Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Rimfires CB Ammo

I bought a Heritage Arms Rough Rider revolver. The manual states it shoots .22 Shorts, .22 Longs, .22 Long rifles and CB's. My question is what is a CB. Is it a Copper bullet?

Actually a CB can be had in 22 long as well. I don't think the previous definition is correct in that regard. I bought 22 long ammo to shoot in an original Winchester 1873 in 22 long. The only ammo available at that time was CB long. It is very weak and you could watch the bullet from the muzzle to the target.

I never pulled a bullet to see how much powder was in there or if it is primer only, however, I do think there is a larger charge than just the primer...

Please post your thoughts on it. For the price they seem hard to beat as a plinker.

I have not shot it yet. For the price and the reviews I have read, it seems like a good purchase as a plinker. I wanted it to shoot squirrels out of my bird feeders. Don't try to compare it with the higher priced quality pistols, but you can buy one of these on sale for less than $150. The grips are nice, the ejector rod housing has a rough spot on it, but blued OK.
As soon as I get some ammo, I'm going to try it out.
One caveat" For about $25 more you can get a .22 Magnum Magazine. It seems like a good deal. Try Classic Arms. I saw one on sale there for $130. New. One magazine though.

CCI CB ammo is a 29 gr bullet around 700 FPS.
Long or short version doesn't matter.

Killed varmints up to 20# coons, to 25 yards using the stuff.
Peek up from shed, put it right between the eyes.

Never tried it past 25 yards.

Inside of that, am happy with the stuff.
Rifles most times.

Only a couple with semi auto pistol single loaded (shots at spittin' distance).

CB has powder.
Aguila Super Colibri runs just primer.

Currently have a dedicated rifle for CB usage, a Contender with custom bbl made from 513T.

Chamber too short for LR use, so run CB longs in it.
Bbl made by old coworker that has since passed.

In the 90s I went around asking why Remington CB Longs were so noisy with 22" barrels and BB gun quiet with 24" barrels.
Professors did not have the answer.
But the late gunsmith and experimenter, Randy Ketchum, with only 2 years of college, told me it was the threshold of supersonic gas escapement.
As soon as he said it, I knew he was right. I had taken EE 360 acoustics under professor Rubens Siegelman in 1976 when he was helping invent ultrasound medical imaging. A supersonic gas ball, when slows down to the speed of sound will propagate a wave with a roll off below 1/2 wavelength equal to gas ball diameter. That is why cannons have more bass sound. Bigger woofer gas ball.


I got an audio engineer on line to calculate that pressure. It is on atmosphere above ambient.
As soon as I read that, I knew he was right.
The peak of 2 atmospheres and a trough in the wave of threshold of cavitation [zero atmospheres]. That is as loud as sound can get at that frequency.


Blah Blah Blah, what is the bottom line a layman cares about?
The CCI CB short has 0.45 gr of powder.
That is tuned to be BB gun quiet in 24" of barrel.
The CCI CB Long has 0.45 gr of Powder and make the same sound.
But the short is higher velocity due to increased efficiency from higher expansion ratio [like compression ratio in a car engine].

CCI Quite 22's act the same way out of my 28" barrel Winchester 52. Sitting 50 yards away you can hardly here them.

.22 CB Short and CB Long ammo available today typically shows a muzzle vel. of 710 fps. with a 29 g bullet. Some other low vel. rounds may be around 800 fps. ( below the speed of sound) These are measured when shot from a rifle barrel and will be pellet gun quiet when shot from a 24" barrel as others have said. They are not that quiet when shot from a pistol barrel. CB Short and long ammo is not easy to find compared to standard or high vel. long rifle or even the CCI Quiets which are louder to me than the CB ammo.

I have shot quite a few coons with CB longs.
Ten yards to my birdfeeder, behind the shoulder. They run less than 20 yards and tip over.

CBs and Colibris have performed miserably for me out of two Bearcats and a Single Six. The Colibris did pretty well single-loaded in a .22/45 and a Contender, good enough for practice, anyway. My Bearcat also doesn't like Quiet .22s, but the .22/45 does, and they even work the action occasionally. They work perfectly through the magazine manually. Quiet .22s shoot as well out of my 77/22 as a lot of ordinary LRs, and the POI is close to what my SSHPs's is. Unfortunately, they seem to have caught on with people and are now hard to find, like everything else. I'm glad I picked up a couple K while I could.

CB shorts are great for coon brain shots in a trap or when they do not see me. But if they are moving, the body shots don't cut it. I have to shoot them many times or finish them with a stick.

Nice lookin 550 you got there...is the Rec. grooved???

No grooves. That 550-1 was made in 1951. I got it 5 years ago from an ~80 year old man for $157. He got it new when he was 17. It is minty.



But 3 days ago I got a second 550-1 that was made in 1957 from a pawn shop for $175. It has tip off grooves and 7 holes have been drilled and tapped. The varnish on it is scratched up.

They both have the sliding half chamber to cycle wimpy shorts.

Used CCI and Federal CB's for years both are very quiet from longer rifle barrels, Remington's newer CB's are not near as quiet.

CCI CB powder has a clear or opaque, flake look to it, not black like regular 22 powder.

Remington began grooving 22's for scope mounting mid 50's.

My CB rig....

Proly move my 4-12X AO VX2 to it




My oldest learned to shoot (well got started anyway) when we could get bricks of Remington CB for $15. Buddy's daughter about same age (but around 3 yrs old). Had a cut down rifle with 2.5X Weaver, shot off bag/bipod.

Had airgun silhouettes on a railroad tie.

Kids loved it.

Band of lead a few ft ahead of the stand, all the bullets flattened out and deposited in a row. Too funny.

CB longs are my go-to for backyard squirrels. My neighbors in this suburban neighborhood don't hear a thing. Shot placement is critical as I don't relish even a 29 grain bullet zinging in the direction of 50 houses. I got to liking them enough that I used them for a while out in the "proper" squirrel woods. The noise isn't sufficient to spook other squirrels into hiding.

CBs are so quiet I can hear what the bullet hits:
1) the coon
2) the tree
3) nothing


If I shoot a piece of plywood with a CB, then it sounds like a gun.

The CCI CBs' I have shot from a pistol and rifle are very quiet.....much more so than subsonic CCI. Like others have stated, spring pellet guns are louder..

Don't expect one hole accuracy though....even through the best target rifles...