunting, pest control, training and reloading, CCI is the dependable default that almost every shooter has used. In 1976 the company earned its place in the history books with the Stinger, the world’s first hyper-velocity .22 Long Rifle.
What CCI makes
.22 LR rimfire — the core
This is CCI’s heartland. Mini-Mag is the gold-standard reliable plinker — the round you buy when you just want your .22 to go bang every time. Stinger is the hyper-velocity hot-rod (32 grain at 1,640 fps). Standard Velocity is the accurate, mild target load; Quiet-22 runs much quieter than normal .22 for backyard shooting; Velocitor is the high-velocity hunting load; Clean-22 uses a polymer-coated bullet to cut lead fouling; and SubSonic and the segmented hollow points round out the line.
.22 WMR and .17 HMR — the magnum rimfires
Maxi-Mag is CCI’s flagship .22 Winchester Magnum line, joined by TNT and Hornady V-Max-tipped varmint loads and the GamePoint hunting bullet. In .17 HMR, CCI offers the same TNT, V-Max and GamePoint families — fast, flat-shooting varmint and small-game rounds.
Pest Control shotshells — the famous snake loads
One of CCI’s signature products: the Pest Control (long known as “snake shot”) shotshell. These are little capsules of fine #9 or #12 shot loaded into rimfire and pistol cases — .22 LR, .22 WMR, 9mm, .38/.357, .40, .44 and .45 Colt — for dispatching snakes, rats and garden pests at close range without a rifle bullet’s overpenetration. Nobody covers this niche like CCI.
Primers — the reloading standard
The company that started as a primer maker still leads the category. CCI’s numbered primers — No. 200 large rifle, No. 250 large magnum rifle, No. 400/450 small rifle, No. 300/350 large pistol, No. 500/550 small pistol, plus No. 209 shotshell and the benchrest BR series — are the default cups on most reloading benches, prized for clean, consistent ignition.
Blazer — value centerfire
CCI also makes Blazer, the budget centerfire range line: aluminum-cased Blazer for the cheapest possible practice, and brass-cased Blazer Brass (reloadable) for high-volume pistol shooting. It is the value end of the catalog.
Where CCI is made and the primer heritage
CCI is made in Lewiston, Idaho, on the same campus as its sister brand Speer. That co-location is not an accident — the two grew up together, with Dick Speer’s primers and Vernon Speer’s bullets feeding the same handloaders. Decades of priming-compound and rimfire-priming know-how are exactly why CCI rimfire is as reliable as it is: priming a tiny rimfire case consistently is genuinely hard, and it is the thing CCI has done longer and better than almost anyone.
How CCI compares
In rimfire, CCI’s main rivals are Winchester (Super-X, the white-box 555-round bulk packs) and Remington (the Golden Bullet, which is cheap but runs dirtier than CCI). Aguila competes hard on price and oddball loads. Above CCI for pure accuracy sit the premium match houses — Eley and Lapua — whose top .22 LR target ammo costs several times as much and is aimed at serious competitors. For centerfire defense and big-game hunting you would look to CCI’s sister brands Federal and Speer rather than to CCI itself.
For primers, the comparison is shorter: CCI, Federal, Winchester and Remington are the big four, and CCI is the one most reloaders reach for first. The honest trade-offs with CCI: all rimfire is somewhat gun-dependent, so a load your buddy’s rifle loves may not be your rifle’s favorite; aluminum-cased Blazer cannot be reloaded; and in any ammo panic, .22 and primers are the first things to vanish from shelves. CCI is also foreign-owned now (see below). None of that changes the core fact — for the money, CCI rimfire and CCI primers simply work.
Who should buy what
- Plinkers and new .22 owners: Mini-Mag — the most reliable everyday .22 LR.
- Small-game and varmint hunters: Velocitor or Stinger in .22 LR; Maxi-Mag or V-Max in .22 WMR / .17 HMR.
- Backyard and suppressed shooters: Quiet-22 or SubSonic.
- Target and competition rimfire: Standard Velocity (or step up to Eley/Lapua for serious match work).
- Anyone with a snake or pest problem: CCI Pest Control shotshells in your caliber.
- Reloaders: CCI primers in the right number for your cartridge — the safe default.
- High-volume pistol practice on a budget: Blazer or Blazer Brass.
