.22 LR subsonic and .22 Short

Southern

Well-Known Member
I see a lot of the UK rabbit hunters liking subsonic .22 LR ammunition, like the Winchester 40-gr, the Eley, and RWS.

I don't see any mention of .22 Long and .22 Short, even as substitutes when favored ammo is out of stock. I have used .22 Short HP ever since I was a boy, because they are much quieter than high speed Long Rifles, at about the same velocity (1,120 fps ), as the Subsonic LRs. So I am just curious if they are used for hunting in the UK.
 
Never used hem myself, but pretty much everyone I know who has hasn't had very good accuracy from them.
 
Over the years I've used .22 shorts, longs, shot, CB caps and the tiny little BB caps. They really aren't very popular over here now for several reasons.

There's not the culture of the young lads single shot .22 rimfire rifle here in the UK. A youngster might start with a youths air rifle then progress to a full size air rifle then on to a .22 rimfire but that quite a big step involving applying for a firearm certificate which is quite an involved and strictly controlled process.

Once cleared for a .22 rimfire the normal choice would be a magazine fed bolt action rifle that will normally only feed .22LR from the magazine or a semi-auto which will again only feed .22LR from the magazine. Having a plinking session with a few mates with an old pump action .22 with a tube magazine loaded with what ever was at hand is not really practical in the UK now unfortunately.

Most .22 rimfires used for pest control are used with a moderator and to get any benefit from a moderator, subsonic ammunition is used. There are time when low powered shorts might be handy but not many that can't be carried out with a good air rifle.
 
Good answer, 1066.
As you surmise, most of us older hunters, in the US or UK, cut our teeth on single shot bolt action rifles. The Savage autoloaders, the pumps, and most lever actions, will handle a mix of .22 Short, Long, and Long Rifle.

I use the .22 Short HP in my revolvers and rifles for pigeons, rats, and squirrels where the shots are inside 50 yards, because they are quiet, being just 100 fps faster than the subsonic LR.

What brought this to mind was seeing a box of 100 CCI .22 Short HP yesterday for $7.00, and snapping them up. Finding subsonic .22 LR right now is difficult. So many SD shooters are having good accuracy from the Winchester, that I want to try them in my .22s.
 
Usual problem with 22 Short and Long is that accuracy falls off after 25m.

I had same problem recently when testing CCI Quiet Segmented HP (friend gave me a box to try). The problem was vertical stringing (didn't measure velocity but I suspect velocity variation) when short/long group badly also horizontally.
 
CCI ( or other ) .22 Short Target rounds will be slower (870 fps), but accurate, as they are made for 25 Meter ISU rapid fire pistol competition. I could get a 1-inch group ( one hand, not a rest) from my High Standard and my FAS. In my longer barrel rifles, like my Enfield trainer, they are as quiet as a BB gun.
 
Bruce Potts did an article ( Shooting Times?) on this very subject, i think I have a copy on file, if i can dig it out i will pdf and post.

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How about the CCI Quiet-22 LR rounds? I saw some of those yesterday - same price and velocity as the .22 Short Target.
 
My guess is that rounds with regular(ish) 40 grain(ish) bullet have better accuracy potential at, say 50m than 29gr.
 
My guess is that rounds with regular(ish) 40 grain(ish) bullet have better accuracy potential at, say 50m than 29gr.

You may well be right - I think the problem is that .22 LR barrels are 1in16 or 1in16, you get what you're given and like it. We are hoping for laser like accuracy from the same barrel with bullets from 20 grain shorts at 700fps, 60 grain heavy weights at 1100 fps to 30 grain Hyper velocity at 1700fps and a host of combinations in between.

If you were looking at centrefire rifles you would think very carefully about what twist you want for the type of bullet you will be shooting. The .22 rimfire has been around for donkeys years, Abraham Lincoln and the captain of the Cutty Sark would both have been familiar with it.

To be honest I'm disappointed with the accuracy of the .22LR. - Yes, it's cheap and fairly accurate and great fun and it does the job of pest control quietly and efficiently etc. but there seems to have been almost no improvement in accuracy in the last 50 years. I believe the NSRA 100yd match targets are still the same size as the ones I was shooting in the 1960's - High 90's was a good shoot then, it's still the same now, it would appear that the old heeled bullet has reach it's potential.

Why don't we hear about 1 in 10 .22lr barrels designed to shoot the hyper velocity light bullets and achieving .5 moa or other such innovations ?
 
You may well be right - I think the problem is that .22 LR barrels are 1in16 or 1in16, you get what you're given and like it. We are hoping for laser like accuracy from the same barrel with bullets from 20 grain shorts at 700fps, 60 grain heavy weights at 1100 fps to 30 grain Hyper velocity at 1700fps and a host of combinations in between.

