Before the Civil War tore at this country, the lowly .22 rimfire was well on its way to becoming one of the most popular cartridges ever invented.
The .22 breechcap was developed in France, about 1831, by Louis Nicholas Flobert. From 1835 to 1847 Flobert was manufacturing his BB Cap ammunition, which was a tiny BB Cap cartridge chambered in smoothbore pistols and diminutive parlor rifles that were popular among the upper classes of people who enjoyed occupying themselves with a little target shooting in their homes.
Flobert's BB Cap contained no powder, and the only propellant was the cap. Smith & Wesson is actually given the credit for developing the true rimfire, a case with a hollow rim that was filled with a wet priming mixture during manufacture.
On August 8, 1854 Smith & Wesson received US Patent No. 11,496, for a self-contained cartridge, but it would be nearly three years before the S&W .22 Rim Fire was actually patented. Their first .22 revolver, the No. 1 seven-shot tip-up revolver chambered for the .22 Short, was an immensely popular gun and following on its success several other companies jumped onto the rimfire gravy train.
The .22 Short served as the catalyst for experimentation and cartridge development. In 1871 the .22 Long was invented and in 1880 the .22 Extra Long was introduced. About 1887 the most popular cartridge in the world, the .22 Long Rifle was introduced. There is some dispute over who invented the Long Rifle, but firearms writer Sam Fadala, in his book, The Book of the .22: The All-American Caliber credits the Union Metallic Cartridge Company.
.22 Winchester Rimfire (WRF) & Winchester Magnum
The predecessor of the .22 Magnum was actually the .22 Winchester Rimfire (WRF), which was developed about 1890 and was fired in the Winchester Model 1890 pump-action rifle. Remington got into the extra powerful .22 loadings with their own version, the .22 Remington Special which used a round-nosed bullet rather than the flat-nosed one offered by Winchester. Both bullets performed about the same, using 45-grain lead bullets with 1,100 fps muzzle velocity. A variety of popular guns of the time were chambered for the WFR round, including rifles and sidearms, because it was more powerful than the .22 Long Rifle. Two drawbacks to the round were its lack of accuracy and its expense.
Today the .22 WRF is regulated to a collectors' status. Winchester did run a fresh supply of WRF cartridges in 1986 and quite a number of those rounds are still available, however they are more popular with collectors than recreational shooters.
As popularity of the .22 WRF began to wane in the late 1950's, Winchester introduced the .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire with all the fanfare they could muster. Introduced as a small-game cartridge, the new magnum round had to suffer the humility of some wild claims about velocity and energy levels before things settled down and a good bit of accurate information about the round could be published.
Fedala's book on the .22 reprints Winchester's early claims for the .22 WMR with a muzzle velocity of 2,000 fps with a 40-grain bullet, and retained velocities of 1,660 fps at 50 yards, 1,390 at 100 yards, and 1,180 at 150 yards. In time, more realistic velocities were being recorded for the ammunition and as Fedala points out in his book, "They were very good all the same."
When Winchester introduced the .22 WMR they didn't have a gun chambered for the round. Two companies that were making guns for the new rimfire cartridge were Ruger and Smith & Weston. Soon after, Savage rechambered their Model 24, a .22-.410 over/under combination gun, for the WMR. Winchester then introduced their Model 61 slide-action for the gun.
There are several differences between the .22 WMR and the .22 WRF. The two cartridges are very close in outside dimensions and any .22 WMR rifle will easily handle the .22 WRF cartridge. However, the .22 WRF will not handle the modern .22 WMR ammo! Any attempts to mix the two cartridges in a .22 WRF will result in a damaged rifle.
In fact, the shorter WRF camber will not accept the WMR ammunition, but some shooters will insist it will and attempt to force the magnum loads into the chamber. Case length of the WMR is 1.35 inches and the WRF is only 1.17 inches.
Testing the Ammunition
Over time, much WMR ammunition has come and gone. What remains on today's market is a good selection of proven performance ammunition. CCI offers three .22 WMR loads for different shooting conditions. The first is the CCI Maxi-Mag with a 40-grain Jacketed Hollow Point, next they offer a Maxi-Mag 40-grain Full Metal Jacket. CCI's newest offering is a 30-grain Jacketed Hollow Point in .22 WMR.
Federal's Classic .22 Magnum ammunition is available in two loads; one is a 50-grain Jacketed Hollow Point, and the other is a 40-grain Full Metal Jacket load. Winchester has two Super-X loads, both in 40-grain bullets and one is a Full Metal Jacket and the other is a Jacketed Hollow point.
At one time RWS ammunition also offered .22 WMR loads but has stopped production of it.
Although there is quite a bit of information available on the .22 WMR ammunition, I wanted to see how close the published velocities came to actual field velocities using an off-the-shelf .22 magnum rifle.
The test rifle I settled on is the High Standard, bolt-action, .22 magnum rifle from Mitchell Arms. This full-sized feels like a centerfire rifle when you shoot it, and the walnut stock with rosewood grip and fore-end caps gives it even more "big-rifle" feel and appearance. Out of the box the Mitchell .22 magnum rifle has a ramp bead front sight and a fully adjustable rear sight.
The barrel is 22 inches long and the bolt is machined and polished and locks into place with a positive movement.
Although I fired several boxes of ammo through the rifle using the iron sights, the full potential of the .22 magnum ammunition can only be realized in a scoped rifle. Simmons recently introduced 3-9x32mm variable power scope designed for longer range rimfire shooting. Named the .22 Mag by Simmons this scope is designed to be used on modern rimfire rifles at the longer ranges of 50 to 125 yards.
