22 S/L/LR Rifles?

[TTv2]

You'd be surprised how much less .22 Short weighs compared to .22 LR yet has the same effect on killing small game.

.22 Short has its uses, niche uses, but they're still useful if you have the right gun. Revolvers have no recoil when using them, rifles make almost no noise when shooting them. I always have a brick of .22 Short just in case I ever stumble across a handgun that's chambered for it for a good price and don't want to make an excuse and not buy the gun just because I don't have ammo to shoot for it.

 

[JCooperfan1911]

It's not so useful.

.22LR is cheaper than Longs or Shorts now so you actually have the opposite of a financial benefit.

Also with loads like the CCI subsonics and Quiet rounds etc., no noise advantage.

You get a capacity boost but that really is moot and once the novelty wears off, again not super useful.

 

[bersaguy]

I think the specific advantage that the s/l/lr rifles offered shooters back in the day doesn't necessarily apply today...right now. Years ago, I asked my grandfather about his 22 that I have now, the story was that in the 30's he and his two brothers went in together to buy it. This was probably in '35 or '36, so money was tight. They used to go to the hardware store and get not a box of ammunition, but 10 or 12 loose rounds, and that's what they would load up and go hunting with. From what I understand, that was pretty common for the time. If you were hunting squirrel or rabbit, and you could either get 10 LR rounds or 20 shorts or maybe 15 longs for nearly the same price, then having a rifle that shot all 3 certainly was an advantage. That same gun could sit in the corner loaded with shorts to pop the occasional rabbit in the garden without waking the wife and kids, or be loaded up with lr to take a deer. (Not at all recommended, but it was done on more than one occasion with that rifle) Shooting a 500 round brick in a target shooting session would have been sacrilege to my grandfather.

 

[NIGHTLORD40K]

Back in April of last year I bought a case of Aguila shorts. It was darn near the only ammo of any kind in the entire shop- the proprietor said his employee had ordered a pallet of them accidentally and he was worried that they would take years to sell.

I came back three days later and they were gone.

I should have bought them all.

 

[JCooperfan1911]

Back in April of last year I bought a case of Aguila shorts. It was darn near the only ammo of any kind in the entire shop- the proprietor said his employee had ordered a pallet of them accidentally and he was worried that they would take years to sell.

I came back three days later and they were gone.

I should have bought them all.

Heinz seitz tventy tventy.

 

[jmorris]

If it’s a bolt action, longs have the same case length as LR and often feed fine, might turn a semiauto into a manual charging operation. The shorter case of the short is where you might run into problems unless the design accommodates them.

If you don’t have any and have never seen them, I guess it’s a non issue. One can still get them though.



FWIW the CCI stinger has an even longer case than the LR but uses a 32 grain bullet that is closer to what is used in the long and short rounds. So it’s closer to the length of a LR round and a bit faster than high velocity 40gn bullets.

 

[chicharrones]

.22 shorts aren't really necessary in the 21st century. What I do like about having rifles (and revolvers) that will shoot shorts, longs, and long rifles is that I know I can pick up that oddball box of .22 ammo at the local gun shop because I have guns that will cycle and fire it.

25 years ago, I certainly liked having a mag tube of shorts in my Marlin 39 for the longer string of uninterrupted shooting it provided.

Not counting lever guns, the days of tube mag .22 rifles sure seems numbered, though.

 

[FL-NC]

My dad has an old single shot Marlin that fires all 3. He uses shorts for pest control.

 

[Dave DeLaurant]

BTW, has anyone already mentioned that the .22 rimfire family use 'heeled', outside-lubricated bullets? Despite their longer run-up before reaching the rifling, that means .22 Shorts are usually relatively accurate when fired from longer chambers.

I predict the .22 Short will remain in limited production for a good while yet if only to feed guns that weren't designed to chamber anything else. There are still significant numbers in circulation.

When a rimfire cartridge goes unobtainium as factory ammo, like the old .25 and .32 RF cartridges, handloading isn't the direct solution as with old centerfire cartridges. There are options, but costs and contortions for getting something like an early rimfire Rolling Block, Peabody, Vetterli or Spencer rifle shooting again without permanent alteration are not for the faint of heart. I wouldn't wish them on anybody!

http://www.hlebooks.com/32rfkit/prices.htm
https://www.ssfirearms.com/proddetail.asp?prod=SP176

 

[Shootinator]

Nobody has mentioned the fact that the shorter case leads to a crud buildup in the chamber of your rifle.

