It could be that it was a 22 magnum revolver and the 22 wrf can be fired from a 22 magnum and not the other way around.
22 Long Rifle usage and reputation during the years.....
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It could be that it was a 22 magnum revolver and the 22 wrf can be fired from a 22 magnum and not the other way around.
22lr was the training round for us in massachusetts. in the early 1960s my dad, a univ professor and ww2 vet who survived omaha beach on the morning of 6/6/44, got tired of seeing us kids play soldier and said “war isnt a game.” soon thereafter my brother and i, 9 and 10, were in the local nra shooting club, which met in the basement of the rotc building, to learn the truth about firearms. we were very well taught on single shot, bolt action 22lr rifles. a bit later came boy scout summer camp rifle ranges and killing pinecones in the woods. i cannot imagine having those fine experiences in the massachusetts of today, which is a very sad thought indeed.
kBob
Member
I don't know how many times I have heard "it's just a .22". I will say that in the late 50's and early '60s a .22LR was just a step up from BB guns in the minds of many folks when it came to boys (and a few girls) and woods rambling.
Most kids got a demonstration of the difference between a .22 and a Daisy early on with a demonstration of a hit on some common object with each. Dad chose a steel can clad soda. My old BB gun at fifteen yards dented the full (and shaken) can but the soda remained in side. A .22 short "not half as strong as a Long Rifle bullet" blew the can open and hurled it off the picnic table with soda every where. Got my attention PaPa JC took a different approach. He had me drive a nail through a 1x4 then invited me to drive a nail through my hand or arm or whatever the same way. Naturally I told him that was nuts. He then shot through the board and another with a .22LR round in my rifle and explained that the rifle and ammo could do one board like I had with a hammer and nail three football fields or more away......and that no one wanted me driving nails through them at any distance.
My first step up after a Daisy was to a Winchester 67 single shot. I had buds with other guns as time went on, various bolt action repeaters, Glenfield Model 60s, a pump Winchester 1890, and eventually a Nylon 66 who's space rifle like lines and looks all dreamed of.
I did note that it tended to take me less rounds to hit what I was shooting at than some of the other boys......I only had that one shot and the rifle had to be cocked manually after loading. By the time I was ready for a second shot at a squirrel, he might be in the next county.
I went ga-ga over a Browning T bolt I used at Scout Camp one year. Someone had stolen the guns at camp and the instructor just brought in some of his guns. Of course with only five one hour sessions on a 50 foot range shared with seven other boys I did not actually learn that much more than I already knew....except that T bolt had a receiver peep sight that seemed to make quite a difference in my shooting ability.
JROTC was introduced in my school just in time for me. I had stepped up to a semi auto Savage the year before and used it both with the little scope it came with (yep 3/4 inch tip off with friction adjustments) and the tangent sights much like my Winchester 67 had. What with BSA camp and the new rifle I was sure I could shoot. Fortunately I did not brag as much as some of the boys.
Some took a look at those training targets and pronounced those black bullseyes to be huge. Some looked across those 50 foot firing points and pronounced that to be "spittin' distance". Boasts of "hitting a squirrel's eye at three times that distance, every time" were bandied about. Soon however it became apparent that there must have been some huge variety of semi trailor sized squirrel running about the county, if no one was going to be called a liar.
Turns out the black bullseye was just an aiming point and the ten ring was a little circle in its middle about the same diameter as a .22 bullet. When some of us got proud at having listened and learned and practiced enough to reliably hit that ten ring on those training targets in prone and kneeling and most of the time in the stand the instructors just brought out the match target........now to get ten points on a target one had to hit a white dot the size of the point of a ball point pen and a marginal hit on the edge of the black that had been worth five points was now worth one..
By the time I left high school, a .22lr had been a plinker, a hunter, and a training rifle for target shooting. The fact that the stocks on those JROTC Remington 513T and Winchester 52D rifles were the same shape as the stock on an M-1 or M-14 rifle was a mere co-inky-dink, right?
I had also found that in my case a .22lr (single shot rifle) had worked just fine for Home Defense. Not sure if I wrote elsewhere about it and don't feel like doing so now. I will say it worked the best way, no shot fired and the .38 revolver armed intruder threatening my Mom and Dad got very polite , very quickly and left.
During this time a feature of family holidays was that an ancient married in grand Uncle provided us with a turkey at either thanksgiving or Christmas of the wild variety. The Great aunt he married was Gandma's sister and one of seven living siblings so they shared with another part of the family one holiday or the other. What this has to do with a .22 was that Uncle shot every bird in the head with a .22 every year. He had stopped taking deer with a .22 by the time I came along.....mostly.
