22 short why not 22lr

[Steel Horse Rider]

Any of you ever pull the bullet from a 22 of any length? I have and there is so little powder in the LR that it could easily be loaded into the short cartridge. I haven't pulled a 22 mag yet but I would wager that the powder in it could easily fit into a 22 long cartridge.

 

[JTHunter]

Many years ago, I had a Marlin Golden 39A and the barrel was clearly marked "S, L, & LR". That was one of the things I liked about it and that I could put 24 Shorts in it.
I also have a Ruger Single Six and there are no markings on the barrel as to which length cartridge to use. However, my newer Marlin bolt action is clearly marked "LR Only".
As an earlier poster stated, getting slivers of lead in your face or hands seems to indicate that the cylinder's chamber is not meeting the forcing cone correctly.

 

[Swampman]

IIRC my old Winchester 190 worked OK with Shorts, but only the high velocity loadings.

 

[Swampman]

Any of you ever pull the bullet from a 22 of any length? I have and there is so little powder in the LR that it could easily be loaded into the short cartridge. I haven't pulled a 22 mag yet but I would wager that the powder in it could easily fit into a 22 long cartridge.

You could also fit the powder from 100 of 'em into a 30-06.

That doesn't mean it'd be a good idea...

 

[berettaprofessor]

[. Volquartsen and some others do make conversions for the short./QUOTE]

I sure wish someone would tell me where, Rembrandt. Yes, they used to but they’re sold out everywhere. I’ve been trying to find one for ages.

 

[midland man]

Some semi-auto rifles like the 10/22 can be problematic but there are solutions. Need a light weight alloy bolt assembly and a special "short" magazine to feed correctly. Volquartsen and some others do make conversions for the short.

is this kit still in production?

 

[Rex in OTZ]

The remington 552 has light enuogh recoil spring to reliably fire the .22 short rimfire.
In fact you can load a mishmash of .22 short, long and longrifle in a Remington 552 magazine and reliably fire them in any order.
The under powered recoil spring is to accomidate .22 short's recoil, the long and long rifle rounds recoil harder and thats the reason for the large rubber recoil buffer in the back of the bolt assy to handle the stiffer recoiling rounds in this particular semi-automatic.

 

[midland man]

The remington 552 has light enuogh recoil spring to reliably fire the .22 short rimfire.
In fact you can load a mishmash of .22 short, long and longrifle in a Remington 552 magazine and reliably fire them in any order.
The under powered recoil spring is to accomidate .22 short's recoil, the long and long rifle rounds recoil harder and thats the reason for the large rubber recoil buffer in the back of the bolt assy to handle the stiffer recoiling rounds in this particular semi-automatic.

yep my dad has the remington 552 speedmaster and i have the remington 572 fieldmaster pump i like my pump alot! both of these shoot the shorts,longs,long rifles all day long!

 

[Rex in OTZ]

Thanks to my kids I found out that quite a few of my .22 magnum revolvers and one .22 mag rifle shoot the .22 short with no ill sideaffects.

 

[mnrivrat]

The old Stevens semi-auto shot shorts by using a push in operating handle. Effectively turning it into a locked bolt straight pull manual bolt action gun. The Remington 550 shot shorts in semi auto by using a floating chamber design. All .22 LR revolvers will shoot shorts. Cleaning the chambers of guns after shooting shorts will prevent issues with later shooting longs and long rifle cartridges. The Marlin Model 60 (at least the early ones) would shoot shorts in the same manner the old Stevens guns used. By pushing the operating handle in to the left it would lock the bolt. You then fire the gun and pull the operating handle to the right and work it like a straight pull bolt action.

 

[Rembrandt]

Checked the Volquartsen site, looks like they no longer offer the short conversion kit....too bad, probably not enough demand.

 

[Jeff22]

.22 shorts are the only ammo I've been able to find for the last few weeks.

Fortunately, I have a couple of .22 revolvers to shoot them in. I've been doing a lot of strong hand only/weak hand only practice at 7 yards.

 

[230RN]

Any of you ever pull the bullet from a 22 of any length? I have and there is so little powder in the LR that it could easily be loaded into the short cartridge. I haven't pulled a 22 mag yet but I would wager that the powder in it could easily fit into a 22 long cartridge.

I'm not sure what you're getting at.