When I was a kid we shot BB Caps, CB Caps, Shorts, Longs and Long Rifles.........we saved our Long Rifles for serious work.

I'm not a kid anymore.

 

[chicharrones]

Nobody has mentioned the fact that the shorter case leads to a crud buildup in the chamber of your rifle.

When I was a kid we shot BB Caps, CB Caps, Shorts, Longs and Long Rifles.........we saved our Long Rifles for serious work.

I'm not a kid anymore.

I haven't been a kid in many decades, but shooting .22s of any length can bring out my inner kid. Same with some centerfire guns as well.

 

[Shootinator]

Yes, I do love the .22!

 

[d2wing]

Same here. When I was a kid every hardware store and gas station had them all. I haven't even seen CB shorts for years. I used up a little of my small hoard of long rifle today sighting in a pair of 22 rifles. I was having so much fun I almost used up a box before I could stop myself.

 

[Varminterror]

In the overwhelming majority of market seasons, the ability to shoot S, L, and LR is false versatility, and it’s exceptionally short sighted to consider it advantageous.

In all seasons, S and L are only manufactured at an INCREDIBLY SMALL proportion to LR, because less people own firearms specifically for it, or favor shooting it in their S/L/LR firearms over the less expensive and more readily available LR... There is lesser demand, so the manufacturing capacity and supply chain pipeline are considerably smaller. Many of these low volume, niche products will be intermittently manufactured in campaigns, while the most popular products like 22LR will be manufactured in dedicated lines, running feverishly and continuously.

In seasons of “normal” availability, S and L are less common and typically cost more than LR. So no advantage in the “normal season.”

When a “famine” season such as we are currently experiencing happens where EVERYTHING is sold out, there’s no production of S or L to replace what had previously been seen in the supply chain. Effectively, the least popular products are the last stuff to come back when manufacturing and supply chain catch up again. So no advantage in the “famine season.”

A third season is the “upward transitionary season” in which a famine is ending and we’re returning to normal. Throughout the famines, manufacturers are focused on their highest demand products, not their niches, because consumers are begging for it. Retailers are begging for it too, to be able to capitalize on that demand for themselves. So as demand begins to slow down and products return to shelves, it’s always the common stuff which returns first, and it may be a year or more after a famine before all of the common product inventory is replaced in the supply chain, making room for manufacturers to take a breath and catch up on their niche products. So in the upswing transitionary season, there’s no advantage.

The ONLY season in which there’s an advantage to the versatility is the “downward transitionary season” as the demand tide is coming in and supply chain just realizes it can’t keep up - when we are shifting from normal to famine, and the more popular products are selling out faster than the less popular products. Again - this is often short-sightedly observed to be an advantage. Folks pay themselves on the back because their oddball ammo is the last stuff still available on the shelf - neglecting the fact they paid extra for it ALWAYS due to higher inventory cost and relative manufacturing investment in the lower volume logistics chain, AND neglecting the fact they would have been better off buying a lower cost, more readily available product continuously throughout ALL normal seasons so they can simply avoid any purchases at all during famines. So once they buy up those few boxes which stood alone on the shelf for a few weeks, as noted above, that product will be the last to be replaced as the season turns back from famine to normal.

Dollar cost average your ammunition and components during the normal seasons to ensure a healthy inventory on hand which exceeds your risk of famine, and everything is smooth sailing.

 

[.308 Norma]

When I was a kid every hardware store and gas station had them all.

Yeppers. As I've mentioned before, when I was growing up, Mom and Dad owned and operated a small country grocery store/gas station. And they stocked and sold a lot of .22 shorts, longs and long rifles in that store. I don't remember the prices on any of them (I got out of high school in 1966) but I'm pretty sure the shorts and longs were a little cheaper than the long rifles.
I myself mostly used the .22 shorts in my Winchester Model 55 (which Mom and Dad gave me for my 10th birthday in 1958) back then. The Model 55 is a single-shot, semi-auto, and mine still works swell with .22 shorts, even though .22 longs and long rifles will fit as well.

