.22 round: can be shot by both rifle and pistol?

E

eeps24

New member
The .22 gets me really confused can someone please help me.

I have seen online .22short, .22long, .22LR. my questions are..

1. Whats the difference between all 3?

2. .22LR (long rifle) sounds misleading. This round can be shot with a rim fire rifle AND rim fire handgun correct? When I hear long rifle, it sounds like as if they are only made for a rifle.

3. I have a walther p22, can it shot all 3 rounds?

thank you
 
Thanks but I’m still kinda confused. For example what do u mean the short is under powered.

I would extremely appreciate it if you can please answer my questions in the same format.

Thank u


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
1. .22 Short has a short case and fires a 29 grain bullet.
.22 Long has a long case and fires a 29 grain bullet at higher velocity.
.22 Long Rifle has a long case and fires a 40 grain bullet. (Or a hollow point of 36-38 grains.)

2. .22 Long Rifle was originated in the 1880s by Stevens who called it the .22 Long, rifle. Notice the comma. Later Smith and Wesson chambered handguns for the cartridge. It was known for a while as the .22 Smith and Wesson Long, but the name did not stick.

3. Your P22 is designed for the .22 Long Rifle only. The Short and Long do not have enough pressure and recoil to operate the semiautomatic action. There have been semiautomatic rifles that would shoot all three but I do not know of a pistol that will.
It does not matter much, .22 Short costs more than Long Rifle and .22 Long is difficult to even find.
 
.22

The .22 rimfire family is a bit confusing, but easily sorted out.

The .22 lr is misleading with its full name, but it is indeed the most common both in production and in number and types of firearms so chambered. It is also the most powerful of the 3 types being discussed, short, long and long rifle. All action types, manual and autoloading, are chambered for the .22lr.

The .22 short is the "weakest" of the 3 rds. There are manually operated firearms that will chamber and shoot all 3, but the short typically does not generate enough omph at the breech to cycle a .22 autoloader that was not specifically intended to shoot shorts.

The .22 long uses the same case as the long rifle, but a lighter bullet, and I believe it is the same bullet as the short uses. That lighter slug does not produce significantly higher velocities as one might expect. Manually operated firearms will typically cycle and shoot the long, but again, may not cycle an autoloader. The long is not particularly common or popular.

There are a number of specialty .22 rimfires too: hyper velocity, CB caps, shot, and even a .22 magnum
 
The .22 Long is virtually obsolete. CCI makes a limited amount of ammo for it, as well as a CB Long, but there's little reason to ever buy it. IIRC, it was noted for not being accurate, unlike the .22 Short.

.22 Short is short and not nearly as powerful as LR. That said, there are pistols chambered for it like the Beretta Minx and it tends to be more reliable in a pocket autoloader than .22 LR does due to that short case. Also, North American Arms makes one revolver in .22 Short and it is the smallest revolver they make.

In a handgun, the .22 Short has even less recoil than .22 LR.

.22 Short is really useful in rifles with a tubular magazine as it's so short the tube can hold more rounds than .22 Long Rifle. It's also very quiet out of rifles, nearly identical to suppressor levels. Another thing to consider is recently I bought a brick of .22 Short made by Aguila and had another brick of Aguila .22 LR on hand and the weight difference between the two was striking. I believe the .22 Short weighs 30% less than .22 LR does, which means for every 1000 rds of .22 LR you carry, you could carry 1300 rds of .22 Short.

I'm not saying that .22 Short is great, it's still weak, but I think people have overlooked it's usefulness in survival situations for small game for a long time.

As for what your Walther can shoot, it can shoot all three, but the only one that is likely to feed from your magazine is .22 Long Rifle. That said, I have experimented with .22 Short in my Ruger SR22 (very similar to the Walther P22) and if you have one .22 Short in the chamber and you load only one round in the magazine, the SR22 will shoot, eject, and feed both rounds.

Dunno when that would ever be useful, but it was cool to discover nonetheless.
 
Thank u everyone great stuff.

In summary, even though it’s called .22LR... it’s made for BOTH rifle AND handgun.

Thank u, that’s exactly what I was looking for.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
"...can it shoot all 3 rounds?..." No. Long Rifles only. Has to do with the chamber length and feeding as well as cycling the action.
Trying to figure out why a cartridge is called what it is can give you an aneurysm. And it's worse with military cartridges. Depending on where you are, your local public library will have lots of books. Read 'em all.
"...there are pistols chambered for it..." The Short is used in Olympic Rapid Fire Pistol.
 