If you were looking at centrefire rifles you would think very carefully about what twist you want for the type of bullet you will be shooting. The .22 rimfire has been around for donkeys years, Abraham Lincoln and the captain of the Cutty Sark would both have been familiar with it.

To be honest I'm disappointed with the accuracy of the .22LR. - Yes, it's cheap and fairly accurate and great fun and it does the job of pest control quietly and efficiently etc. but there seems to have been almost no improvement in accuracy in the last 50 years. I believe the NSRA 100yd match targets are still the same size as the ones I was shooting in the 1960's - High 90's was a good shoot then, it's still the same now, it would appear that the old heeled bullet has reach it's potential.

Why don't we hear about 1 in 10 .22lr barrels designed to shoot the hyper velocity light bullets and achieving .5 moa or other such innovations ?

Because, maybe? no one wants to fix something that's not broken commercially speaking?
What do we think could be the potential market bearing in mind all of the old cheapies knocking around?
Apart from the point of it being a real bouncy b1tch on hard ground? it's cheap to buy, run and pretty much a winner within sensible parameters? Maybe?
 
Because, maybe? no one wants to fix something that's not broken commercially speaking?
What do we think could be the potential market bearing in mind all of the old cheapies knocking around?
Apart from the point of it being a real bouncy b1tch on hard ground? it's cheap to buy, run and pretty much a winner within sensible parameters? Maybe?

I'm surprised that no one seems to have carried out any real comparative tests. It would be interesting to try a 1in9 or 1in12 with the 60grain subs. It would be easy to machine a .223 barrel with a faster twist to fit something like a Sako Quad. I know the .22lr and the .223 bore dimensions aren't exactly the same, but they're not far off.
 
There have been all sorts of tests of various .22 barrels, chambers, and ammunition in test rifles. I can probably still find some on the web.

On top of that, Colt and others made .22 LR training conversion kits for the AR-15 and M-16, in the original 1:12 twist, then for the 1:9 twist M-16A2. They were also run in the 1:8 and 1:7 barrels for the SS109.

There were match rifles by Anschutz and others which would shoot 1/2 inch groups back in 1968. Top shooters were shooting outdoor groups of an inch at 50 yards and 100 yards back then.
 
I knew they played about with various training conversions for the black rifles using original barrels - These type of conversions have been going on for about as long as the .22rf has been about, Morris tubes in Martini Henrys and .455 Enfield revolvers and such. I also see they do a 1in15 barrel for the Thompson Contender and something new I learned is that Anschutz use a 1in14 barrel in there biathlon rifle for use in cold weather.

I was thinking more in the terms of searching for pure accuracy. There's no getting away from it, no matter how much you spend on a .22 rifle, super match quality, shot from a bench in a tunnel range, it wont compete with an accurate centrefire.

Why is this? It's the ammunition surely. You would think, if you buy a top of the range rifle and top of the range ammunition, say an Anschutz and Eley tenex you would get the best accuracy - not so though, to get the best accuracy you will need to take your rifle to Eley and they will try numerous batches of tenex in your rifle to see which one performs best, then you buy a wad of that batch. That tells me, even with the best quality control there are variables that shouldn't be there.


With a centrefire benchrest rifle a great deal of effort goes into case/load preparation and development and it's tuned to the rifle - Most of the really great cartridges, 6ppc, 6br, 220 swift, 257 Roberts etc. were developed as wildcats by dedicated home loaders, which in turn drove the manufacturers to keep up. Unfortunately it's not so simple with the rimfire case - We make this ammunition because it's cheap to make and you guys will have to make a rifle that shoots it.


I agree that Anshutz were making match rifles with 1moa accuracy in the 1960's, but they really don't shoot any better now, whereas in the 1960's, a centrefire rifle with 1moa was considered a benchmark for accuracy now it's very "run of the mill" - Centrefire accuracy has moved on in the last 50 years, 22lr accuracy has hardly moved at all. All major .22 ammunition manufacturers must run research and development programs, what have they been doing for the last 50 years? Ahh yes, they've changed the shape of the nose slightly on Eley tenex and match.
 
I must be super fortunate to have two rim fires that shoot better than 0.5MOA, oh and they are both sporters of German origin.
 
I must be super fortunate to have two rim fires that shoot better than 0.5MOA, oh and they are both sporters of German origin.

You must indeed be super fortunate - I would be interested to know what rifle/ammunition you're using and at what range. .5moa at 50 yards is good shooting but once you get to 100 yards the inconsistency of the ammunition start to show up. Even good ammunition, when shot over the chronograph shows a substantial variation in velocity.
 
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