22 rifle ammo question

[SigLaw]

I am looking to buy a new 22 rifle and notice it also shoots 22 shorts and and 22 long in addition to 22 long rifle.

What would one use 22 shorts for and what are the differences between 22 long and 22 long rifle?

Thanks.

 

[Chipperman]

.22 short and .22 long are used very little nowadays. A lot of stores don't even carry them.
.22 LR is so cheap that most people just use that for everything.

 

[pauli]

you use 22long for guns that won't chamber 22lr. you use 22short for guns that won't chamber 22long.

my question is, can tube mag 22 rifles feed cbs?

 

[Dave R]

.22 long and short are lower-powered .22 rounds. In the "old days" they sold for less than .22LR. But nowadays, .22lr is so popular that it is cheaper than the "obsolete" .22 short and long.

I assume the rifle you are looking at uses a tubular magazine. In that case, the only advantage of the short or long rounds is that the magazine could hold more of 'em.

I prefer to stick to .22LR. And mostly use the Remington 36gr. "Golden Bullet" bulk paks.

 

[sm]

I would have to check current Reg's here in AR.

If one wanted to coon hunt at night , the regulations stated ONLY .22 short ammo could be used. Most coon hunters used dogs.

I have heard others state similar reg's for respective states and certain game. Especially if on G&F lands.

I have known quite a few folks that bought a used single shot 22 rifle that allowed the use of shorts, longs and long rifle, so they could in fact shoot the short rounds to be legal.

"Rumor is" ( tm) there are those that use the short, or CB Short or CB long loads in areas where pests are controlled and ...umm... homes, businesses, and such have been know to appear that were not there before...or "scooted a bit" closer than before.

Well phooey, I can find reg's nor can I find my old Win catalog. Seems to me the long was a 29 gr bullet like the short. Now someone correct me and my brain fade, but concerns about the chamber on some guns suggested using the longer case to prevent the build up of lead using shorts , and transitioning to long rifle. Feeding and extraction was a concern as well.

The Rem Speedmaster and Fieldmaters ( semi and pump) would reliably feed any of the 3 .

Volquartsen ( sp?) IIRC made a 10/22 conversion that fired only 22 shorts that was used for - I dunno. Folks said it was fun tho'.

 

[SigLaw]

Thanks Dave, I am considering a tube feed Marlin and was curious. You have answered my questions.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Quote:
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Seems to me the long was a 29 gr bullet like the short.
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Correct.

In the 1840s in France, there were pistol parlors (young fops liked to pretend they were duelists.) A fellow named Flobert invented a pistol for indoor shooting, by loading a lead shot in to the mouth of a modified percussion cap. This came to be called the "Bullet Breech Cap" or the BB Cap" (and the shot size used came to be called "BB.")

A modified version used a conical bullet and was called the "Conical Breech Cap" or CB Cap.

In the Mid-1850s, Smith and Wesson went into business. Their first gun was a little 7-shot revolver chambered for the CB Cap, but they added a pinch of powder and called the ".22." It shot a 29 grain heeled bullet.

After the Civil war, around 1880, the .22 was "stretched," to produce the .22 Long. The original .22 was renamed the .22 Short.

The .22 Long never was a ball of fire, and around 1888, the Stevens Arms and Cycle Company changed the bullet to 40 grains and called it the .22 Long Rifle.

In days gone by, it was common to produce repeaters and autoloaders designed to handle shorts, longs and long rifles. In those days, shorts were cheaper than long rifles (and I took many a squirrel with them.)

If you shoot a lot of .22 Shorts in a .22 Long Rifle chamber, you can leave a lead deposit just at the case mouth, which will make it difficult to chambe .22 LRs (the same thing can happen when shooting a lot of .38 Specials in a .357 Magnum chamber). This is no calamity -- you can easily clean the chamber.

 

[Jaywalker]

I suspect the "Long" cartridge survives because of folks who think it's the same thing as a "Long Rifle." Shorts had, and maybe still have, a place, but longs are kinda a waste of space. IMLoudO.

Jaywalker

 

[Al Thompson]

Pauli, CB caps work fine through most manually operated, tube fed rifles. Only exception I know of is the Taurus pump.

 

[Jim K]

ALL rifles chambered for the .22 LR will accept and fire .22 Long, .22 Short, .22 CB cap, and .22 BB cap, but not all repeaters and few semi-autos will feed with anything but .22 LR. Those marked for all three calibers usually will function with all three.

At one time, many guns were sold chambered for the .22 Short. Most were gallery guns, made to use a special cartridge called the gallery short, that had a bullet made of an antimony and lead mixture that blew up on the light backstops of shooting galleries, rather than penetrating.

There may be some modern guns made only for .22 Short, but I don't know of them.

The .22 LR was developed in part to provide a heavier and more accurate bullet than the .22 Long. In the 1880's, many revolvers were chambered for .22 Long and the cylinders were too short for a longer round, so Stevens called their new round the .22 Long RIFLE.

That limitation for coon hunting is probably due to the fact that in that kind of hunting the rifle is pointed in the air, and the .22 LR would carry too far and its heavier bullet would be more dangerous when it came down.

Jim

 

[Black92LX]

I have a Remington 550 that is chambered for them all. though i have never shot anything but lr. i was at bass pro and thought about picking up some shorts just because they are so cute.

 

[Chuck Dye]

Shorts, with a case length nominally 0.414", run 27-30 grain bullets, most are 29 grain, at velocities from 830 fps to 1164 fps. CB caps are lumped in with shorts in my ammo library, run the 29 grain bullets down around 700 fps.

Longs have the same case length, 0.610", as long rifles but launch the same bullets as shorts. The 29 grainers run 1180 to 1240 fps.