VIDEO The lowly .22 short
- Thread starter CaryC
- Start date
Border Collie Dad
Flat Earther
Almost impossible to find for a few years.
Not sure if it's still short (pun intended)
My dad only used shorts for butchering cows or pigs
Not sure if it's still short (pun intended)
My dad only used shorts for butchering cows or pigs
Last Year I bought some for my Beretta(only takes shorts). Had to order them, 9.50 for 100 rds. Around here 22 rds. of any type would be better insurance than silver.
The only auto loading rifle that I know that can use them is the Browning. Ruger's 10-22 at one time there was a simple kit you could buy to convert it to use these .22 shorts it consisted of a spring for the bolt and a magazine designed just for the .22 shorts and it may still be available.
Henry Repeating Arms make a leaver action that will take them without have to do anything more than load these little gems into the rifle and have at it.
All bolt action .22 rifles you can feed them one at a time with little or no effort.
For a very long time the .22 short was the economy round and was more popular than resent times with more people buying into the advertisement and wanting more power from the little round, but the .22 short has what it takes out to 50 yards to put small game meat on the table and 50 yards is the practical small game range limit for this rifle.
Henry Repeating Arms make a leaver action that will take them without have to do anything more than load these little gems into the rifle and have at it.
All bolt action .22 rifles you can feed them one at a time with little or no effort.
For a very long time the .22 short was the economy round and was more popular than resent times with more people buying into the advertisement and wanting more power from the little round, but the .22 short has what it takes out to 50 yards to put small game meat on the table and 50 yards is the practical small game range limit for this rifle.
Part of a complete diet, everybody should have some.
Different tools for different jobs.
Different tools for different jobs.
CaryC
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Just of note: The Remington 550I auto .22 will shoot the short. It's tube fed. In the Video the guy is using a Remington Speedmaster, which took the place of 550, which can also shoot shorts. BUT those guns aren't made anymore.
The Henry is tube fed, and is a lever action, so there is no auto bolt action to have a minimum pressure for. But is still an excellent weapon, with it's Buckhorn sights. And they still make them in several variations, blued, blued in carbine, and the beautiful Golden Boy.
You might find one of the other ones mentioned at a Gun Show, Gun Traders, or Pawn Shop.
Creedmoor
Tempus Fugit
FYI. Winchester Model 74 is a semi-auto available in a 22 short chambering. 24 inch barrel. VERY quiet. Also Remington Model 550-1 is a semi-auto with a “floating chamber” that will reliably cycle 22 shorts, longs and long rifle. You can even mix all three up in the tube mag and it won’t have any hiccups emptying it.
bw
Fringe Ranger
A sprue cutter makes a nice flat cut.
Hognutz
Has No Life - Lives on TB
I’ve got a Rossi pump that eats them like candy…
CaryC
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Probably the 550 which is stamped on the barrel. A great shooting rifle, and accurate.
I heard a report on 22 short being so deadly because it flattens and/or shatters and ricochets so does a lot of internal damage especially a headshot. Medical examiner was saying a 22 will ricochet inside a head and turn a brain to mush. A stronger higher caliber will do thru and thru. Never want to be on receiving end of either.
Tom McDowell
BAMN
CB rounds - Probably long rifle version would have to look it up to confirm. I like the CB in short.What did Henry Bowman use when JBT were stacked at the door?
I had a Remington 550. Cycled shorts well, cb shorts were single shot, however was able to feed the CB's through the magazine and manually cycle the action. Handy for indoor vermin hunts.
===
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Raggedyman
Res ipsa loquitur
same . . . and I LOVE that little thing . . . and wouldn't take any amount for it either
DazedandConfused
Veteran Member
I scored a box of CCI 22 shorts a few months ago at Walmart.
I keep a box in my Go bag to be used for taking small game. Quiet and they get the job done.
I keep a box in my Go bag to be used for taking small game. Quiet and they get the job done.
Well, this is prep thread drift anyway 
============
gunwatch.blogspot.com
Saturday, September 18, 2021
Shelf Life of .22 Rimfire Ammunition: Test of 65+ Year Old Ammo
Ammunition as stored at 5809 Taft Street in Middleton, Wisconsin
How long can ammunition be stored before it degrades? Much depends on the storage conditions. With reasonable care, ammunition has a shelf life of many decades, as verified by tests done with military centerfire cartridges.
How long does .22 rimfire last before it starts to degrade? There has not been much systematic long term storage testing of .22 rimfire. It tends to be used as an expendable item. Some people have found an old box or two of ammunition and checked it for viability.
