Improving the speeds of a .22

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richalexander97

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If one wanted to get a .22 up to extreme energies, lets say, matching a 6.5 creedmoor, could you add slight extensions or 'fins' on the bearing surface, basically bringinng the caliber up to 6mm - and thus increasing the surface area allowing more energy.

The fins would kind of resemble.driving bands on an artillery shell but theres only 4 of them.

Of course youd need a wad behind the bullet to seal the gas. Im just wondering how it would cope with the rifling. Im guessing youd need a softer rifling like polygonal...

Any thoughts?
 
At some point you’d have to ask yourself why. Kind of like Tincup, “ I parred the back 9 with a 7 iron David”. To which Simms asked,” why”? :) Just shoot bigger bullets at normal velocities. The 220 Swift put out some incredible velocities back in the 1930s I believe and barrel life wasn’t great. I guess it just depends on what you hope to accomplish.
 
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Robert said:
How would that produce more energy? And are we talking .22 long rifle or .22 caliber in general, as 22-250 already produces some pretty hot numbers.
Click to expand...

Well a 6mm produces more energy due to higher swept volume. Thats why the 6mm creedmoor has far higher energy than any .22

My idea involves bringing the bullet diameter up to 6mm - purely due to the fins.
This gives a massive boost in energy
 
I have to agree with the question of what for?
As I u I've started to lose hair and turn grey. I learned bigger and slower with less energy numbers does a much more reliable job.
Kind of like the old pro vs the new hire.
One is franticly trying to get the job done while the other just does it.
But I still love my 22-250 and 240 Wby when it comes to bang flops.

Fins and rifling don't work well together. Generally sabots and high velocity don't work well together.
 
richalexander97 said:
Well a 6mm produces more energy due to higher swept volume. Thats why the 6mm creedmoor has far higher energy than any .22

My idea involves bringing the bullet diameter up to 6mm - purely due to the fins.
This gives a massive boost in energy
Click to expand...
Look up accelerator sabots and 30-06. It will give you an idea on what will happen.
 
I don’t recall diameter even in the equation to calculate the energy of a flying bullet… it surely may have a relation to impact force on a target, as will bullet shape and construction, but not the actual foot pounds of energy that the bullet is moving with.

It's all about the M and the V.

https://www.larrywillis.com/bullet-energy.html

Stay safe..
 
Well its to do wih piston area....a wider bore means more muzzle energy....thats how he 300blackout manages to get more power than a 556.

Anyway i was curious if anyone thought it was feasible
 
As bfh said, it has been done; see Remington Accelerators.
I shot some when they were new on the market; fast but erratic accuracy, some would group, some wouldn't.

If you want to tinker with it yourself, sabots are available.
http://www.sabotreloadingpro.com

I have not seen commercial sabots other than .30 caliber and while I have read of them for 6mm bullets, I do not now see anything but .224".

You may also read of the Gerlich Squeeze Bore in which a projectile with ductile flanges is shot through a tapered barrel. Normally done in German anti-tank guns, before shaped charges and discarding sabots, there were things like a 28mm tapered to 20mm.
The only current work I know of is some .22 LR - .20 squeeze bore and there were some .22 LR - .17s made in Australia as the Myra Extruder. Easy to swage a lead .22 LR down a bit.
 
This reminds me of a guy I talked to when I was a Field Service Manager for Deere & Co. He was going to hook a generator onto the axle of an electric riding mower so it would recharge as he mowed his lawn. When I informed his that the generating system would draw more energy than it produced, he started arguing that electrical generation didn’t require any energy input.

I told him that if he could figure it out, he would be the richest man in the world

Guys think changing the shoulder angle 1/2 a degree and adding 10% to case capacity will somehow make a cartridge magical. Laws of physics come into play somewhere
 
richalexander97 said:
My idea involves bringing the bullet diameter up to 6mm - purely due to the fins.
This gives a massive boost in energy
Click to expand...
There's more to it than mere diameter..
The projectile needs some sort of ballistic coefficient for when it leaves the barrel. Or, we'd just have long rods in the cases.
Adding fins to conventional projectiles has not proven to be of much success, when tried.

Part of that is in the fact that from the average firearm a projectile emerges at around 30,000 RPM, so, fins are of little use, and could be said to be counter-productive.

Now, in tank munitions, there are a number of other considerations at play. One is that, for kinetic armor penetration, there's a length-to-width ration that runs from 1:16 to 1:19, with 1:17 about ideal. For tank killing, rather huge velocity is also wanted. Whic his why most tank cannon are around 120mm bore, and use discarding sabots to support the sub-caliber projectile (which is in the 60-70mm diameter range). The circa 4000 fps that generates facilitates hitting targets at range expediently.