 

[Walkalong]

rifles make almost no noise when shooting them. I

Yep, I used to sneak my dads 39A out into the field behind the house and plink with shorts, all I could hear was the hammer fall, not much noise on the other end either

 

[Shootinator]

In the years 1955 to 1960 or so........shorts cost 50 cents and long rifles 75 cents.

Gopher tails were worth ten cents each paid by the county.

We made our shots count.

 

[GRIZ22]

22 shorts are still useful IMO. If you're shooting small varmints at close range they are more than adequate. I need them for my Beretta 950 in that caliber. I find they're useful teaching new shooters with a revolver. I also use them in my Henry lever action for plinking.

The only use I have for 22 Longs in shooting them in my Galesi semiautomatic as that's what it's chambered for. I bought a brick a long time ago and there will probably be a few boxes left when I die.

 

[Dave DeLaurant]

I haven't been a kid in many decades, but shooting .22s of any length can bring out my inner kid. Same with some centerfire guns as well.

I know what you mean. My buddy on the staff at my pistol range wondered whether I'd gone simple buying a S&W M&P 15-22, but I told him it was to keep my inner 14-year-old alive and well ...

 

[wst38tx]

Bwana makes a valid point, as did those who mentioned the advantage of having a wider availability of choices in times of scarcity. That may be the remaining appeal of the Short today, plus the need for fodder for older guns chambered in .22 Short exclusively. At one time there was a niche market for match .22 Shorts for rapid fire pistol disciplines, but I don't know whether that's still the case -- I remember the Walther OSP and other high-end target autopistols were made specifically for .22 Short. Shorts were also the mainstay of autoloading shooting gallery rifles, such as the Remington 24 Short.

View attachment 995341

Back in ancient times (aka my father's youth), .22 Shorts were popular because, since the case used less material than LR, it was cheaper to manufacture and sold for a slightly lower price. They were still the standby in my own youth (1960s) for gallery rifles for this same reason. My strong suspicion was that as they lost ground in general popularity, they became more of a speciality ammo and lost any price advantage -- manufacturing cost in terms of machine time is effectively the same as .22 LR cartridges.

George Frost's book Ammunition Making has a lot of inside dope on the business of manufacturing .22 rimfire ammunition.

https://archive.org/details/AmmunitionMakingNRAByG.Frost1990

I used to shoot .22 CB Caps pretty regularly when I was trying to control ground squirrels on an almond orchard in the 1980s, but these days I prefer CB Longs so I don't need to scrub my chamber so thoroughly afterwards.

BTW, my first firearm, a Marlin-Glenfield M25 bolt action magazine rifle, could feed Shorts, Longs and LR equally well from the same box magazine, which I always thought was a pretty neat trick.

Love this discussion. I learned to shoot (around 6 or 7 yrs old) at my uncle's farm. We hunted squirrels and nutria with a J C Higgens 22 Bolt action single shot rifle. A box of shorts was cheaper than L or LR, so we learned to be a good shot - shot placement was critical. At that time there was a bounty on nutria, 50 cents each. If you were good, you could get one nutria with 50 rounds and recover the carcass. A box of 22s cost 50 cents. Great entertainment. We hunted squirrels for food, tastes just like fried chicken, but you had to make a good head shot to have an edible kill.

 

[BBarn]

Some of the Browning designed 22 Automatics were chambered for 22 Short (only). Owners of them are glad they're still available. Many of the shorts are also fairly quiet.

 

[Mars5l]

Local range has cases of shorts and longs, most ppl don't shoot that anymore. I probably have a few thousand mixed of .22 shorts and longs as well 10k+ of .22LR. My Henry lever has no problem and I have 3 .22 revolvers that can shoot them.

 

[.308 Norma]

Yep, I used to sneak my dads 39A out into the field behind the house and plink with shorts, all I could hear was the hammer fall, not much noise on the other end either

Yeah, and if you're plinking with .22 shorts at targets 25 or more yards away, and the "field" is covered with snow, you can actually see the bullets in flight.

 

[film495]

If prices on .22LR don't come way down, shorts may become real popular again real soon if they can make it cheaper. I have a few rimfires that require .22LR, but the ones that can shoot shorts, I'd be all over it.

 

[351 WINCHESTER]

During the last ammo shortage .22 shorts and 17 HMR were the only rimfire ammo available for a while. Nobody stocks them because the don't sell. Just like 22 longs.