This correspondent was able to obtain a large cache of 65+ year old .22 rimfire ammunition with a good pedigree. The bulk of the ammunition was Remington Standard Velocity .22 Long Rifle ammunition made before 1956.
I met the owner at the University of Wisconsin in 1970. We started a friendship that lasted 48 years, to his death in 2018. The friend was Don Cowling from Middleton, Wisconsin. He is the world record rat hunter who this correspondent wrote about in 2016, when I became aware of the provenance and extent of the ammunition cache. From that article:
The .22 ammunition has been in the jars for over 60 years. He allowed me to crack the seal on a mason jar that had been filled before I entered first grade. I anticipated an odor of acetone, as you often find in old smokeless powder. I could not detect any, nor could my friend. There was a faint hint of old wax, barely noticeable.
My friend gave me an even two dozen rounds to test to see if it had been degraded. I shot the ammunition out of a Mossberg target rifle of similar age. I fired the rounds at my brothers long established range behind the garage on family land in Northern Wisconsin. Every round fired as though it were new. I fired four five shot groups at 50 feet from a rest. The first was the largest at .56 inches, center to center. The rest were .32, .31 and .31 inches. Not enough to win matches, perhaps, but perfectly good for hunting. My brother fired the last four shots offhand.
Don treasured his privacy, so his name was not mentioned in the 2016 article. The ammunition was mentioned, with a picture. Don knew I would reveal his name after he died, and did not object.
Don was a star handgun competitor at the University of Wisconsin. A top handgun competitor can easily run through 50,000 to 100,000 rounds a year. Don told me the ammunition was put in the quart jars before or during 1956. Don was on the University of Wisconsin Varsity ROTC pistol team when they won the regional championships in 1955. Don always paid for things in cash, or in trade or barter. I suspect the ammo was obtained in a special deal.
Placing the ammunition in quart jars sealed it from the atmosphere. It likely prevented the bullet lubrication from oxidizing.
Ammunition obtained later was so noted in his records. His records showed the pre-1956 ammunition to be Remington Standard Velocity. His records match the ammunition headstamps.
Article from Wisconsin State Journal, March 21, 1953.
Don kept meticulous records. After he died in 2018, this correspondent had access to his lifelong records and journals.
I was able to purchase his .22 ammunition cache of tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition from his estate. Over 20 thousand rounds of the cache was Remington standard velocity ammunition obtained in or prior to 1956, transferred to quart jars from boxes by 1956. It was stored for 15-17 years in an attic at 17 Mills Street in Madison, Wisconsin, then underground from 1970-72 to 2018 in a basement at 5809 Taft Street in Middleton, Wisconsin. After the ammunition was purchased from the estate, it was moved across country, then stored in a secure underground location.
The ammunition was purchased to conduct rigorous long term storage testing of .22 rimfire ammunition. If there are other caches containing significant amounts of 65+ year old .22 rimfire ammunition, they are unknown to this author.
The initial test procedure used a control of 500 rounds of CCI Standard Velocity ammunition, lot H05S, manufactured on 5 August, 2012. The ammunition was tested in a Mossberg 702 semi-automatic rifle with factory 10 round magazines. The rifle is expected to be used throughout the long term test. The rifle was purchased new in anticipation of the ammunition test.
A few hundred rounds were expended through the rifle before the test, from various manufacturers. The same rifle was used with the old Remington ammunition, to limit test variables. Accuracy testing was done at 25 yards. Velocity testing was done with a Caldwell Chronograph G2 eight feet from the muzzle.
10 fouling shots were fired, followed by 5 five shot groups from a rest at 25 yards. The rifle was equipped with an inexpensive Simmons 4x32 .22 Mag scope.
After accuracy testing, 50 shots were fired to register on the chronograph to obtain average velocity, standard deviation, and extreme spread.
The rest of the 500 rounds was fired for reliability. The manufacturer recommends the rifle be cleaned after firing 200 rounds. The rifle was cleaned at the beginning of the test, and each 250 rounds after that, so test conditions would be the same for both sources of ammunition. Most shots were fired with a few seconds between shots. Nearly all shots were fired from magazines loaded with 10 rounds.
The test is for the ammunition, not the rifle. A semi-automatic rifle was used for uniformity of action. A semi-automatic is considered a bit more ammunition sensitive than single shot rifles or manual repeaters. If the ammunition will cycle a semi-automatic action, it should work in manually operated repeaters or single shot firearms.
The same procedure was used to test 500 rounds of the 65+ year old Remington Standard Velocity ammunition.
Test results:
Accuracy, average of 5 five shot groups at 25 yards, measured center to center:
CCI Standard Velocity: .502 inches
Old Remington Standard Velocity .565 inches
Velocity measurements for 50 rounds, average velocity, Standard Deviation, extreme spread in feet per second (fps).