About 12 I got to see a grown up waiting in my doctor's office calmly waiting to see the doctor about a .22 caliber hole in his left index finger. He removed the bandage and showed the wound to me complete with burns from muzzle contact on the inside of his palm and allowed as how it "Smarted" (hurt) right well and how important it was to not use your rifle as walking cane or hiking staff in the woods.
Only about a week later an old lady only a couple of blocks from my school suffered a home invasion by two healthy young men that ended when she knee capped both with her .22 revolver. At first we thought it a story, but then Dad's golfing buddy turned out to have been the first officer on the scene and described to me in detail the perps rolling about on the floor with one crying for his mom. The officer allowed as how she held them at gun point until he arrived and both were able to get up and hobble to the front porch on his command, but neither had seemed willing to be shot with "just a .22" again while awaiting his arrival. Remembering the guy in the Doctor's office I quite understood those guys reluctance.
So for the period of 1959 through 1970 I would say the .22LR was quite a useful cartridge in my neck of the woods despite being "just a .22"
-kBob
Most kids got a demonstration of the difference between a .22 and a Daisy early on with a demonstration of a hit on some common object with each. Dad chose a steel can clad soda. My old BB gun at fifteen yards dented the full (and shaken) can but the soda remained in side. A .22 short "not half as strong as a Long Rifle bullet" blew the can open and hurled it off the picnic table with soda every where. Got my attention PaPa JC took a different approach. He had me drive a nail through a 1x4 then invited me to drive a nail through my hand or arm or whatever the same way. Naturally I told him that was nuts. He then shot through the board and another with a .22LR round in my rifle and explained that the rifle and ammo could do one board like I had with a hammer and nail three football fields or more away......and that no one wanted me driving nails through them at any distance.
My first step up after a Daisy was to a Winchester 67 single shot. I had buds with other guns as time went on, various bolt action repeaters, Glenfield Model 60s, a pump Winchester 1890, and eventually a Nylon 66 who's space rifle like lines and looks all dreamed of.
I did note that it tended to take me less rounds to hit what I was shooting at than some of the other boys......I only had that one shot and the rifle had to be cocked manually after loading. By the time I was ready for a second shot at a squirrel, he might be in the next county.
I went ga-ga over a Browning T bolt I used at Scout Camp one year. Someone had stolen the guns at camp and the instructor just brought in some of his guns. Of course with only five one hour sessions on a 50 foot range shared with seven other boys I did not actually learn that much more than I already knew....except that T bolt had a receiver peep sight that seemed to make quite a difference in my shooting ability.
JROTC was introduced in my school just in time for me. I had stepped up to a semi auto Savage the year before and used it both with the little scope it came with (yep 3/4 inch tip off with friction adjustments) and the tangent sights much like my Winchester 67 had. What with BSA camp and the new rifle I was sure I could shoot. Fortunately I did not brag as much as some of the boys.
Some took a look at those training targets and pronounced those black bullseyes to be huge. Some looked across those 50 foot firing points and pronounced that to be "spittin' distance". Boasts of "hitting a squirrel's eye at three times that distance, every time" were bandied about. Soon however it became apparent that there must have been some huge variety of semi trailor sized squirrel running about the county, if no one was going to be called a liar.
Turns out the black bullseye was just an aiming point and the ten ring was a little circle in its middle about the same diameter as a .22 bullet. When some of us got proud at having listened and learned and practiced enough to reliably hit that ten ring on those training targets in prone and kneeling and most of the time in the stand the instructors just brought out the match target........now to get ten points on a target one had to hit a white dot the size of the point of a ball point pen and a marginal hit on the edge of the black that had been worth five points was now worth one..
By the time I left high school, a .22lr had been a plinker, a hunter, and a training rifle for target shooting. The fact that the stocks on those JROTC Remington 513T and Winchester 52D rifles were the same shape as the stock on an M-1 or M-14 rifle was a mere co-inky-dink, right?
I had also found that in my case a .22lr (single shot rifle) had worked just fine for Home Defense. Not sure if I wrote elsewhere about it and don't feel like doing so now. I will say it worked the best way, no shot fired and the .38 revolver armed intruder threatening my Mom and Dad got very polite , very quickly and left.
During this time a feature of family holidays was that an ancient married in grand Uncle provided us with a turkey at either thanksgiving or Christmas of the wild variety. The Great aunt he married was Gandma's sister and one of seven living siblings so they shared with another part of the family one holiday or the other. What this has to do with a .22 was that Uncle shot every bird in the head with a .22 every year. He had stopped taking deer with a .22 by the time I came along.....mostly.
About 12 I got to see a grown up waiting in my doctor's office calmly waiting to see the doctor about a .22 caliber hole in his left index finger. He removed the bandage and showed the wound to me complete with burns from muzzle contact on the inside of his palm and allowed as how it "Smarted" (hurt) right well and how important it was to not use your rifle as walking cane or hiking staff in the woods.
