The worst .22 ammo is Remington Golden bullets.
The next worse is any other Remington ammo that isn’t match grade. the Golden bullets have lots of duds and zero consistency.
One step up from that is the Winchester 333 packs often found at Walmart. It’s ok ammo but very smokey and you get occasional duds but no where near as bad as the Golden Bullets.
The top two “value” bulk packs that I’m familiar with are the Federal and Blazer packs. Both are good, reliable ammo. You may get one dud per Federal 525 pack.
I’ve shot 3 boxes of Blazer 525 in the past 12 months and had ZERO failures. The ammo is clean and consistent.
The best non match grade ammo is the CCI stinger ammo but you pay for it. The 500 packs run around $70 or so.
CCI Mini mags are also good and a little less expensive than the stingers. I’ve only ever seen those in 100 packs.
I tested every bulk .22 ammo I could lay my hands on before putting away my stores...well before the 2006 election, by the way. Golden Bullets grouped the best(in a Marlin and a 10-22) and gave same reliability you cite for Federal.