CCI Standard Velocity: Average 1072.3 fps, SD 17.5, extreme spread 84 fps, 1035 to 1119.
Old Remington Standard Velocity: Average 1098.9 fps, SD 19.8, Extreme spread 101 fps, 1041 to 1142.
Reliability for 500 rounds fired:
CCI Standard Velocity: 1 failure to fire, round 102, strong firing pin strike, rotated round, fired on second strike.
Old Remington Standard Velocity: 1 failure to fire, round 252, second round after cleaning. Very light primer strike (probably a mechanical rather than ammunition failure). The round was rotated. It fired normally with a second strike.
Light firing pin strike before rotation and firing with second strike.
For practical uses of .22 rimfire ammunition, there is no significant difference between the nine year old CCI ammunition and the 65+ year old Remington ammunition.
This correspondent intends to make this testing a regular event. Data will be collected about the storage life of .22 ammunition, to the point of finding significant degradation, or of running out ammunition.
There is enough ammunition to extend the test to over 100 years of storage, if 500 rounds is fired each year.
Alternatively, 500 rounds could be tested each two years, or five years, extending the test.
Enormous quantities of .22 rimfire ammunition have been purchased in the last two years. Much of it has been stored. If stored at reasonable temperatures in airtight containers, it should be useful for at least 65+ years. As no degradation has been detected in the stored Remington ammunition, the upper limit of storage life is unknown.
The author expects the test project to extend beyond his lifetime. The intention is to find viable candidates to continue testing to at least 2056.
©2021 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
Posted by Dean Weingarten at 9/18/2021 10:40:00 PM
============
Shelf Life of .22 Rimfire Ammunition: Test of 65+ Year Old Ammo
Ammunition as stored at 5809 Taft Street in Middleton, Wisconsin How long can ammunition be stored before it degrades? Much depends on the...
gunwatch.blogspot.com
Saturday, September 18, 2021
Shelf Life of .22 Rimfire Ammunition: Test of 65+ Year Old Ammo
Ammunition as stored at 5809 Taft Street in Middleton, Wisconsin
How long can ammunition be stored before it degrades? Much depends on the storage conditions. With reasonable care, ammunition has a shelf life of many decades, as verified by tests done with military centerfire cartridges.
How long does .22 rimfire last before it starts to degrade? There has not been much systematic long term storage testing of .22 rimfire. It tends to be used as an expendable item. Some people have found an old box or two of ammunition and checked it for viability.
This correspondent was able to obtain a large cache of 65+ year old .22 rimfire ammunition with a good pedigree. The bulk of the ammunition was Remington Standard Velocity .22 Long Rifle ammunition made before 1956.
I met the owner at the University of Wisconsin in 1970. We started a friendship that lasted 48 years, to his death in 2018. The friend was Don Cowling from Middleton, Wisconsin. He is the world record rat hunter who this correspondent wrote about in 2016, when I became aware of the provenance and extent of the ammunition cache. From that article:
The .22 ammunition has been in the jars for over 60 years. He allowed me to crack the seal on a mason jar that had been filled before I entered first grade. I anticipated an odor of acetone, as you often find in old smokeless powder. I could not detect any, nor could my friend. There was a faint hint of old wax, barely noticeable.
My friend gave me an even two dozen rounds to test to see if it had been degraded. I shot the ammunition out of a Mossberg target rifle of similar age. I fired the rounds at my brothers long established range behind the garage on family land in Northern Wisconsin. Every round fired as though it were new. I fired four five shot groups at 50 feet from a rest. The first was the largest at .56 inches, center to center. The rest were .32, .31 and .31 inches. Not enough to win matches, perhaps, but perfectly good for hunting. My brother fired the last four shots offhand.
Don treasured his privacy, so his name was not mentioned in the 2016 article. The ammunition was mentioned, with a picture. Don knew I would reveal his name after he died, and did not object.
Don was a star handgun competitor at the University of Wisconsin. A top handgun competitor can easily run through 50,000 to 100,000 rounds a year. Don told me the ammunition was put in the quart jars before or during 1956. Don was on the University of Wisconsin Varsity ROTC pistol team when they won the regional championships in 1955. Don always paid for things in cash, or in trade or barter. I suspect the ammo was obtained in a special deal.
Placing the ammunition in quart jars sealed it from the atmosphere. It likely prevented the bullet lubrication from oxidizing.
Ammunition obtained later was so noted in his records. His records showed the pre-1956 ammunition to be Remington Standard Velocity. His records match the ammunition headstamps.
Article from Wisconsin State Journal, March 21, 1953.
