22 S/L/LR Rifles?
- Thread starter gregp74
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Mosin77
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I always make it a point to throw in a couple boxes of shorts on every online order I make (in normal times when you can order up ammo online.) Doesn’t usually add to shipping cost and I have a little Stevens single shot that has a pitted chamber, only shorts will extract. I’m assuming this means it was probably fired exclusively with black powder shorts back in the teens and twenties, and the resultant fouling ring eventually pitted the metal. Great fun and with a 16” barrel it has a nice little pop when you shoot it. A box of shorts goes a long way when you have to manually chamber and remove each little case from a rolling block style action. I imagine it would be murder on rabbits and squirrels too but haven’t tried it yet.
My brother had a Remington 514 single-shot that I used with .22 Shorts and they eroded the chamber of the $16 rifle to the point that the extractor wouldn't pull out Long Rifle shells. The metal was quite soft in the $16. rifle. I loved shooting that rifle and had a scope mounted on it by a local Blacksmith (yeah, I know better now).
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gregp74
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Sorry I was away from my thread for a little bit. I've got a couple 22 revolvers I can use shorts and longs in. I used to have a tube fed Remington bolt action that could feed them but ended up trading it away sadly. (I probably could feed longs or shorts into my Anschutz with the single shot adapter but that probably wouldn't be a very good idea in that match chamber lol) I've probably got a good 10-12k rounds of 22lr and a few hundred shorts left over from the Remington that I once in a while put in the revolvers just for fun.
I don't really *need* another 22 but that's never stopped me before. I'm just kinda looking for something to plink around with and maybe take care of the occasional critter in the garden. Trying to decide between a pump or semi auto. I'm tempted to go with something like the Rem 121 I learned to shoot with but also thinking my eyes aren't so good these days maybe I'm going to want something more modern that's easier to stick a scope on if I need to.
I don't really *need* another 22 but that's never stopped me before. I'm just kinda looking for something to plink around with and maybe take care of the occasional critter in the garden. Trying to decide between a pump or semi auto. I'm tempted to go with something like the Rem 121 I learned to shoot with but also thinking my eyes aren't so good these days maybe I'm going to want something more modern that's easier to stick a scope on if I need to.
I had a Winchester 67 and stupidly sold it. That rifle would handle S, L, and LR. with equal ease. I shot some CB caps but they tended to foul the chamber badly, so I quit them. Such rifles are very handy for plinking back yard pests. I lost count of the number of invaders of my wife's gardens that I dispatched with shorts. When I was a kid, I killed 100s of rabbits and squirrels with shorts because they were cheap, effective inside 30-40 yards, and quiet. These days my Marlin 39A handles all three quite well. And it serves it's backdoor pest duties quite well. I keep a stash of shorts just for fun. So yes, they are very useful and fun.
I don't tend to shoot Shorts anymore and hardly shoot .22LR rifles much, since getting more powerful rimfires, especially my CZ .17 HMR. That rifle likes to sleep in the entry closet, with three loaded magazines on the closet shelf nearby. It's convenient to grab the CZ455 and a couple of mags when I see a 4-legged varmint attacking our bird feeders, or a woodchuck making holes in our lawn, etc.. It usually only takes one shot, but I don't like to run a rifle dry without a backup mag.
Omaha-BeenGlockin
Member
I picked up a decent supply of shorts a little while back---because that was all that was available -----my BL22 will gleefully gobble them up.
Wouldn't be have bought them if I didn't have that rifle----and life would be a lot less interesting.
Wouldn't be have bought them if I didn't have that rifle----and life would be a lot less interesting.
Encoreman
Member
I recall vividly in 1963 buying .22 shorts for $0.39 at the local Western Auto store. Those were the days my friends!!!!!!!!! Nobody questioned why an 11 year old was buying ammo!
I was a bit older, but Sears had a sale on .22 Shorts...3 boxes for a dollar. I bought all I could afford at the time....at least $5 worth...about all I could carry on my bike. It shot dirty and the lube may have been a bit abrasive. The Rem514 rifle didn't like to extract long rifle's after shooting a LOT of shorts, but was still accurate. (Had to bring a pocket knife to the gravel pit when I went to shoot.). I traded that rifle and it was still in the rack when the store closed forever.