There is a matter of "loading density," and while in some special cases of compressed slow burning powder charges in high power rifles, it's a good idea to leave a little room in the case.

I suspect that's what happened with Glock's .45 GAP (Glock Automatic Pistol) cartridge and guns. I imagine some Glock engineer looking down at that teeny bit of powder in a regular .45 ACP case and saying, "Ach, du Lieber ! Ve don't need all that room for ziss tiny amount of propellant. Zose crazy Amerikaners !"

The resulting product was the .45 GAP which had a tendency to blow up guns. They even used special non-canister powders for it that wouldn't detonate most of the time and strongly discouraged reloading it. I also seem to recall that they needed a long leade in the barrels of the guns to hold down the initial pressure spike.

So yeah, the powder from an LR case might fit into a Short case, but as mentioned by others, it might not be a good idea to make up a finished cartridge that way.

Loading Density Matters (LDM).

Terry, 230RN

 

[Waveski]

Why can't the OP shoot 22 short from a 22lr revolver?
Where did the OP go?

 

[kBob]

230RN has the answer to "why Can't"

The short, even in modern loadings, leaves a ring of lube and unburnt powder in the LR chamber. This is not as noticable to folks that regularly switch back and forth as to someone that uses Shorts for many rounds over time. Even with modern ammo the ring of goo that can build up in the chamber can get to the point where it is difficult or occasionally even impossible to seat a LR in that chamber.

The answer to the lube and powder build up is a deep dark secret no one ever talks about called "cleaning your rifle or pistol" A few quick strokes and twists with a brass bore brush and the issue is usually gone. Now if the firearm stood out in someone's barn being shot for thirty years firing nothing but shorts and that ring sort of petrified in the chamber it may take a bit more work.

As with any gunk in the barrel that ring can retain water against the steel and rather than Erosion cause rust which can be a problem.

As a kid, a bud had an old single shot that his dad and granddad had shot nothing but shorts in though it was clearly marked S, L, &LR.

A loaded LR just would not chamber. After looking a bit we could see that ring of goo and tried to remove it with patches as that was what we had. No joy. So we took a spent LR case from my rifle and inserted it in his chamber up until it stopped, then attempted to close the bolt and it would not go fully forward. So we took off one of my brogans and used the heel to drive the bolt fully closed ... 12 year old boy brains at work!!!

Brief panic that bolt would not retract, but hey we got this low top boot we used for a hammer to close the thing with right here, so we hammered it open. The extracted shell had crud in the mouth of it. It functioned as a scraper. We used our patches to clean the chamber again and visually found the ring MUCH reduced and then shot LR in his rifle when he could afford it.

Sometimes it is merely hard to chamber LR in such a short used chamber but sometimes it is difficult to extract a LR that was forced in and shot anyway. In fact some folks notice the issue more on extraction than loading and so assume it is an extractor issue. Same cure.

I know, I know! No one EVER cleans a .22, but sometimes under some conditions it ain't a bad idea... and it gives you and excuse to shoot up more ammo plinking to "condition your bore" and "test your action" after a good cleaning

-kBob

 

[sota]

Aguila Super Colibri's out of a Henry Golden boy are hilarious fun. I can ring silhouette steel plates at 75 yards reliably. Out of my 617 they work fine. My SR22 and M9-22 will fire them, but obviously won't cycle them.

 

[3Crows]

My Remington 510 Target Master, my Marlin 39A Mountie and my Winchester Model 61 all shoot S, L, LR.

 

[Rex in OTZ]

My kids Keystone arms Crickett .22 single shot rifle shoots the S-L-LR

 

[JJFitch]

The diameter of the .22 cartridge is the same along the case to the bullet engaging bands.

.22 short, long and long rifle will chamber and shoot satisfactorily in any firearm chambered for .22 LR!

Now the caveat! It will likely not operate the action of a .22 "long rifle" semi-auto. After lots of .22 short or .22 long, carbon or lead build up may prevent chambering .22 long rifle. Although chamber pressure may increase it will not likely damage the firearm.

Shoot any of the three options if the firearm is chambered for .22 long rifle but clean often and realize the S/A action my not function!