Don kept meticulous records. After he died in 2018, this correspondent had access to his lifelong records and journals.
I was able to purchase his .22 ammunition cache of tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition from his estate. Over 20 thousand rounds of the cache was Remington standard velocity ammunition obtained in or prior to 1956, transferred to quart jars from boxes by 1956. It was stored for 15-17 years in an attic at 17 Mills Street in Madison, Wisconsin, then underground from 1970-72 to 2018 in a basement at 5809 Taft Street in Middleton, Wisconsin. After the ammunition was purchased from the estate, it was moved across country, then stored in a secure underground location.
The ammunition was purchased to conduct rigorous long term storage testing of .22 rimfire ammunition. If there are other caches containing significant amounts of 65+ year old .22 rimfire ammunition, they are unknown to this author.
The initial test procedure used a control of 500 rounds of CCI Standard Velocity ammunition, lot H05S, manufactured on 5 August, 2012. The ammunition was tested in a Mossberg 702 semi-automatic rifle with factory 10 round magazines. The rifle is expected to be used throughout the long term test. The rifle was purchased new in anticipation of the ammunition test.
A few hundred rounds were expended through the rifle before the test, from various manufacturers. The same rifle was used with the old Remington ammunition, to limit test variables. Accuracy testing was done at 25 yards. Velocity testing was done with a Caldwell Chronograph G2 eight feet from the muzzle.
10 fouling shots were fired, followed by 5 five shot groups from a rest at 25 yards. The rifle was equipped with an inexpensive Simmons 4x32 .22 Mag scope.
After accuracy testing, 50 shots were fired to register on the chronograph to obtain average velocity, standard deviation, and extreme spread.
The rest of the 500 rounds was fired for reliability. The manufacturer recommends the rifle be cleaned after firing 200 rounds. The rifle was cleaned at the beginning of the test, and each 250 rounds after that, so test conditions would be the same for both sources of ammunition. Most shots were fired with a few seconds between shots. Nearly all shots were fired from magazines loaded with 10 rounds.
The test is for the ammunition, not the rifle. A semi-automatic rifle was used for uniformity of action. A semi-automatic is considered a bit more ammunition sensitive than single shot rifles or manual repeaters. If the ammunition will cycle a semi-automatic action, it should work in manually operated repeaters or single shot firearms.
The same procedure was used to test 500 rounds of the 65+ year old Remington Standard Velocity ammunition.
Test results:
Accuracy, average of 5 five shot groups at 25 yards, measured center to center:
CCI Standard Velocity: .502 inches
Old Remington Standard Velocity .565 inches
Velocity measurements for 50 rounds, average velocity, Standard Deviation, extreme spread in feet per second (fps).
CCI Standard Velocity: Average 1072.3 fps, SD 17.5, extreme spread 84 fps, 1035 to 1119.
Old Remington Standard Velocity: Average 1098.9 fps, SD 19.8, Extreme spread 101 fps, 1041 to 1142.
Reliability for 500 rounds fired:
CCI Standard Velocity: 1 failure to fire, round 102, strong firing pin strike, rotated round, fired on second strike.
Old Remington Standard Velocity: 1 failure to fire, round 252, second round after cleaning. Very light primer strike (probably a mechanical rather than ammunition failure). The round was rotated. It fired normally with a second strike.
Light firing pin strike before rotation and firing with second strike.
For practical uses of .22 rimfire ammunition, there is no significant difference between the nine year old CCI ammunition and the 65+ year old Remington ammunition.
This correspondent intends to make this testing a regular event. Data will be collected about the storage life of .22 ammunition, to the point of finding significant degradation, or of running out ammunition.
There is enough ammunition to extend the test to over 100 years of storage, if 500 rounds is fired each year.
Alternatively, 500 rounds could be tested each two years, or five years, extending the test.
Enormous quantities of .22 rimfire ammunition have been purchased in the last two years. Much of it has been stored. If stored at reasonable temperatures in airtight containers, it should be useful for at least 65+ years. As no degradation has been detected in the stored Remington ammunition, the upper limit of storage life is unknown.
The author expects the test project to extend beyond his lifetime. The intention is to find viable candidates to continue testing to at least 2056.
©2021 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.
Gun Watch
Posted by Dean Weingarten at 9/18/2021 10:40:00 PM
.22 CB and .22 BB
CB is conical bullet
BB is a .22 BB round bullet
Many decades ago seen the .22 CB caps at old gunshops near me, those shops are gone decades ago. I've never seen the .22BB caps, but was told they were used for carnival arcade rifles when I was a kid.
