RevolvingGarbage
Member
WARNING!
This post is long!.
I've been using these little rounds for target shooting in my backyard for a while now, and I've compiled a bit info on them so I thought id do a little write-up here addressing some myths and questions abut these rounds.
Some specs:
Test firearm: Mossberg 702 Plinkster .22lr rifle
Caliber: .22 Short
Bullet: 29 grain LRN
Advertised Velocity: 710 FPS
Energy@ adv. Velocity: 32.4 Ft-lb.
Here's whats inside a CCI .22 CB Short.
Some have speculated that its merely the priming compound that powers the bullet. There is in fact a small charge of powder in the case, shown here compared to a complete round, and the powder charge of a Winchester 36gr HV .22lr hollow point.
Function:
As I said, I've been using these rounds for target practice in my backyard.I live on a lake, in a subdivision outside of city limits. My neighbors are right next door, but I have plenty of room behind the house to do some shooting safely (at least 400 yards across the lake, up a hill, and through some woods between me and any other houses, and I only shoot at a downward angle so the rounds hit the dirt between me and the lake), but I've found that even normal subsonic .22lr rounds are a little bit too loud to shoot.
Nobody has complained, even the 4-5 times Ive fired my .38spl snub (gel tests) or when my dad touched off my 12 gauge out back (couldn't figure out how to unload it, I wasn't home, so he shot into the dirt in the backyard
), but I'm sure frequent loud gunfire would eventually result in knocks on the door.
Anyway, I originally wanted to use CB longs, but have never seen them at any place within 150 miles of home. The local Walmart however has the CB shorts for $8/100rds so I decided I would figure out a way to use them. As far as noise level, out of a rifle barrel they have less pop than a Co2 air pistol. The only way you can tell im shooting a real rifle is that when the rounds hit, they hit with much more authority than an air rifle pellet.
Any bolt action .22lr rifle would be able to use them, single shot easily enough. The challenge with the semi-auto is that there's just about no way to feed a round into the chamber by hand (atleast with the Plinksters design),so I was going to have to make them feed by the magazine.
I had about a 50% success rate feeding them 1 at a time from an unmodified magazine, but the rounds are a tad to expensive to be mashing up half of them in feeding. What I did was angle cut the back of the follower to allow the rounds to naturally tip upwards and thereby nose into the chamber more easily.
As luck would have it, this modification allowed 3 rounds at a time to be loaded into the magazine with probably a 98% success rate of feeding, and even better, normal .22lr rounds still feed perfectly(though the angle cut takes away the bolt hold open feature of the magazine, but I didn't care much for it anyway).
On the subject of feeding, the .22CB Short rounds are obviously fairly low powered. They will not properly cycle the unmodified action of the gun. The round has just enough energy to blow the case just out of the physical chamber and the rim will just barely hit the ejector, causing the case to tilt right slightly. When the bolt returns forward the mouth of the case partially catches on the rim of the chamber.
Here's what the "planned jam" looks like.
Basically the gun ends up working just like a straight pull bolt action. I like to tilt the gun 90 degrees right so the ejection port faces down, then pull the bolt back and hold till I hear/see the case hit the ground, then release the bolt which chambers the next round normally.
Performance
The short version of what I'm going to say about the performance of this little cartridge is this. In my experience using the round in a .22lr rifle, I have found that has acceptable accuracy and killing power for plinking or for dispatching pests or hunting critters quietly when used at ranges of 50 yards or less.
I noted earlier that at the published velocity of 710 FPS, this round develops about 32 FPE. That's about 10 FPE more than a high velocity break barrel .177 air rifle, but a lot less than most .22lr rounds. That said, it makes an impressive display on reactive targets. I like to shoot soda cans full of water, and the CB short out of the Plinksters 18" barrel tears them open top to bottom from a center hit and sprays water up and out quite far.
I wanted to get an idea of what the little round was capable of in comparison to some other rounds. I particularly like the tests on www.theboxotruth.com regarding the penetration of various rounds in water, as a means of cheaply and easily relating to penetration in gelatin, which of course ideally shows how a round is designed to perform in flesh.
According to their testing, a round will penetrate approximately twice as far in water as it will in ballistic gelatin. For reference, in their testing, the .380 HP out of a KelTec P3AT, which would certainly be considered lethal, had a penetration of 24" in gallon milk jugs full of water, shot from just a few feet away.
For my testing, I set up four 2 liter Pepsi bottles filled with water (each are about 4 and 1/4" across at the middle where I shot) at 25 yards. I wanted to shoot at this range to get a feel for how the round does at what I consider its ideal range when used in a rifle.
Here's a pic of the recovered slug.
It went clean through the first two bottles and was recovered in bottle number 3. There wasn't any indication of damage to the side of the bottle opposite of the entry hole, so we're going to say it stopped about half way through (yes I know it probably did make it all the way across and bounce back without marking the bottle
). This means the round got at least 8.5" of solid penetration through the two bottles, plus some in the third, so lets say, 10" total in the water?