Let me add to Wikipedia by adding family knowledge...
Yes, .22 short was a S&W thing for self defense little pistols but the popular use was in “gallery guns”... pump action .22 rifles used for shooting games in county fairs and the like or by kids like my dad who ran .22 shorts in their pump action .22 rifles (short, long, or long rifle) for plinking with their pals.

My dad said that in the 40’s he and his boyhood pals shot a lot of .22 Short because it was cheaper than LR and made less noise. Sort of as we might shoot b.b. guns today. The boys would meet in a vacant lot and shoot tin cans and bottles and not annoying the neighbors was just the understood rule.

My dad had a nice old Winchester pump .22 that he had darned near worn out. Replacing it with another Winchester just didn’t quite fit as it cost him more than he liked, although he could well afford it. He absolutely loved the Rossi copy he then got and thought that CB Caps were the best invention since sliced bread, even though they cost ten times as much as Long Rifle nowadays. Some things take us back to good times, and that was one of those things for him.
 
but the short typically does not generate enough omph at the breech to cycle a .22 autoloader that was not specifically intended to shoot shorts.
Click to expand...

there are semi autos that shoot all three rounds. The short does have the power to cycle the action. The reason most semis won't run shorts is the feed mechanism. The same box magazine won't work for the different lengths. A tube magazine can, and Winchester semi autos models 190, 290 would shoot all THREE in the mag, in any mixture.

The .22 Long, rifle was intended for use in rifles, as rifles delivered all of the rounds available power. Now known as the .22 Long RIfle (.22LR) it is chambered in every kind of rifle and pistol action and is quite possibly the most widely used round in the world.
 
Let's make it simple. Just about any .22 made in the last 20 years is chambered for .22LR. Stick to that and you will be 99.9% just fine. If you get a specific firarm, ask about that one and all should be well. Don't sweat the technology.
 
all three

Note that the firearms listed as shooting all 3 ctgs are rifles.

The OP was an inquiry regards a handgun. I should have clarified my response.

Thanks 44 AMP
 
Because semi auto pistols feed from a box magazine they won't feed all three lengths of rounds (usually, there MIGHT possibly be an exception I don't know about).

Handguns that shoot all three, (and interchangeably) are revolvers and single shots chambered for the .22LR.


I have a walther p22, can it shot all 3 rounds?
Click to expand...

Yes, sort of. IF the gun is chambered for the .22LR, you can single load shorts or longs into the chamber and fire them. Shorts may not have the energy to work the action, and almost certainly will not feed from a 22LR box magazine. Longs might feed but you'd have to test them in your gun.
 
The 22 short and 22 long have been around longest. The 22 long rifle is relatively new and is loaded hotter with a heavier bullet. The 22 long is basically obsolete, I haven't seen any for sale in years. 22 short is still available, but not very common.

I don't know why they chose the confusing long rifle name, but we are stuck with it. Many manually operated rifles with tube magazines and revolvers will shoot all 3. Most guns with a box magazine will only shoot long rifle or short depending on which they are designed for. There are only a handful of target pistols designed for 22 short.
 
finally, I get it

After re-reading my post and 44AMP's follow on comments, I get it, and I was wrong. It's not "oomph", it's engineering.

To prove it to myself, I took my Ruger MkII and manually chambered and fired a single .22 HiVel short. The action cycled just fine, and the bolt (the Ruger doesn't really have a slide) ran back fully to the rear and went to slide lock. Lot's of "oomph" there. But, though I didn't try it, getting a .22 short to cycle out of the magazine and into the chamber would be difficult.

I was surprised at the pressure generated by the HiVel short, and I was wrong about "oomph". In my defense, most of my short shooting has been with CB's.

Goes to show, ya don't always know what you think you know.
 
Eeps24, you ask some good questions, and ones that I had. You've gotten some good info also. As they said, the simple answer is that .22lr ammo can be used in a handgun designed for .22lr, and most modern handguns ARE designed for .22lr. Very few modern ones are designed around .22long or .22short.



However, there is a bit more to it as well.

the first layer is what you asked: .22short vs .22long vs .22lr.

If you are sticking to firearms made in this century, then .22lr will work in most handguns and in rifles.