The actual velocity and accuracy testing of the ammo and rifle I turned over to my son Chris, and my frequent hunting and shooting partner, Al Starner. They used my Pact Model 1 Chronograph to get the velocities and zeroed the rifle for 50 yards using the Winchester Jacketed Hollow Point ammunition.
An interesting characteristic of .22 rimfire ammunition is that it does not shoot the same in each gun. A rimfire load that is a tack driver in one rifle, will be all over the target in another rifle. That is the nature of the beast and anyone who is considering a .22 magnum rifle, whether for hunting or target shooting, should plan on shooting at least a box of each available load before making a final ammunition selection.
In the Mitchell Arms rifle the ammunition that was most accurate was the CCI Maxi-Mag Full Metal Jacket that produced a benchrest group of 1.025 inches and had an average velocity of 1,754 fps. The next load was the CCI Maxi-Mag with a 1.11 inch group and an average velocity of 1,765 fps.
CCI's newest offering, the Maxi-Mag +V, had the highest velocity tested, at 2,014 fps average, but the group size was 2.282 inches. Winchester's JHP ammunition had an average velocity of 1,799 fps and the group size was 1.289 inches, and the Winchester FMJ had an average velocity of 1,721 fps and the group size was 1.242 inches.
Federal's Classic ammunition in the 50-grain Jacketed Hollow Point had a velocity average of 1,492 fps and group size was 1.55 inches, and the 40-grain Full Metal Jacket had an average velocity of 1,650 fps with a 1.722 group size. Considering that the shooters had to contend with a gusting wind that varied from five to 15 mph, their group sizes were respectable, although both the Mitchell rifle and the ammunition are quite capable of producing much tighter groups. In using the iron sights I was able to knock over 35mm film cans filled with flour (which gives a pleasing puff of white dust when hit) at 50 and 75 yards.
A Good Hunting Arm
More than one shooter and shooting writer has written that the .22 magnum will tear up too much meat to be used on most small game. I would go along with that proposition with a few exceptions. As a rifle carried when stalking hares, including both jackrabbits and snowshoes, and fall season wild turkeys, I think the .22 magnum is in a class by itself as hunting arm. I have taken snowshoes at 75 yards that were sitting under a log and I knew they would be gone before I could have gotten in shotgun range.
I like the extra power of the .22 magnum to knock over the larger bodied hare and keep it down. As for turkey hunting in the fall, the .22 magnum was my favored rifle until the Colorado Division of Wildlife took it upon themselves to restrict fall turkey hunting to centerfire rifles.
For smaller game I've hunted cottontails (both mountain and desert) with the .22 magnum and by keeping my shooting to head shots at sitting game I've never lost any meat. I agree that body shots with the .22 magnum on the smaller game will lose too much meat.
Other game that can be effectively hunted with the .22 magnum are prairie dogs and marmots but one of the most popular in the Southwest is the javelina. Arizona has maintained a policy of allowing the .22 magnum to be used on these native little hogs. Although I've never had an opportunity to hunt them with a .22 magnum, it will come, and I am confident the cartridge will do the job, because it has for many other hunters.
Target Shooting
If there is a single complaint about the .22 magnum, it is that the ammunition is too expensive for target shooting. Retailing at prices ranging from just under $6 per box to over $7.50 per box of 50, the ammunition is several times more expensive than any .22 Long Rifle ammo on the market. Often overlooked in a shooter's eagerness to complain about the price of magnum ammunition is the longer range of the magnum ammo over the .22 Long Rifle when hunting, or if shooting silhouettes the magnum ammo has more retained velocity giving it a higher target knock-over potential than regular Long Rifle.
A box of 50 magnum rounds that costs $7.00 will work out to about 14 cents a round. Compared to a .22 Long Rifle round that will cost between a nickel and 10 cents a round, the ammunition does seem to be more expensive. The tradeoff is in longer range, more retained energy at longer range, and a more effective hunting round on larger small game.
Another side of the .22 magnum that makes it appealing is that a well-built .22 magnum rifle, such as the High Standard from Mitchell Arms that I used, is an excellent practice gun for improving your marksmanship with centerfire rifles. By zeroing the ..22 magnum to shoot 2.5 inches high (or more depending on the rifle and ammunition) and then using scaled-down big-game targets at ranges from 50 to 100 yards, a shooter can easily duplicate the shots he may encounter in the field, but on a shorter, 100-yard range. The payoff will come in hunting season when what was once a difficult shot becomes an easy one because the hunter practiced for it. I have never been able to get this close to real practice shooting using a .22 rimfire rifle because the .22 Long Rifle guns all lack the big-gun characteristics that can be found on a .22 magnum.
The Future of the .22 Mag
Today there are a variety of rifles and handguns chambered in the .22 magnum. I hope it stays that way and improves. CCI's development of the +V magnum ammo may not be right for the Mitchell Arms rifle, but I've got a feeling it will find its way into a number of other rifles and handguns that are chambered for the magnum.
The idea of a fast, flat-shooting, 30-grain bullet in a .22 magnum has its appeal, and I'll continue to test the bullet in various guns until I find the one that likes it. I'll also be taking the Mitchell into the mountains next fall and winter and putting the crosshairs on a snowshoe or two for my dinner table. There are javelina to be hunted, and I've got a full supply of film cans that I can fill with flour and knock over at 125 yards with the .22 magnum. It will never replace the Long Rifle, but used where it belongs the mighty .22 magnum may be one of the best rimfire developments in the long history of rimfire ammunition.
Copyright (c) 1997 Galen Geer. All rights reserved.
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