If you are cross-shopping brands for a specific rimfire job rather than buying CCI in particular, our rimfire and reloading guides below put the options head to head.
The CCI philosophy
CCI’s whole identity is built on the small, unglamorous parts of shooting that have to be perfect: the primer that must ignite every time, the rimfire round that must feed in a finicky semi-auto, the tiny shot capsule that solves a backyard problem. It has never chased the tactical or the premium; it has spent 75 years being the brand you don’t think about because it just works. That quiet reliability is the entire point.
How to choose your CCI load
Match the round to the job. For plinking, buy Mini-Mag and don’t overthink it. For small game, step up to Velocitor or a magnum rimfire. For quiet shooting, Quiet-22 or SubSonic. For paper, Standard Velocity, then try a few brands to see what your particular barrel likes — rimfire is fussy that way. For pests, grab the Pest Control shotshell in whatever you are carrying. For reloading, look up the correct primer size (large/small, rifle/pistol, standard/magnum) for your cartridge and buy the matching CCI number. When you want to compare CCI against other brands for a given use, the guides in the next section do exactly that.
75 years of rimfire
CCI’s place in history was sealed in 1976, when its engineers cracked the problem of a true hyper-velocity .22 and shipped the Stinger — a lengthened case, a lighter bullet, and a velocity number no .22 Long Rifle had hit before. It turned a humble plinking cartridge into something that could reach out, and every hyper-velocity .22 since has chased it. Three-quarters of a century after Dick Speer started pressing primers in a back room of his brother’s bullet plant, CCI is part of The Kinetic Group — the former Vista Outdoor ammunition business (Federal, CCI, Speer, Remington and HEVI-Shot) that was sold to the Czech defense company Czechoslovak Group in late 2024 for roughly $2.23 billion. The ownership is foreign now, but the boxes still say Lewiston, Idaho, and the little copper cups still go off every time.
Shop CCI Rimfire, Primers & Prices
Live CCI ammunition and primers with current prices, organized by department and updated automatically — from the Stinger and Mini-Mag to the Pest Control shotshells and the reloading-bench primers.
CCI .22 LR Ammo
CCI .22 WMR (Magnum) Ammo
CCI .17 HMR Ammo
CCI Pest Control Shotshells
CCI Primers
Where CCI Fits in Our Buying Guides
- Best .22 LR Ammo
- .22 LR vs .22 WMR
- Best Competition Ammo
- What Is NRL22? (Precision Rimfire)
- How to Reload Ammunition
- The State of Ammo Prices
CCI FAQ
What does CCI stand for?
Cascade Cartridge, Inc. — named for the Cascade mountain range, founded in Lewiston, Idaho in 1951.
Is CCI good .22 ammo?
Yes. CCI Mini-Mag is widely regarded as the most reliable everyday .22 LR, and the broader CCI rimfire line is the dependable default for plinking, hunting and training.
What is CCI Stinger?
The world’s first hyper-velocity .22 Long Rifle, introduced in 1976 — a 32-grain copper-plated hollow point at about 1,640 fps.
Are CCI primers any good?
They are the reloading world’s default. CCI’s numbered primers (200, 300, 400, 500, etc.) are prized for clean, consistent ignition and are usually the first choice on a reloading bench.
What are CCI Pest Control / snake shot rounds?
Shotshell capsules of fine shot loaded into rimfire and pistol cases for close-range pests like snakes and rats, without a solid bullet’s overpenetration.
Where is CCI made?
In Lewiston, Idaho, on the same campus as its sister brand Speer. Despite the parent company now being Czech-owned, CCI ammunition is made in the USA.
Is CCI related to Federal and Speer?
Yes — all three are sister brands under The Kinetic Group (owned by Czechoslovak Group). CCI leads rimfire and primers, Speer leads bonded defensive bullets, and Federal covers the broad centerfire range.
What tier is CCI?
Reliable mid-tier, with genuine firsts. It is the dependable, affordable rimfire and primer standard — below premium match houses like Eley and Lapua for pure benchrest accuracy, but the brand most shooters actually use.
Related Ammunition Brands
- Winchester Ammunition Parts
- Speer Ammunition Parts
- PMC Ammunition Parts
- Fiocchi Ammunition Parts
- Sellier & Bellot Ammunition Parts
- Magtech Ammunition Parts
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