Reminded of a Sherlock Holmes Story (and movies from 1940's) where Sherlock is sitting in a chair in his flat shooting .22's into the wall forming a portrait of Queen Victoria(?) or maybe Queen Elizabeth 1st??
ETA: now I'm going to have to dig out stuff. I've got boxes all over of gun related stuff, parts old sights removed when upgraded.I used to buy .22 shorts for 50cents a box. Just some .22 cal, misc old stuff.
Had to clean up some auto-correct mistakes made by spellchecker. I swear it's as worthless as tits on a bull frog
CB is conical bullet
BB is a .22 BB round bullet
Many decades ago seen the .22 CB caps at old gunshops near me, those shops are gone decades ago. I've never seen the .22BB caps, but was told they were used for carnival arcade rifles when I was a kid.
Reminded of a Sherlock Holmes Story (and movies from 1940's) where Sherlock is sitting in a chair in his flat shooting .22's into the wall forming a portrait of Queen Victoria(?) or maybe Queen Elizabeth 1st??
ETA: now I'm going to have to dig out stuff. I've got boxes all over of gun related stuff, parts old sights removed when upgraded.I used to buy .22 shorts for 50cents a box. Just some .22 cal, misc old stuff.
Had to clean up some auto-correct mistakes made by spellchecker. I swear it's as worthless as tits on a bull frog
Last edited:
bw
Fringe Ranger
I have one lonesome little round plastic container of BB caps, made in Germany, labeled Rundkugeln and three other languages. Probably picked them up at the Army gun club near Heidelberg, but don't recall. The BBs have a disturbing habit of falling out of the case. They are powered by the primer alone.
bw
Fringe Ranger
I just measured my cut-down shorts, in case anyone wants to try it. I cut the bullet off just about the point where it would contact the barrel, leaving .15" of lead above the case. There's almost no lead inside the case, just a lip to be gripped by the case. So the resulting slug is about .18" long.
The slugs are too variable to trust far, but at close range they act like wadcutters and when I dispatch squirrels they give a good impact instead of going on through.
The slugs are too variable to trust far, but at close range they act like wadcutters and when I dispatch squirrels they give a good impact instead of going on through.
Another cool last resort trick is to use .22 cal nail gun "Powder loads" to fire a .22 airgun pellet from your .22 rifle. They exceed 2200 FPS
Sometimes you can load the pellet into the chamber then put the blank in behind it, other times you can muzzle load the pellet after chambering the load. Be careful not to shoot yourself shoving the pellet down the barrel with the blank in the chamber, sort of like loading a muzzleloader ball on top of a black powder charge.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOZpy55U-jY
Ramset 0.22 Caliber Yellow Single Shot Powder Loads (100-Count)-00607 - The Home Depot
Sometimes you can load the pellet into the chamber then put the blank in behind it, other times you can muzzle load the pellet after chambering the load. Be careful not to shoot yourself shoving the pellet down the barrel with the blank in the chamber, sort of like loading a muzzleloader ball on top of a black powder charge.
Ramset 0.22 Caliber Yellow Single Shot Powder Loads (100-Count)-00607 - The Home Depot
day late
money? whats that?
Not a short, but worth a look. A home made belt fed .22 machinegun.
(422) .22 Belt-feed Machine Gun Tippman - YouTube
(422) .22 Belt-feed Machine Gun Tippman - YouTube
TKO
Veteran Member
I never had a problem on my Ruger. I also started alternating carry from the Ruger to the M&P Shield 9mm. Tons of Hoosiers carry and it must be a shocker to the Californicators and Chicongoans that have rolled into the state.
Knighttemplar
Veteran Member
Got paid in 22 shorts on the farm. One box a day for chores. They were $0.29 a box.
John Green
Veteran Member
Yup and I have one that my Dad got from his father when he was a kid.also very accurate and fun to shoot.
Griz3752
Retired, practising Curmudgeon
Not to denigrate a preference but when subsonic .22LR became reasonably available/priced, I switched to those.
My MGGF was a dairy farmer & had an almost unreasonable hate for pigeons, sparrows et al in his buildings so we young uns were tasked w/ keeping them down. Taught accuracy as he also had a thing about holes in his buildings so he expected something to fall to the ground/floor if you squeezed the trigger.
Cheap single shots and a pocketful of .22 Shorts is probably still a great afternoon.
Shot them a lot. Never measured anything except one case where my buddy brought his little pocket .25 over to show mr so I pulled out my .22 short Derringer with about a 1" barrel and we shot into the pack of spare Natl Geos I had in a box face-to[face standing. .22 mag went thru maybe 3 and lodged in the 4th and .22 short went thru 7 and lodged in the 8th.