Going by the 2/1 ratio of penetration in water over ballistics gel, we can expect the same round to penetrate about 5" in actual gel. Remember that in the BoxO'Truth tests the .380 hollow point penetrated 24 inches of water equal to 12" of gel.
The recovered slug showed signs of yawing, probably as it entered the third bottle, and also some rounding and smashing at the front.
Unscientific though this test was, it should tell you that at the very least, the CB short is not something you want to get shot with. One lucky(unlucky?) center mass hit, and it could easily kill you just as dead as any other bullet.
Accuracy
As I said before, I feel like this round, when used in a .22lr rifle, has sufficient accuracy for plinking and taking small game at ~50 yards. In my experience however, it is not what I would describe as "precise".
About a week ago I set up this target, backed off 25 yards, and fired three shots at it. This was bench rested, using a 4x15 air rifle scope.
The rifle was sighted in for standard .22lr ammo (Federal AutoMatch specifically), and you will notice the "group" is off of POA by about 2 inches to the right. This in and of its self is somewhat strange. Regular .22lr will hit that target dead center (Photos to come later).
I know what you are going to say next too, "That's not really a proper group to show accuracy, look, you've got a flier!". I thought so as well when I first shot the group, but then I went out again today and shot the same target again:
Same setup, same batch of ammo, same point of aim. The wind was blowing about ~5MpH both days, from the left the first day, from behind me to the right the second day.
The rounds appear to be printing two distinct groups. That's six rounds, 3 rounds on each day a week apart. You will also note from the first picture that it put the two groups on the paper evenly, one left and 2 right the first day, 2 left and one right the second day. I really only have experience shooting .22 rifles for accuracy, and this seems very strange. My only explanation is that the rounds are resting in battery in two distinct ways in the chamber, and so are giving me two different, repeatable groups.
One of you more experienced guys can probably tell exactly whats going on here, but personally, I'm a little stumped. In any case, its clear that the free-bore between the bullet and the rifling in the chamber is causing some variation in the way the bullet leaves the barrel, and the end result is a lack of consistency. I would not feel comfortable trying to take an animal smaller than a squirrel with this round/gun combo much past 25 yards, but with that being its limitations, it does work just fine within them. Two liter bottles aren't safe within 75-90 yards and I would say I could engage an "Area Target"() within probably 200 yards or so.
So anyway that's what my experiences have been using the CCI .22 CB Shorts in my rifle. I would be really interested to hear about them being used in actual .22 Short rifles or handguns for that matter, or if anyone else has made them work at all in other auto-loaders.
This post is long!.
I've been using these little rounds for target shooting in my backyard for a while now, and I've compiled a bit info on them so I thought id do a little write-up here addressing some myths and questions abut these rounds.
Some specs:
Test firearm: Mossberg 702 Plinkster .22lr rifle
Caliber: .22 Short
Bullet: 29 grain LRN
Advertised Velocity: 710 FPS
Energy@ adv. Velocity: 32.4 Ft-lb.
Here's whats inside a CCI .22 CB Short.
Some have speculated that its merely the priming compound that powers the bullet. There is in fact a small charge of powder in the case, shown here compared to a complete round, and the powder charge of a Winchester 36gr HV .22lr hollow point.
Function:
As I said, I've been using these rounds for target practice in my backyard.I live on a lake, in a subdivision outside of city limits. My neighbors are right next door, but I have plenty of room behind the house to do some shooting safely (at least 400 yards across the lake, up a hill, and through some woods between me and any other houses, and I only shoot at a downward angle so the rounds hit the dirt between me and the lake), but I've found that even normal subsonic .22lr rounds are a little bit too loud to shoot.
Nobody has complained, even the 4-5 times Ive fired my .38spl snub (gel tests) or when my dad touched off my 12 gauge out back (couldn't figure out how to unload it, I wasn't home, so he shot into the dirt in the backyard
), but I'm sure frequent loud gunfire would eventually result in knocks on the door.Anyway, I originally wanted to use CB longs, but have never seen them at any place within 150 miles of home. The local Walmart however has the CB shorts for $8/100rds so I decided I would figure out a way to use them. As far as noise level, out of a rifle barrel they have less pop than a Co2 air pistol. The only way you can tell im shooting a real rifle is that when the rounds hit, they hit with much more authority than an air rifle pellet.
Any bolt action .22lr rifle would be able to use them, single shot easily enough. The challenge with the semi-auto is that there's just about no way to feed a round into the chamber by hand (atleast with the Plinksters design),so I was going to have to make them feed by the magazine.
I had about a 50% success rate feeding them 1 at a time from an unmodified magazine, but the rounds are a tad to expensive to be mashing up half of them in feeding. What I did was angle cut the back of the follower to allow the rounds to naturally tip upwards and thereby nose into the chamber more easily.
As luck would have it, this modification allowed 3 rounds at a time to be loaded into the magazine with probably a 98% success rate of feeding, and even better, normal .22lr rounds still feed perfectly(though the angle cut takes away the bolt hold open feature of the magazine, but I didn't care much for it anyway).