Smiles,

 

[MacAR]

All of my .22's will shoot shorts or longs. They may not cycle the action or feed from the magazine, though. I have reliably shot .22 shorts from several different revolvers over the years. That's my preferred method of dispatch when running my trap line, as they usually make one neat round hole in the head and don't exit, thereby not damaging the fur. If your revolver is spitting lead, it's likely out of time and has nothing to do with the ammo. I have three 22 revolvers, and all shoot shorts, longs, long rifles, cb's, and colibris without an issue. My little Phoenix pocket pistol will even shoot colibris, though it won't cycle them. Still, fun to "play" with them; almost like making your 22 into an air rifle/pistol.

I have a 514 Remington that I only feed shorts, and as such can't chamber a Long Rifle cartridge due to the fouling ring in the chamber. I've intended to clean it, but think why bother? Simply because all it will ever shoot is shorts as its sole purpose in "the collection" is to remove offending varmints from my yard/chicken house/garden. And it does so with aplomb. Of course, I have my Henry and my Remington 572 that I love to shoot shorts through. As a matter of fact, I have probably shot more 22 shorts than LR's in my lifetime, since when I was a kid that's all I could get! And to this day, I still like to shoot them.

Mac

 

[Waveski]

I know, I know! No one EVER cleans a .22, but sometimes under some conditions it ain't a bad idea...

On the contrary , I clean my 22's often , and not because I enjoy doing so.
My Ruger MkI won't tolerate many range trips without cleaning ; it functions beautifully when clean but will fail under a load of .22 carbon residue build-up. My S&W m.17 needs to have the charge holes cleaned regularly unless I want to fight ejection of spent casings. I use CCI MiniMags almost exclusively ; all .22 ammo is dirty , for reasons I do not fully understand.

Wandering back to topic , I started my kids out with .22 shorts from the m.17 ; even they thought that the popcorn fart report and total lack of recoil was wimpy to the point of silly ... but it functioned.

 

[kBob]

Waveski,

I cleaned my RST4 once about 1976 and again around 1990. It started to have its first issues around 2000 so I cleaned it early that cycle and found the firing pin slightly peened and ordered a new one. 1968 to 2000 with two detail cleanings is pretty good and makes it easy to see why folks can get the wrong idea.

I was just commenting that there is a commonly held belief that .22s don't HAVE to be cleaned, I do not happen to agree with that except When I was shooting Winchester 52 Ds and Anshutz 54s They generally did not get cleaned other than patches in the bore and a wipe down once a year.

It is my belief that 80 plus percent of issues in .22 semi autos ARE in fact from a need to be cleaned that someone has ignored a decade or so.

-kBob

 

[hdbiker]

My Remington 552 handles shorts just fine. hdbiker

 

[Waveski]

It is my belief that 80 plus percent of issues in .22 semi autos ARE in fact from a need to be cleaned that someone has ignored a decade or so.

I guess that some .22's will run ok for prolonged periods between thorough cleaning , as is the case with your RST4. (Odd - I've never heard the RST4 reference before ...)
In my case I have learned the hard way to keep my MkI clean or risk bad results at Monday night steel plate comp.
.22's are finicky.

Anyway , I still don't understand why anyone would have trouble discharging.22 shorts from a .22 lr revolver , other than the lube ring guck factor , but one would have to run quite a large volume of shorts without interludes of lr to experience that , so it seems to me that - in practical terms for most shooters - it hardly counts.

 

[kBob]

The Ruger STandard 4 inch barreled fix sighted semi auto is Just That.

Actually the Mark 1 was the target model of that pistol with adjustable sights. Fix sighted models never got called Mark 1s until the Mark II came along.

So in 1968 when I got my new in the box RST4 at J.M. Fields if I had called it a Mark 1 folks would have chuckled about a kid wishing he had an adjustable sighted target pistol.

Growing up shorts were at least as common as LR in rural areas. They were also cheaper than LR by a good 35 to 40 percent. Basically when I Started feeding my .22 out of my own pocket a box of just shorts cost me about an hour and a half of hard field work and a box of LR cost me 2 1/4 hours of the same sweat. Guess which round a lot of us bought almost all the time? I bought ammo from our grocery store mostly, though sometimes at the bait and tackle place. Western Auto had their own brand but for whatever reason in our town was a nickel more than the Grocery or bait store. I switched over to LR when I got my RST4 as it would not feed or cycle shorts. My savage 87 Click Clack I already had would shoot S, L, & LR semi auto and shorts meant more ammo in the magazine.

-kBob