However, there ARE .22short handguns and .22short rifles out there- they are
simply older [most pre-1940?] than what you may be looking for.
  • I have a revolver that can only fire .22long, as the cylinder wasn't bored for .22lr.
  • I have a friend who has a .22short pistol for target use [think 'olympic type' shooting].
  • I have seen pump 'gallery guns' for sale that only fired .22short, as the chamber was cut for that.
  • Yet, outside of olympic shooting, I do believe modern .22 handguns and rifles all are set around the .22lr cartridge.

My favorite rifle is a Marlin 39a, which can cycle and fire .22short, .22long and .22lr.
  • It holds 19rds of .22lr, 22rds of .22l, and 25rds of .22short.
  • I see no point in .22long in it, so use it with lr, but sometimes it IS fun to cycle through 25 rounds of .22short as fast as you can.:D

btw, changing the speed and weight of the bullet [speed by moving from .22l to .22lr, weight from moving .22short to .22lr] will result in it hitting at a different part of the target from the way you sighted it in.
​

Secondly, it is only partially accurate to say that there are semi-autos that cycle .22short. WHEN the cycle them, they cycle .22short High Velocity ammo. Not all .22short ammo.
  • It is the energy of the round that cycles the action. A .22short high velocity may have enough to cycle the action, but a .22short cb or .22short cowboy may not do anything.
  • energy is a product of mass times acceleration. Generally a .22short around 29gr moving at 1000-1100fps will cycle the action, but one moving at 700fps will not do so, as there isn't enough energy to cycle the action.


Lastly, if you are looking to buy a .22 firearm and are looking at .22lr ammo, you need to know about the speed ratings, or you may be very unhappy.

  • Modern handguns [last 20-30 years] seem to be based on the .22lr High Velocity round. This is a projectile of between 37 and 40gr moving at between 1200 and 1300 fps. CCI Mini-Mag is a classic example.
    [*]Despite the language of 'High Velocity', think of them as 'standard' ammo for .22lr firearms today. [don't shoot them in a .22lr firearm from before 1930, as they may not handle it over time.]​
  • However, there is also a category called 'Hyper-Velocity'. This is a projectile moving at over 1330fps, and sometimes as high as 1700fps.
    [*]Use these in revolvers or manual-operated rifles [bolt/lever/pump], but don't expect good things from a semi-auto with them. Modern ones probably won't explode over time, but you may damage the action parts or the receiver from the bolt/slide moving too fast for the design. You can make changes to the semi-autos to help them handle it, with stiffer springs, etc- but then they won't cycle the other ammo.​
    [*]For someone without much knowledge, just stay away from anything moving over 1300fps if you want a semi-auto.​
  • Then there is 'Standard Velocity' .22lr ammo. This is moving at speeds of 1030-1180fps, with projectiles of 37-40gr. This type of ammo may or may not work in a given semi-auto. It depends on the design. Standard Velocity ammo in a Walther P22 may result in the slide moving 3/4 of the way back- which doesn't allow proper ejection or loading of the next round. In a Ruger MK II/III/IV, it may or may not work reliably.
  • However, 'standard velocity' .22lr ammo is what the S&W Model 41 [still in production] is designed around, and the older High Standard semi-autos work best with this as well [despite 1940s manuals saying 'high velocity is ok', it isn't on any made since 1954].
  • 'Standard Velocity' .22lr ammo is more accurate than High Velocity or Hyper-Velocity ammo- beyond about 30 yards. Within that, it is questionable. for real target shooting, where group sizes at 75 or 100 yards are key, a standard velocity round is a best bet.
  • Then there are subsonic loads, cb loads and others, where the round is moving under 950fps- and possibly not cycling any semi-autos that were designed around the 'normal' High Velocity round [cb no, the subsonic usually has more mass, so it might cycle them, or it might not].


For someone new to all of this- buy .22lr high velocity and a modern firearm with .22lr on the barrel and you are done.

You only need to worry about the other elements if you move beyond .22lr high velocity or move into more specialized .22 firearms [older or competition].

Good luck, and enjoy the sport!
 
eeps24 said:
The .22 gets me really confused can someone please help me.

I have seen online .22short, .22long, .22LR. my questions are..

1. Whats the difference between all 3?

2. .22LR (long rifle) sounds misleading. This round can be shot with a rim fire rifle AND rim fire handgun correct? When I hear long rifle, it sounds like as if they are only made for a rifle.

3. I have a walther p22, can it shot all 3 rounds?

thank you
Click to expand...
If you just stay with the 22 long rifle cartridge, you'll be OK.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top