.22 short pistols

S

simonrichter

New member
stumbling over the occasional ".25 vs. .22" rants on this forum, it just appeared to me that these aren't even the weakest (among the common) pistol calibers, since there used to be models in .22 short as well.

Which brings up two questions:

1.) As far as I know, the .22 short was originally developed for handguns (other than the .22 "long rifle"), so maybe the Performance out of a mousegun barrel is not that different to .22lr?

2.) Are there any contemporary pistols chambered in .22 short?
 
IIRC, it was developed for the first SW cartridge revolvers.

In the good old days even tiny bullets were feared as instruments of bio-warfare. Get shot, get infected - die.

Today - NAA makes the cutest little 22S minirevolvers.

I don't think companies like Beretta make a semi chambered in 22S anymore.
 
The short does seem to work proportionately better than .22 LR. The bullet is lighter. I played around with shorts quite a bit over the years. They aren't as "weak" as you might think! The cartridge length works well in auto pistols, and is inherently more reliable than the LR for feeding.
 
Shorts were originally used in 'gallery' rifles, when shooting galleries were common at carnivals and in cities and towns, not handguns.
Until 2005, shorts were used in Olympic 25 metre rapid fire pistol. Still used in the International Shooting Sport Federation world's.
 
Way back in my .22 rifle target shooting days when shorts, longs and long rifles were all pretty easy to come by we did some comparisons (very non-scientific) and found:

.22 shorts were almost as accurate as .22 long rifles.
.22 longs were noticeably less accurate than .22 shorts or .22 long rifles.
.22 long rifles were the most accurate.

We also had a kid shoot a 10 bullseye target at 50 feet with .22 shot shells. He fired ten rounds at the target--one at each of the bulls. The target was VERY uniformly peppered with tiny holes. There seemed to be absolutely no concentration of the tiny holes anywhere. Using a spotting scope you could not even see the tiny holes and the target was totally usable for 'real' .22 rounds.
 
The .22 short is the original HANDGUN metallic cartridge. Shorts were used in gallery rifles because they were less expensive and more powerful cartridges were not necessary for gallery shooting. Special frangible gallery shorts were made also.
The short is useable in any long rifle chamber-if you can get it in there! There were revolvers made for shorts, and autos like the wonderful Beretta 950; the Astra Cub/Colt Junior; the tiny Bernardelli, Galesis, Llamas, etc.
Beretta has discontinued the 950, and to my knowledge, the only factory-chambered .22 short gun in current production is the NAA mini revolver. It's a shame, as these little guns are accurate, small, and fun to shoot.
 
^^^^ That.

The other .22 short pistols were those made for ISU (now ISSF) rapid fire match- and those were wonderful indeed. I had a couple, and still keep a Walther-Hämmerli Olympia, which is laser like in accuracy. They went under approx. 10 years ago, when the ISSF decided that rapid fire was to be shot with the standard .22LR pistol.

Dedicated .22 Short guns have slower barrel twists than .22LR ones, and can be incredibly accurate.
 
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.22 short

I have a .22 short conversion for my Ruger MK.II. It works quite reliably and that gun soaks up what little recoil there is.
The .22 short rapid fire pistols made for Olympic style match shooting were (are) marvelous machines. Wraparound grips, bore inline with the bones of the forearm, ported barrel, short bolt movement, phenomenal triggers and stunningly accurate.
Pete
 
Way back in time,,,

Way back in time,,,
My very first rifle was a Winchester 189? pump.

The magazine rod was missing so I could only fire it as a single shot,,,
But the low cost of the ammo allowed me to practice a lot.

While walking the one mile to Docs General Store,,,
I could often find enough pop bottles in the bar ditch to buy a box.

The rifle was chambered for .22 Short only,,,
It had a very long barrel and was very accurate.

My friends all had guns chambered for .22 LR,,,
My old Winnie was just as accurate as their rifles.

I killed just as many rabbits as anyone,,,
The shorts seemed to do their job quite well.

Man but I wish I still had that gun,,,
When I went into military service I gave it to my baby brother.

I'm fairly certain he traded it for a bag of weed. :mad:

Aarond

.
 
About 60+ years ago, one of the first pistols I shot with my dad was an Astra Cub. Don't know what happened to it. Suspect it was traded on the next gun I remember, a Hi-Standard Sentinel. My dad wasn't much for collecting. As my interests changed, he would trade that gun on the next one. Which brings up my first bad gun deal at age 11, when I convinced my dad to trade my Winchester 62A on a Mossberg 151M. The nostalgia wing of my current collection includes both an Astra Cub in .22 short and a Winchester 62A . I found out after I bought it, the Winchester was born the same year I was. Fate !
 
Too bad you did not look inside that Model 90 back then because you would have seen a steel pin in the carriage that the bullet moves in that held a leather plug. Remove the pin and the plug and you could have shot long rifles.
 
Bill DeShivs said:
According to this, the MV is about the same as a LR from a 2" barrel...
Click to expand...
The tables indicate that the velocities are remarkably similar from a 2"-3" barrel, but OTOH the muzzle energy graph indicates that the .22S falls short of .22LR, presumably due to the lighter bullets. The two .22S loads have ~44-48 fpe from a 2" barrel, whereas the .22LR loads are between ~58-70 fpe.

http://ballisticsbytheinch.com/2011graphs+/22ME.html

IMHO this is not a drastic difference, but it's a significant difference.
 
Velocity

I have not chrono'd .22 shorts. I have chrono'd 22SVLR from a snub nosed revolver.
The SV ammo that I used has a stated MV of 1080 fps with a 40 grain bullet. The MVs that I recorded averaged about 800 fps from a 1 7/8ths inch barrel. CCI SV .22 shorts have a stated velocity of 1080 fps using a 29 grain bullet. You can expect that the MV from a snubbie would be similar to the LR. Close anyway.
 
As we speak my ASTRA CUB 22SHORT has 6742 rounds through and I bought it used 12/21/00. It is amazingly accurate out to 50 meters and shoots dead on the sights. My COLT JUNIOR 22SHORT in prettier but no where near as accurate as the Cub.
Used to buy Russian 22SHORT INTERNATIONAL RAPID FIRE PISTOL AMMUNITION in cases of 7400 round [ $99.00 ] and they were all but silent from a Marlin Mountie BBL. The BBL had to be clean though if you wanted all of em to exit. Still have some left for special work.
And so it goes...
 
I get a kick out of shooting .22 shorts out of my Ruger SP101 .22LR, Ruger Single Six, and Henry H-001s. These are fun, snappy little rounds. I also keep 'em around for in case I have to shoot a varmint. They are quiet enough so as to not annoy the neighbors or result in someone calling the cops. Or at least so I reason.
 
Not that this has anything to do with anything . . . . .

When we were kids in the early 60s, all we squirrel & rabbit hunted with was with 22 shorts - and as kids with a rifle, we took plenty of both. The cartridge was accurate and powerful enough to do the job on those critters. With a 22 with a scope on it, we were able to "reach out" at greater distances and knock the squirrels down as well.

My Dad didn't want us using LR - after all, the box was printed "Danger - Range 1 Mile". :eek: In those days, a box of 50 cost 50 cents and a brick $5.00.

I don't shoot many 22s these days but when I shoot my 2 Revolvers (vintage Ruger Super Bearcat and Rough Rider), I like the 22 short. Plenty accurate for plinking. When the shortage hit, it seemed like when I went into a LGS - they had no LR as most were shooting semi-autos. I had people looking at me like I was nuts as I picked up the Shorts with no hesitation. Sometimes "bigger" isn't "better"!? :D
 
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