I own a Heritage Rough Rider, not a Sentinel.This line of thought plus my own experiences with unreliable .22wmr platforms is exactly how I ended up as a big fan of the .32 family, .32 h&r in particular.
I do not know how reliable your Sentinel is, but my pistol experiences started with Heritage Rough Riders in .22lr/22wmr.
I have had hours of fun shooting .22wmr from my Rough Riders, however all three of them needed shims between their hammer springs and grip frames to be able to strike rimfires with enough authority to reduce light strikes to an acceptable rate for just range use, let alone self defense. So even though I love my 9 shot conversion barkeep, I decided I needed something better for a carry piece.
I then moved on to a Diamondback Sidekick as a double action .22wmr as my chosen carry piece when I couldn’t locate a Sentinel myself. I immediately began testing to find out which .22wmr would be best for carry as I am very certain that .22wmr would do the job ballistically. My intent was to carry Speer Gold Dots for self defense and train with cheaper .22wmr brands. However after having dozens of missfires, cylinder jams, and failures to eject when testing which .22wmr ammo would be the closest match to Gold Dots for training purposes I discovered that my Diamondback Sidekick only likes Gold Dots (It runs flawlessly with those). I thus concluded that .22wmr and rimfires themselves are not worth the hassle for self defense. You need an exact combination of platform and ammo to run it reliably in my experience and I am just not willing to rely on that in my time of need.
Eventually I personally settled on the .32 family as the closest match to .22wmr available in a centerfire platform and I have not been disappointed. 7 rounds of .32 H&R magnum is a great compromise between 9 shots of .22wmr and 5 shots of .38 special.
All that being said those High Standard Sentinels are beautiful and if yours runs reliably I think you should hold onto it and carry it with confidence, as no matter the strength of the round whether or not someone will stop when being shot is always a crapshoot.
I own a Heritage Rough Rider, not a Sentinel.
If you look at ballistic gel or various other mediums, the 22 mag is pretty good.
I had 22 mag NAA Mini - it was the loudest gun! I shot it at at a range between two lane dividers and I thought it blew up. I actually felt the blast wave come back and under my glasses. My eyes automatically slammed shut!
Did you ever notice that they only shoot catatonic ballistics gel? They need to shoot ballistics gel that is mad, drunk, on meth or pcp, etc. Generally speaking, ballistics gel seems to be some of the most patient and forgiving of adversaries.
Did you ever notice that they only shoot catatonic ballistics gel? They need to shoot ballistics gel that is mad, drunk, on meth or pcp, etc. Generally speaking, ballistics gel seems to be some of the most patient and forgiving of adversaries.
Another thing is that I've noticed that .22 WMR ammo has seemed to gotten better in the last 15 to 20 years, while .22 LR seems about the same as it ever was. Considering the tight groups shooting out of rifles at 100 yards and chrony results with deviations getting more consistent, I'd guess that some of this .22 WMR is made very well indeed. Added primer to decrease voids in the rim, better powder measuring, and certainly the better bullets that everyone can see from the outside.
You're projecting that .22 Magnum uses and has more primer compound to fill the voids, but I've never heard that and can't find any supporting evidence to consider that that is the case, so this is more theory than reality. I have been of the opinion that because of the length of .22 Mag the primer compound has a higher chance of getting stuck in the neck and sometimes never reaches the base where it is then spun into the rim.
As for better powder measuring, that's debatable, what likely has a bigger impact on the lower standard deviations and tighter groups is the bullet not be heel based, better, more consistent crimping, and in general just a better powder being used over .22 LR. The higher quality jacketed, not plated or coated lead bullets, is clearly superior.
I doubt .17 HMR had anything to do with it, but technology improvement in general.
My experience has been that I've had nearly as many duds with .22 Mag as I have .22 LR, yet I've shot 10x more .22 LR than I have .22 Mag. Now, all my .22 Mags are single action revolvers with dual cylinders and I've not ever noticed an unusually high dud rate with the .22 LR cylinders beyond what I would consider typical ammo issues, so if I'm not having issues with .22 LR in the SAME REVOLVER, then I cannot assume it's an issue with the revolver when I shoot .22 Mag, thus the only variable is the ammo.
And I'm not going to consider that I have three .22 Mag cylinders that are all faulty or out of spec, but three .22 LR cylinders that are in spec.
My .22 Magnum revolvers are made by NAA and Heritage. They certainly have questionable ignition attributes, but I shoot a lot of .22 LR in them and have less duds than I do .22 Mag, where it is usually 2 per 50 rd box.
