Carl N. Brown
Member
Back when I was a kid in the 60's I bought the best I could afford, usually shorts and longs, only long rifle for special occasions. There was a price difference of about .10 between shorts and longs and .10 more for long rifle.
I remember in 1960 that on an allowance of $2 a week, I could go to the Rialto for a double bill of "Attack of the Killer Shrews" and "The Giant Gila Monster", popcorn, coke, Resse's cups, and after the movie pick up a copy of "Famous Monsters of Filmland" at the newstand. I did a little checking recently and a dollar in 1960, adjusted for inflation, had the buying power of about $7.50 in 2010. A lot of my complaining about the price of decent .22 ammo today needs mental adjustment for inflation.
Economy of mass production, demand and distribution since then have made the long rifle usually cheaper than short or long. It seems Short and Long are made today mainly for the guns that still exist that were .22 short or .22 long only. A lot of shooting gallery guns were .22 short only--pumps, bottom ejecting Remington semi-autos, and a few Nylon 66.
I have seen a few models of rifles listed in catalogs as .22 long only; in some pumps there was not a magazine cut-off, so they fed only the round the cartridge lifter was designed for, Short or Long or Long Rifle.
Back in the 1950s and 1960s I do recall that a few folks would shoot the .22 long in their S, L, LR rifles as a cheap practice or short range load rather than use shorts to avoid building up a ring of fouling in the chamber that might interfer with chambering long rifle.
Here for what it is worth is a table I build (still under construction) on the development of .22 rimfire cartridges.
Code:
.22 Rimfire Timeline
Heeled
Year Cartridge Case Bullet Overall Description
1845 BB .284" 20 GR .343" Flobert Bullet Breech cap round ball
1857 Short .423" 29 gr .686" Smith & Wesson cartridge #1
1871 Long .595" 29 gr .798" ¨Frank Wesson?
1880 Extra Long .750" 40 gr 1.160" ¨?
1887 Long Rifle .595" 40 gr .985" J. Stevens Arms & Tool Co
1888 CB .284" 20 gr ---- Conical Bullet version of BB*
1975 CCI Stinger .710" 32 gr .985" almost extra long case, semi-S bullet
---- Aguila SSS .423" 60 gr .985" Short case, Long Rifle overall length
The original BB Cap was a rimmed musket cap with a round ball used in single shot guns. I think the Germans called them Zimmerpatrone or room cartridges for indoor target practice. Those were primer-power only, and most Flobert guns I have seen (mostly in photos) were breechloading single shots. When the CB idea was resurrected, the manufacturers elected to use the short and long case so the cartridges could be used in magazine fed repeaters.
When old timers told me about using a .22 Extra Long, I wondered about their memory. But there was an .22 EL cartridge, that added more black powder and a heavier bullet than the Long. The guns also would chamber and fire .22 S and L. Then Stevens got the idea of topping a Long case with the .22 EL 40 grain bullet to make a Long Rifle cartridge, which made the Extra Long obsolete in a few generations.
My .22 LR Remington Nylon 66 feeds, fires and ejects the 60 gr Aguila SSS perfectly. Other .22 Long Rifle semi-autos I own don't always eject the short case used with the SSS.