Only about a week later an old lady only a couple of blocks from my school suffered a home invasion by two healthy young men that ended when she knee capped both with her .22 revolver. At first we thought it a story, but then Dad's golfing buddy turned out to have been the first officer on the scene and described to me in detail the perps rolling about on the floor with one crying for his mom. The officer allowed as how she held them at gun point until he arrived and both were able to get up and hobble to the front porch on his command, but neither had seemed willing to be shot with "just a .22" again while awaiting his arrival. Remembering the guy in the Doctor's office I quite understood those guys reluctance.
So for the period of 1959 through 1970 I would say the .22LR was quite a useful cartridge in my neck of the woods despite being "just a .22"
-kBob
RavenTai
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For self defense 22 lr has random effect. it creates a long skinny wound track not much larger than the round itself that may take odd unpredictable twists and turns and hit random structures in the body, if it hits vitals it can be quite deadly, or it may pass through create almost no damage and leave your attacker just angrier
i have a tiny 22 revolver that i sometimes carry when i want to be lazy and don't expect need, its actually a 22 magnum but from a 1' barrel velocities are similar to 22lr.
i know a guy that hunted white tail with a 22 on his property. well placed in the ear seamed to work quite well bouncing around in the skull. i don't think that level of precision is doable from a self defense pistol under fighting conditions.
everyone should have a 22, it is great for cheap trigger time, introducing new shooters to the sport in a less loud less recoil way. but if you can carry something with more power you should.
i have a tiny 22 revolver that i sometimes carry when i want to be lazy and don't expect need, its actually a 22 magnum but from a 1' barrel velocities are similar to 22lr.
i know a guy that hunted white tail with a 22 on his property. well placed in the ear seamed to work quite well bouncing around in the skull. i don't think that level of precision is doable from a self defense pistol under fighting conditions.
everyone should have a 22, it is great for cheap trigger time, introducing new shooters to the sport in a less loud less recoil way. but if you can carry something with more power you should.
I hear banjos. Most people have 4 grandparents.
HMMM, perhaps the other two have passed away???
Schwing
Member
I know from some of my family who were in WWII (all deceased now), that the .22 was used extensively for training as the "Real" firearms were in such short supply. My Dad picked up an old Mossberg 26b when he was a kid that was one of the common bolt action training rifles in the late 30s into the 50s. It was the first firearm I fired and the first rifle I hunted with.
On another note, my Dad worked as an O.R. nurse for a couple of decades and saw a lot of gun shot wounds. .22 was the most common. According to his experiences, head wounds with .22s were almost always fatal but other areas very rarely were. They do create puncture-like wound channels that often lead to complications like infection but that doesn't do much in a self-defense situation.
Riomouse911
Member
I remember as a kid going into Gibson's Hardware in Kerrville Texas with my grandfather, and they also seemed to sell .22 LR by the box rather than the brick...
And I, too was expected to bring home a squirrel if I fired the 1890 when out hunting...
And I, too was expected to bring home a squirrel if I fired the 1890 when out hunting...
Riomouse911
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Col. Cornelius
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Lot's of poor farmers/ranchers fed there families during the depression (and after) with a 22 LR.
"Deer season" was a little more "flexible" back then when feeding the family meant hunting, not going to the store.
"Deer season" was a little more "flexible" back then when feeding the family meant hunting, not going to the store.
TeaCoffee.Guy
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I attended a history lecture at the local museum that was given by a old man who came from the local area,
he said that he killed many deer and grouse with his single shot .22 in the 30's to feed his family.
He said grouse were so plentiful that they lived on grouse most of the time.
he said that he killed many deer and grouse with his single shot .22 in the 30's to feed his family.
He said grouse were so plentiful that they lived on grouse most of the time.
Deltaboy1984
Member
The 22 feed my family for most of the last 120 years!
TeaCoffee.Guy
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I think that someone mentioned that a Native Indian woman in Northern Alberta had once killed a grizzly with a .22.
I remember hearing about that incident when I was a kid living in Alberta in the early 60's.
Afterwards I learned that her name might have been Bella Twins and that she killed the grizzly while her dogs were fighting with it.
It may have been a life or death situation.
I remember hearing about that incident when I was a kid living in Alberta in the early 60's.
Afterwards I learned that her name might have been Bella Twins and that she killed the grizzly while her dogs were fighting with it.
It may have been a life or death situation.
GunnyUSMC
Member
She killed that bear in 1953 with a Cooley Ace 1 single shot 22. She was 63 years old at the time. It was also a world record grizzly.
http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2017/06/bella-twin-22-used-to-take-1953-world.html
Garandimal
member
Like the old Mafia hit-man's reply to why he used a .22 LR pistol.
"You can hit them Anywhere. . . in the eye."
Anything that will penetrate a foot? Will get the job done.
Location, location, location.