Now, people tinker around with all sorts of things. Like necking a 280 cartridge down to 6mm or even 5.56mm, but the results don't generally do anything better than existing combinations do.

Witness the 6mmArc, in many ways, that's an "optimized" 5.56 round. A 60-70gr round at near 3000fps. But, it's not that much better than 63gr 5.56, so "adoption" has not been overwhelming.

There's probably an "ideal" rifle round lurking out around 7x45 or so. But, there are so many 6.8mm rounds that already exist, and 270 and 280 as well, in case dimensions from 40 to 56mm long as to have pretty much trod all the ground there is for 7mm.

The Xcellerator rounds were interesting--poke a 55gr 5.56 round into a sabot and plant that in a 30-06 or 308 case, These whistled out around 3200-3300fps. Typically they'd print high & right by 6-7 inches, versus their full-bore counterparts. The question of why would a person want AR performance out of a Garand or M-14 becomes a legitimate question to ask.
 
richalexander97 said:
Well its to do wih piston area....a wider bore means more muzzle energy....thats how he 300blackout manages to get more power than a 556.

Anyway i was curious if anyone thought it was feasible
Click to expand...
You're slightly off track. Larger bore diameter means you can burn faster powder without creating too much pressure.
A better comparison would be 308 and 243.
For a 110 308 benchmark is excellent it gets roughly 3300 fps at under 60000psi.
A 243 using 4831 gets roughly 3050 fps with a 108 grain bullet at just under 60000 psi.

If you sabot a 243 bullet you will get close to the muzzle energy of a 308 with much better retained energy at 100 yards and beyond.
The fins aren't necessary.
 
CapnMac said:
There's more to it than mere diameter..
The projectile needs some sort of ballistic coefficient for when it leaves the barrel. Or, we'd just have long rods in the cases.
Adding fins to conventional projectiles has not proven to be of much success, when tried.

Part of that is in the fact that from the average firearm a projectile emerges at around 30,000 RPM, so, fins are of little use, and could be said to be counter-productive.

Now, in tank munitions, there are a number of other considerations at play. One is that, for kinetic armor penetration, there's a length-to-width ration that runs from 1:16 to 1:19, with 1:17 about ideal. For tank killing, rather huge velocity is also wanted. Whic his why most tank cannon are around 120mm bore, and use discarding sabots to support the sub-caliber projectile (which is in the 60-70mm diameter range). The circa 4000 fps that generates facilitates hitting targets at range expediently.

Now, people tinker around with all sorts of things. Like necking a 280 cartridge down to 6mm or even 5.56mm, but the results don't generally do anything better than existing combinations do.

Witness the 6mmArc, in many ways, that's an "optimized" 5.56 round. A 60-70gr round at near 3000fps. But, it's not that much better than 63gr 5.56, so "adoption" has not been overwhelming.

There's probably an "ideal" rifle round lurking out around 7x45 or so. But, there are so many 6.8mm rounds that already exist, and 270 and 280 as well, in case dimensions from 40 to 56mm long as to have pretty much trod all the ground there is for 7mm.

The Xcellerator rounds were interesting--poke a 55gr 5.56 round into a sabot and plant that in a 30-06 or 308 case, These whistled out around 3200-3300fps. Typically they'd print high & right by 6-7 inches, versus their full-bore counterparts. The question of why would a person want AR performance out of a Garand or M-14 becomes a legitimate question to ask.
Click to expand...
Missed a zero… 300,000 RPM :)

Stay safe.
 
Bfh_auto said:
You're slightly off track. Larger bore diameter means you can burn faster powder without creating too much pressure.
A better comparison would be 308 and 243.
For a 110 308 benchmark is excellent it gets roughly 3300 fps at under 60000psi.
A 243 using 4831 gets roughly 3050 fps with a 108 grain bullet at just under 60000 psi.

If you sabot a 243 bullet you will get close to the muzzle energy of a 308 with much better retained energy at 100 yards and beyond.
The fins aren't necessary.
Click to expand...

Right, it seems like larger bore diameter/smaller projectile diameter sabot system would get the OP where he wants to go.

I recall seeing Accelerator loaded in .30/30 with exposed lead noses on the .224 bullets…that is surely a strange combo o_O.

Stay safe.
 
Are the fins fixed or retractable? Maybe a sabot with an internal .5 millisecond fuse to ignite a supplemental powder charge between the bullet and the sabot...after the bullet exits, the second burn creates velocity of at least 8200fps with a 55 grainer. By my calculations anyway, that should get it to at least 1950 ft/lbs at 400m.
 
