Why aren't there more smoothbore .22's?

I've shot pigeons on top of the barn and watch a couple of feathers drop as the pigeon flies away annoyed but unharmed. In a nutshell, smooth bores and 22 shot shells are just not very effective. I killed a lot of starlings at night in the winter, but the average shot was less than 20 feet. But, once I had access to a pellet gun, I never shot the 22 again; pellets were much much cheaper.

When I was a kid there were tales of horror about the damage done to rifled bore .22 rifles done by shooting rat shot in them.


My dad even blamed the inaccuracy of the old swingle shot he gave me on his Dad having fired much rat shot in it. He also told me a tale of a .22 crimped shot round a vise and a two pound hammer in his Dads' blacksmith shop that involved damage to a wood cabinet and a serious whooppin'.

Try as I might I never saw or removed a bit of #12 shot from that old rifle.....I think the serious ding on the crown had far more to do with accuracy issues.

Mainly I just found that the things spread so fast from .22 rifles as to be fairly pointless. The shot was so small it generally had no ability to "carry" and be effective at range......except that one pellet.

Buddies were woods walking and got hot and tired one August. The boys went skinny dipping to cool off. Continuing the standard 12 to 15 year old boy banter one of a pair of brothers became insistant that rat shot was totally use less beyond ten yards from the rifles. To prove his point he aimed at his little brother some 40 or 45 yards away and standing on the log that provided the dam for the deep spot they were playing in. He actually shot at his brother. One piece of shot made it to brother and had force to penitrate a bit of skin.

I leave it to your imagination where this skinny dipper was caught by the supper pellet, but will say after his trip to the doctor to have the shot removed and a subsequent simple surgery to remove a bit of skin to prevent possible infection that some guys gave him the knick (ed) name "Kosher"

I think it was at least a year before older brother even saw a rifle again.

-kBob

Funny one!

If that would have been a Rutledged choked smooth bore .22 the kid would have been sent to a flute player to show him where to put his fingers when peeing, but I regress, maybe Art's Grandma is reading this

we shoot .22 smooth bores indoors at the american legion turkey shoot. we shoot at 16 ft into carpet and plywood at paper targets. some of the shooters use the old remingtons from the 1930`s, but the most use the savage made up to last year. much cheaper then the remingtom at $300 vs $800. there are a lot of them in the area because they bought them in to shoot rats after the 1934 flood that flooded Louisville ky.

Download the 410 with light charges of black powder/substitute and small shot. I know people that use 22lr shotshells for shooting bats off their eaves trough. But you could do the same with a 410 and the right handload. At one time Marlin was selling a 22mag smoothbore they called the "Garden Gun".