This is the typical response that I expect and it's to question the gun and I have said it multiple times it's not the guns because all three .22 LR/Mag combo revolvers I have don't have the ignition issues with .22 LR on the same level they do with .22 Mag. I expect when I get the Taurus Tracker combo .22 LR/.22 Mag that the same excuse will be "it's the gun" when I talk about the eventual .22 Mag issues I have with it and the gun will be blamed because it's a Taurus.Has the Heritage been shipped back to Heritage for evaluation/repair?
https://www.rimfirecentral.com/threads/light-strikes-with-new-heritage-rough-rider-barkeep.1254009/
https://www.taurusarmed.net/threads/heritage-rough-rider-light-strikes-solved.439294/
https://www.reddit.com/r/Revolvers/comments/wksk8o/how_to_fix_your_heritage_rough_rider_light/
https://www.ar15.com/forums/handgun...der-misfire-question-UPDATE-in-OP/33-197031/?
https://www.rimfirecentral.com/threads/heritage-rough-rider-misfire.1238579/
Absolutely not. He has one of his own. Was his father'sSoooo . . . you gave your revolver to a friend?
This is the typical response that I expect and it's to question the gun and I have said it multiple times it's not the guns because all three .22 LR/Mag combo revolvers I have don't have the ignition issues with .22 LR on the same level they do with .22 Mag. I expect when I get the Taurus Tracker combo .22 LR/.22 Mag that the same excuse will be "it's the gun" when I talk about the eventual .22 Mag issues I have with it and the gun will be blamed because it's a Taurus.
If only S&W and Ruger can make a .22 Mag that actually works and never has a light strike or a dud, then I'm not interested because I have no use for a $700 .22 Mag only revolver.
It is not the gun, it's the ammo. The .22 Mag is not as reliable with ignition in revolvers as .22 LR is.
I don't have light strikes with the .22 LR, at least not in a way that is the gun's fault, but the ammo's fault. The .22 Mag, unless it's CCI, it's going to give me at least two duds in a box. I've had Hornady .22 Mag where I indexed it 90 degrees and still didn't go off, so it's not like using premium ammo is a solution either.
You don't have the problems with the .22 LR revolvers because they're .22 LRSoooo . . . your guns haven't been sent back to the manufacturer or anyone else for check out and repair
Consider this little bit of info about convertible cylinder rimfire revolvers with round tipped firing pins mounted in the frame smacked by a transfer bar or flat faced hammer.
The rim diameter of .22 LR is approximately 0.278". The rim diameter of .22 WMR is approximately 0.300". . . . . Awww forget it, remainder of text deleted. It looks like we've been down this road before.
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...-wmr-in-revolvers.881328/page-4#post-11786491
From https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/22-lr-vs-22-wmr-in-revolvers.881328/page-4
I do not have the problems you're having with my pair of Single Six convertibles. And I do not have the problems you're having with my non-convertible .22 LR only H&R 999, Charter Arms Pocket Target, or Ruger Bearcat.
If I had your convertible guns, I'd fix them or get rid of them.
You don't have the problems with the .22 LR revolvers because they're .22 LR
You have a point on the round firing pin of the Heritage and it's one I've thought may have merit as to the issue, but I'm not sending the gun in because it's not worth my time when it shoots 22 LR fine and the odds are the problem can't be fixed with the .22 Mag and I'm not willing to let the gun go because it's the only single action 9 shot .22 LR/Mag revolver available with adjustable sights from the factory.
The NAA's are a different story, they use the hammer mounted firing pin, which is a proper rimfire firing pin, but they also have a shorter hammer throw because of their size. That said, the .22 LR still ignites better in those than the .22 Mag does.
IDK if the Taurus used a round firing pin or a proper rimfire one, but I'll find out whenever I get to buying the Tracker and 942 revolvers.
Just a bit. I had a SW 651 way back when. I had wanted a 63 but the LGS couldn't find one. It was a nice gun however, I found that with the 22 Mag ammo of the day, 50 rounds through the gun, gooked it up with so much unburned powder that I had to use almost a can of some cleaner to free it up and disassemble a bit to get it all out. I also noted that when I shot at a 7 yards paper target, the target was covered in soot. Does today's ammo do that? I dunno. This was in 1994.
Just info. At a match a guy was shooting one of those Keltec 22 mags pistol and it jammed on every stage.