CapnMac said:
There's more to it than mere diameter..
The projectile needs some sort of ballistic coefficient for when it leaves the barrel. Or, we'd just have long rods in the cases.
Adding fins to conventional projectiles has not proven to be of much success, when tried.

Part of that is in the fact that from the average firearm a projectile emerges at around 30,000 RPM, so, fins are of little use, and could be said to be counter-productive.

Now, in tank munitions, there are a number of other considerations at play. One is that, for kinetic armor penetration, there's a length-to-width ration that runs from 1:16 to 1:19, with 1:17 about ideal. For tank killing, rather huge velocity is also wanted. Whic his why most tank cannon are around 120mm bore, and use discarding sabots to support the sub-caliber projectile (which is in the 60-70mm diameter range). The circa 4000 fps that generates facilitates hitting targets at range expediently.

Now, people tinker around with all sorts of things. Like necking a 280 cartridge down to 6mm or even 5.56mm, but the results don't generally do anything better than existing combinations do.

Witness the 6mmArc, in many ways, that's an "optimized" 5.56 round. A 60-70gr round at near 3000fps. But, it's not that much better than 63gr 5.56, so "adoption" has not been overwhelming.

There's probably an "ideal" rifle round lurking out around 7x45 or so. But, there are so many 6.8mm rounds that already exist, and 270 and 280 as well, in case dimensions from 40 to 56mm long as to have pretty much trod all the ground there is for 7mm.

The Xcellerator rounds were interesting--poke a 55gr 5.56 round into a sabot and plant that in a 30-06 or 308 case, These whistled out around 3200-3300fps. Typically they'd print high & right by 6-7 inches, versus their full-bore counterparts. The question of why would a person want AR performance out of a Garand or M-14 becomes a legitimate question to ask.
Click to expand...



Riomouse911 said:
Missed a zero… 300,000 RPM :)

Stay safe.
Click to expand...
Whoops, you said firearm, I was thinking strictly rifle. Many handguns are about 6,000-8,000 rpm.

My oops.
Stay safe.
 
Careful with those missing zeros. :thumbdown:

Anyway, I don't think the why has been answered yet? And if you want Creedmore energies, use a Creedmore.
Btw, could you explain this better?
richalexander97 said:
If one wanted to get a .22 up to extreme energies, lets say, matching a 6.5 creedmoor, could you add slight extensions or 'fins' on the bearing surface, basically bringinng the caliber up to 6mm - and thus increasing the surface area allowing more energy.

The fins would kind of resemble.driving bands on an artillery shell but theres only 4 of them.

Of course youd need a wad behind the bullet to seal the gas. Im just wondering how it would cope with the rifling. Im guessing youd need a softer rifling like polygonal...

Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
Let's just use a number like 2400 ft-lbs for the 6.5 Creedmore using a 120 grain Amax at around 3000 fps (just for example) -- then I would expect to launch my hypothetical 55 grain 22 bullet at about 4435 fps to match the Creedmore energy in this example. It would be hell on the bore, especially around the throat area so again I ask, why? A 40 grainer would have to be in the neighborhood of 5200 fps and a heavy 80 grainer would need to be traveling around 3675 fps. Again, why?
I'm hoping you'll be able to explain your fin idea in more detail. I'd really like to hear it.
 
Google “expansion ratio”.

The 223rem has a limited case volume, meaning a limited powder charge of potential energy. The net kinetic energy out is the result of the pressure of the sealed bore behind the bullet over the duration of the dwell time.

Expand the bore diameter, effecting nothing else, then you have increased the expansion ratio, so the “piston” system loses force (pressure) exceptionally fast.

We can shoot the same bullet weight in 6-45 as we shoot in standard 223, over relatively similar charge weights. The results are underwhelming. It takes about 15% more powder in the case to produce the same velocity behind the 6mm as the smaller diameter 22 cal, because the expansion ratio is simply too great, and the small powder charge is not able to sustain the pressure curve in the larger bore.

This entire thread indicates a gross misunderstanding of physical principles. The guy is assuming constant pressure curve as the bore is enlarged, which simply won’t happen.
 
Howland937 said:
Are the fins fixed or retractable? Maybe a sabot with an internal .5 millisecond fuse to ignite a supplemental powder charge between the bullet and the sabot...after the bullet exits, the second burn creates velocity of at least 8200fps with a 55 grainer. By my calculations anyway, that should get it to at least 1950 ft/lbs at 400m.
Click to expand...

Completely unrealistic.

Now, a pair of little tiny tanks, containing fuel and oxidizer, combined with a gyro and a microchip, all fitted inside the bullet, would really be something. The remote control would require a bit of juggling, course. You'd have to put the gun down right quick, but I'm sure a bit of practice would sort it out.
 
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