What is the smallest centerfire cartridge?

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RX-79G said:
The internet says 2mm Kolibri.
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Whoa! That looks about as effective as throwing a dart. Much less than I thought.

I am looking for something more like a .22 magnum but has a centerfire primer and a rimless design.
 
Depends on what your wanting to do. The 3 that come to mind are 22tcm, 5.7x28, and 25naa. There's always 25acp but it's not even in the ballpark of being a match to 22mag.

Or go to weak loads of .223 Remington, Trailboss in the 223 sounds fun if it's not in a semiauto.
 
Yeah what do you use for criteria, caliber or round size/capacity or commercial/wildcat. For caliber as mentioned .17 REM for commercial. Small size would be 22 hornet I would think. Other wildcats though.:scrutiny:
 
5.7x28 is as close as you will get without going to a weird wildcat.
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Speaking of "weird wildcats", nobody will be able to convince me that the 5.7x28 is anything more than FN's realization that Melvin Johnson got it right with the 5.7mm Johnson (.22 Spitfire) round more than half a century ago.
 
I'd agree hdwhit, with the aside that FNH realized that for their purposes a slightly less powerful round that could run as a straight/delayed blowback was a better solution. Even though neither HK nor FNH won the PDW contract (due largely to HK crybabying) you have to admit there is wisdom in FN's gun being like 1/4 the price of HK's, and having a hell of a lot longer service life than four thousand rounds. Micro-magnums that run at crazy pressures are interesting, but they also lead to expensive (but interesting) design solutions. My chief desire for a locked-breech 5.7 is mostly rooted in reloading needs rather than market needs ;)

Oh, and the smallest is probably whatever runs in that 1" long AK47 some Russian miniaturist dude made a while back
 
RX-79G said:
For a rifle or a pistol?
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Pistol

What I am thinking of is the Kel-Tec PMR-30 that can use a center fire primer for better reliability and perhaps a little more power.

Being rimless it could be stacked in a magazine more easily.
 
Flechette said:
Pistol

What I am thinking of is the Kel-Tec PMR-30 that can use a center fire primer for better reliability and perhaps a little more power.

Being rimless it could be stacked in a magazine more easily.
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That's pretty much an FN Five Seven. Low recoil, accurate, light, more powerful than .22 Mag, 20 round magazine. And it is a real military grade weapon. I really don't think there is anything else close.
 
RX-79G said:
That's pretty much an FN Five Seven. Low recoil, accurate, light, more powerful than .22 Mag, 20 round magazine. And it is a real military grade weapon. I really don't think there is anything else close.
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This ^^^^^^^.!!
 
Actually the smallest commercially loaded - and you can get loads today still - is the 5.5 MM Velo-Dog. Charlie Askins used one in the 1930 chambered in a Colt Woodsman to shoot in the any centerfire national match.
 
There is - or was - the very thing, the .22 CCM; Cooper Centerfire Magnum made specifically to emulate the .22 WRM in reloadable cases. It did not catch on and I doubt it is still available. If you want rimless, the 5.7 is about it. There are a couple of European rounds in the .32 ACP Magnum category, but they seem not available here, either.

Just for history, there was, in the 1950s, the .22 JGR. Take a .22 Hornet, lathe turn it rimmed into rimless, shorten to fit a .22 LR action, neck with a sharp shoulder for headspace control.
 
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barnbwt wrote:
Micro-magnums that run at crazy pressures are interesting, but they also lead to expensive (but interesting) design solutions.
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Keep in mind that the 5.7 mm Johnson runs at the M-1 Carbines' pressure limit of 40,000 psi. Certainly less than a "crazy pressure". Further, the Domican Republic's Cristobal sub-machine gun was a straight blow-back design that used the 30 Carbine round and while I am not aware of anyone adapting one to the 5.7 mm Johnson round, there is no obvious reason why such a conversion would have involved any thing more than changing the barrel and perhaps modifying the feed ramps to accommodate the more pointed bullet.

Again, my point was that FN's 5.7x28 round, whether or not directly traceable to Col. Johnson's modification of the M-1 Carbine, certainly reached the same conclusion - half a century later.
 
Flechette said:
Whoa! That looks about as effective as throwing a dart. Much less than I thought.

I am looking for something more like a .22 magnum but has a centerfire primer and a rimless design.
Click to expand...
Well I'm gonna be repeating what others said but whatever...

.25 acp for little pocket pistols
5.7x28 for more powerful full size pistol
Also .22 hornet (even though it isn't rimless) for revolvers.
 
Flechette said:
Whoa! That looks about as effective as throwing a dart. Much less than I thought.
Click to expand...
You speak straight, Kemo Sabe! The purpose of the 2.7mm Kolibri was indoor (parlor) target shooting; the functional equivalent of 'darts'. I understand the modern game of 'darts' was developed by barkeeps in Britannia to keep drunken Roman soldiers from tearing the place with their spears.

Flechette said:
I am looking for something more like a .22 magnum but has a centerfire primer and a rimless design.
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I was going to say .25 ACP for modern, available calibers. Perhaps .22 Hornet for rifles. Someone mentioned the 5.7x28 round; that is pretty small.
 
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