GR
"You can hit them Anywhere. . . in the eye."
Anything that will penetrate a foot? Will get the job done.
Location, location, location.
GR
Bill Wright
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Winchester octagon barreled pump on the "Seawall" in front of my folks place at Lake Tahoe,Nevada.
Tried to eradicate a lot of pine cones bobbing in the "Surf"!! Store across the highway sold boxes of .22's
.25 cents for fifty I think? Might have been .50 cents. I still have that rifle. Can't sit on the wall and shoot anymore!
Tried to eradicate a lot of pine cones bobbing in the "Surf"!! Store across the highway sold boxes of .22's
.25 cents for fifty I think? Might have been .50 cents. I still have that rifle. Can't sit on the wall and shoot anymore!
alsaqr
Member
Grew up in WV. We shot squirrels, rabbits, grouse, raccoons and other animals with the .22 LR.
i sometimes hunt wild hogs on a huge piece of federal property that has weapons restrictions. Outside of deer, elk and special hog seasons one must hunt with shotgun shooting small shot or a rim fire rifle. Killed a bunch of wild hogs with a Ruger 10/.22. This old boar hog was shot at a distance of about 10 yards. He went down at the first shot and stopped thrashing around after the fifth or sixth shot:
i've since graduated to a .22 magnum when hunting hogs on that property. Yep, a .22 LR ain't a proper hog caliber. However, a .22 LR bullet in the brain trumps a .30 caliber bullet in the guts.
i sometimes hunt wild hogs on a huge piece of federal property that has weapons restrictions. Outside of deer, elk and special hog seasons one must hunt with shotgun shooting small shot or a rim fire rifle. Killed a bunch of wild hogs with a Ruger 10/.22. This old boar hog was shot at a distance of about 10 yards. He went down at the first shot and stopped thrashing around after the fifth or sixth shot:
i've since graduated to a .22 magnum when hunting hogs on that property. Yep, a .22 LR ain't a proper hog caliber. However, a .22 LR bullet in the brain trumps a .30 caliber bullet in the guts.
Fascinating story about Bella Twins, Gunny. Cooey has made many rimfires over the years, and their successor, Lakefield, now produces most of Savage's rimfires. https://calibremag.ca/cooey-canadas-gunmaker/
Dad thought BB guns were too dangerous, but I got a used Remington 514 BR when I was about 8 years old, and it was responsible for the early retirement of many crows, muskrats, prairie dogs, squirrels and gophers. Ammo was acquired when on sale for a penny a pop and I happened to have enough in my pocket to purchase a box. The old Federal Hi-Power brand were preferred, because they had a tiny target printed inside the box. The rimfire was for hunting, and target practice was to make us better hunters.
Dad thought BB guns were too dangerous, but I got a used Remington 514 BR when I was about 8 years old, and it was responsible for the early retirement of many crows, muskrats, prairie dogs, squirrels and gophers. Ammo was acquired when on sale for a penny a pop and I happened to have enough in my pocket to purchase a box. The old Federal Hi-Power brand were preferred, because they had a tiny target printed inside the box. The rimfire was for hunting, and target practice was to make us better hunters.
GunnyUSMC
Member
I missed out on a nice Cooey trainer a few years ago. Would love to have one in my collection.
I wish my kids had the same opportunities as I did growing up as I did, when it comes to shooting and hunting. When I was a kid it was a ten minute walk to the woods where we could hunt and shoot. No one worried about young boys walking with a rifle, headed to and from the woods.
I live one mile from my mother’s house now and just down the road from where I hunted as a young boy. The woods have been cleared and subdivision, with many home, have taken their place. Now it’s a 45 minute drive just to go shooting out doors.
But I have more 22s these days, more then I can fit in one safe. I’ll end up giving most of them to my kids and grandkids.
bannockburn
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Gunny
Use to go shooting one a friend's property fairly far out in the country side. He had a berm put in when he had his house built and we use to go and enjoy a whole weekend of plinking at cans and plastic bottles and target shooting. Could even go hunting around his property as there were no neighbors, only corn fields all around the area. Then the fields got sold off and they started putting in houses all around with neighbors too close for comfort so no more shooting or hunting.
Looks like your pretty well stocked with .22s for the next couple of generations of shooters! Good on you, good for them!
Use to go shooting one a friend's property fairly far out in the country side. He had a berm put in when he had his house built and we use to go and enjoy a whole weekend of plinking at cans and plastic bottles and target shooting. Could even go hunting around his property as there were no neighbors, only corn fields all around the area. Then the fields got sold off and they started putting in houses all around with neighbors too close for comfort so no more shooting or hunting.
Looks like your pretty well stocked with .22s for the next couple of generations of shooters! Good on you, good for them!
GunnyUSMC
Member
The problem I have is that I can’t get all my 22s in that safe.
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