GBExpat
Member
Once Santa brought me that .22 semi-auto rifle all the way from the North Pole Sears when I was 12, I was done with .22 Shorts ... and I can only vaguely recall ever buying any Longs. Both of those occurred when John Kennedy was the President, btw. WHEW! 
tark
Member
Here's a box for ya! And something I never knew existed, 22 Short HPs!!! Not sure if they kill better than the standard shorts. I bought the box strictly as a novelty item. If you look closely you can see the hollow cavity in the shorts' bullets. $9.95 seemed like an outrageous price at the time but i guess it's not so bad today.
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I doubt they do much, ive never found the hollow point .22lrs to make much ot a difference unless they where huge hollow points or hypers.
Still cool tho, bet tha new bullet tech would make a RG10 a fantastic defensive revolver.........
d2wing
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My first gun was a Remington 514. I really liked it. I don't know what happened to it. My dad felt free to sell anything including my motorcycles when I was in the Army.. I remeber shooting shorts some but not enough to damage it. But that's a reason to not use them in a rifle that shoot longs.
DM~
Member
tark
Member
The .17 HMR Tikka 455 that I have, started life as a .22 Magnum and it was "OK", but I decided to try a heavy-fluted .17 HMR barrel on it and the .22 Mag barrel hasn't been on it since. I still have the original barrel, but I locktited the .17 barrel on it and don't feel like taking it off because the .17 is more accurate/better for my uses.
DM~
Member
Yeaaa, but I'm never interested in selling something like that. I enjoy having things like that around MORE than having the money around to do what??
BUT, I just read that my old Sony Walkman is worth 200 bucks, probably should sell it instead.
DM
tark
Member
I think we are twins that were separated at birth. I have several old 22 boxes of ammo. One box of longs says it is loaded with "semi-smokeless" powder. I have no interest in selling them, I would rather admire them in my display case.
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I found a couple of 100 round boxes of 22 short in the stash the other day. Perfect for my pre WW1 Winchester 1904.
So for that rifle, I'd say they're still relevant.
(It's a dandy with the last of the long ammo I have and tumbles most LR I fire through her)
So for that rifle, I'd say they're still relevant.
(It's a dandy with the last of the long ammo I have and tumbles most LR I fire through her)
Encoreman
Member
Back during the Hussein ammo shortage I traded a friend a brick of 22lr for some cci 22 longs he had bought hoping they would cycle in his auto loader. I still have the Winchester model 61 that I shot all those shorts in the 60's, plus a couple of High Standard revolvers that will shoot those longs. It had been awhile since I had seen the longs and thought they may have been discontinued.
Dave DeLaurant
Member
I got some of these in a ziplock bag from my late brother's estate. Don't know what he was thinking at the time, but he bought one of those hideous little RG revolvers in 22 short and stuffed it with this stuff.
Maybe I ought to finally sell the thing now, since everything else is bringing good money on the LGS market ...
Guess Shorts won't hurt it much...already a problem. Have you thought about relining the Winchester's barrel?
I have a Henry lever that will shoot all 3. I bought it for the manual action to shoot the wide variety of 22 my Marlin 60s won’t cycle. I have a couple boxes of shorts, CB longs, Quiet, and Thunderbolt. It runs them all. The CB long are the most accurate low noise round. I tried the Super Colibri too. They’re very quiet but not terribly accurate. When I can find either around here, the shorts are cheaper than the Long Rifle.
This 1904 is a strange one.
Funny thing is the barrel is in ok (for a century old rimfire) shape.
It has iirc 1/20ish spin and doesn't take kindly to any make of 22lr I've tried so far.
It will stabilize short, and long ammo. Only LR gives it fits.
Darndest thing too is it'll toss the LR in a consistent tumbling cone. I only noticed the LR bullets tumbling when I put it on paper at 25yds.
I thought originally it was worn out and that was why I struggled at 50 yds with it.
Only when I read the barrel did I notice the Long/Short marker.
tark
Member
Ideal twist rate for 22 shorts is 1-21. 1-18 is standard for LRs. I made a gun a few years back out some barrel blanks that Les gave me. Chambered it with a drill bit and got a perfect 22 LR chamber. When I range tested the gun, bullets were going sideways. I checked the twist and found a 1-21 rate. So I tried some longs. The gun proved to be very accurate. My neighbor has a Winder Musket chambered in 22 Short. I checked the twist on it and sure enough, it was 1-21.
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