SUPPRESSED Ruger American Rimfire 22WMR

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weblance

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I have been curious about suppressing a 22 WMR rifle ever since I got my suppressor 4 years ago. Today I found out whether its worth while, or not. IT CERTAINLY IS. What a pleasant surprise when I touched off the first shot. Its definitely hearing safe. It does have a crack, but its not much louder than a suppressed LR with subsonics. Its definitely quieter than an unsuppressed LR.

I bought a Ruger American Rimfire model 8322. Its the full stock, 18" factory threaded 22 WMR. I had a nice day with it. I had 11 different types of WMR to try. I had bought every different kind of WMR years ago when I got my first Single Six convertible, to see what the SS preferred. I still had all of it to try. My RAR WMR prefers Winchester Dynapoint 45gr and Fiocchi Performance Shooting Dynamics 40gr JSP. Those two loads were the best, with both loads making one ragged hole at 50 yards off the bench. The next two that were very close, but opened up just a bit, were Federal Premium 30gr Speer TNT HP, and Armscor 40gr JHP. It surprisingly didn't like Hornady 30gr V-Max, which gets many recommendations for the RAR WMR.

This rifle is going to take over duty as my Urban Pest Control rifle.
 
A couple of my pet peeves about laws and regulations that make no sense are the ones preventing you from putting a butt stock on a handgun and the restrictions we have on suppressors--silencers.

I never thought I'd see 'shall issue' concealed carry in MN so maybe these laws getting changed isn't out of the question.

The most anti-suppressor folk just might be changed by finding out some EUROPEAN countries (oh aren't they so much more CIVILIZED than us???) actually require suppressors to shoot at some of their ranges.

Sigh. One can always hope.
 
I bought a Youth RAR 17HMR in order to get the short 16" barrel with muzzle threads. You can guess why. This is what I found: the extractors are inadequate when the chamber gets fouled by the backflow resulting from the can. After 3-5 shots, I had to knock the fired cases out of the chamber with a rod.
I solved (or reduced) the problem by going to the CCI non-lead ammo which runs a lighter bullet at lower velocity. So far-so good except for the slightly looser groups from the non-tox ammo-still good enough for the varmints I hunt.
I can't say how the 22WMR behaves with the suppressor but the 17 HMR can be brought down to the noise level of a standard velocity 22lr in a 18-20 barrel(maybe less as my determination is very unscientific). I found it requires tight baffles to make this reduction.

"the crack is what you'll hear whenever you shoot supersonic ammo."
Doesn't seem to be much "crack" from that titty-bitty 17 cal bullet. Definitely under the hearing safe threshold.
 
The crack is what you'll hear whenever you shoot supersonic ammo.
Click to expand...

I knew going into this, that there would be sonic crack as the round breaks the sound barrier. I just wasn't sure how loud it would be, and what percentage it would be of the over all noise level coming from the rifle. I wondered if it would be louder than the sonic crack from Long Rifle ammo, from a rifle length barrel. I knew the velocity would be greater from the WMR round, compared to a LR round, but would the sonic crack be louder because of the increased velocity?

To my ear, I think the sonic crack is equal to supersonic LR, and I also think the sonic crack is about 30% of the over all noise level.
 
Mobuck, thanks for the comments about the 17HMR. That might be next for me.

I also had a few extraction failures, but that didn't happen until I had around 100 rounds downrange. I figured it was because the chamber was getting dirty, I also figured I wasn't cycling the bolt vigorously. I was getting near the end of my time at the range, and cycled the bolt with a bit more gusto from that point on, and never had another issue.
 
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Here's what I found using the same length/diameter can between two rifles. From rifle barrels of similar length, 22lr RNHV is actually significantly louder than 17 HMR using appropriately sized baffles. I'm fairly sure this is due to the difference in bullet shape/diameter. Unfortunately, the 22WMR uses a fairly blunt flatbase bullet at even higher velocities(vs 22lr). I don't have a 22WMR so don't know for certain how it will react with a can.
 
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