On the subject of feeding, the .22CB Short rounds are obviously fairly low powered. They will not properly cycle the unmodified action of the gun. The round has just enough energy to blow the case just out of the physical chamber and the rim will just barely hit the ejector, causing the case to tilt right slightly. When the bolt returns forward the mouth of the case partially catches on the rim of the chamber.
Here's what the "planned jam" looks like.
Basically the gun ends up working just like a straight pull bolt action. I like to tilt the gun 90 degrees right so the ejection port faces down, then pull the bolt back and hold till I hear/see the case hit the ground, then release the bolt which chambers the next round normally.
Performance
The short version of what I'm going to say about the performance of this little cartridge is this. In my experience using the round in a .22lr rifle, I have found that has acceptable accuracy and killing power for plinking or for dispatching pests or hunting critters quietly when used at ranges of 50 yards or less.
I noted earlier that at the published velocity of 710 FPS, this round develops about 32 FPE. That's about 10 FPE more than a high velocity break barrel .177 air rifle, but a lot less than most .22lr rounds. That said, it makes an impressive display on reactive targets. I like to shoot soda cans full of water, and the CB short out of the Plinksters 18" barrel tears them open top to bottom from a center hit and sprays water up and out quite far.
I wanted to get an idea of what the little round was capable of in comparison to some other rounds. I particularly like the tests on www.theboxotruth.com regarding the penetration of various rounds in water, as a means of cheaply and easily relating to penetration in gelatin, which of course ideally shows how a round is designed to perform in flesh.
According to their testing, a round will penetrate approximately twice as far in water as it will in ballistic gelatin. For reference, in their testing, the .380 HP out of a KelTec P3AT, which would certainly be considered lethal, had a penetration of 24" in gallon milk jugs full of water, shot from just a few feet away.
For my testing, I set up four 2 liter Pepsi bottles filled with water (each are about 4 and 1/4" across at the middle where I shot) at 25 yards. I wanted to shoot at this range to get a feel for how the round does at what I consider its ideal range when used in a rifle.
Here's a pic of the recovered slug.
It went clean through the first two bottles and was recovered in bottle number 3. There wasn't any indication of damage to the side of the bottle opposite of the entry hole, so we're going to say it stopped about half way through (yes I know it probably did make it all the way across and bounce back without marking the bottle
). This means the round got at least 8.5" of solid penetration through the two bottles, plus some in the third, so lets say, 10" total in the water?
Going by the 2/1 ratio of penetration in water over ballistics gel, we can expect the same round to penetrate about 5" in actual gel. Remember that in the BoxO'Truth tests the .380 hollow point penetrated 24 inches of water equal to 12" of gel.
The recovered slug showed signs of yawing, probably as it entered the third bottle, and also some rounding and smashing at the front.
Unscientific though this test was, it should tell you that at the very least, the CB short is not something you want to get shot with. One lucky(unlucky?) center mass hit, and it could easily kill you just as dead as any other bullet.
Accuracy
As I said before, I feel like this round, when used in a .22lr rifle, has sufficient accuracy for plinking and taking small game at ~50 yards. In my experience however, it is not what I would describe as "precise".
About a week ago I set up this target, backed off 25 yards, and fired three shots at it. This was bench rested, using a 4x15 air rifle scope.
The rifle was sighted in for standard .22lr ammo (Federal AutoMatch specifically), and you will notice the "group" is off of POA by about 2 inches to the right. This in and of its self is somewhat strange. Regular .22lr will hit that target dead center (Photos to come later).
I know what you are going to say next too, "That's not really a proper group to show accuracy, look, you've got a flier!". I thought so as well when I first shot the group, but then I went out again today and shot the same target again:
Same setup, same batch of ammo, same point of aim. The wind was blowing about ~5MpH both days, from the left the first day, from behind me to the right the second day.
The rounds appear to be printing two distinct groups. That's six rounds, 3 rounds on each day a week apart. You will also note from the first picture that it put the two groups on the paper evenly, one left and 2 right the first day, 2 left and one right the second day. I really only have experience shooting .22 rifles for accuracy, and this seems very strange. My only explanation is that the rounds are resting in battery in two distinct ways in the chamber, and so are giving me two different, repeatable groups.
One of you more experienced guys can probably tell exactly whats going on here, but personally, I'm a little stumped. In any case, its clear that the free-bore between the bullet and the rifling in the chamber is causing some variation in the way the bullet leaves the barrel, and the end result is a lack of consistency. I would not feel comfortable trying to take an animal smaller than a squirrel with this round/gun combo much past 25 yards, but with that being its limitations, it does work just fine within them. Two liter bottles aren't safe within 75-90 yards and I would say I could engage an "Area Target"(
) within probably 200 yards or so.So anyway that's what my experiences have been using the CCI .22 CB Shorts in my rifle. I would be really interested to hear about them being used in actual .22 Short rifles or handguns for that matter, or if anyone else has made them work at all in other auto-loaders.
