Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters .22 RF alternatives

I tried that a couple times with heavy artillery, with much the same results. Plus, it always gave me a slight case of the willies sending a big chunk of lead sailing off at an optimum trajectory for long distance unknown carnage.

Funny (?) thought about that "shot a bullet into the sky...." thing. When I first began to work up the bullet for the Sneezer and had a general form established, I began doing some calculations for BC via online resources.



It's 183.5 grains, SD of 276 and BC calculated at .386 or there abouts if started in the subsonic range of 1050 fps. I did not believe it frankly, but several different calculators opined similar numbers. Ballistics sez...............at 1000 yards it would lose about 250 fps velocity. The prolate nose form and flat base do well at those speeds. Drops are hysterical...

Did you figure out the barrel angle needed to achieve a 1000 yard hit?

No, but I know max depression angle before I shoot myself in the foot.

Rainy day and a good time to look under rocks for answers to puzzles on this topic. Heretic that I am, four long rifle cartridges were disassembled today for inspection and measurement. I learned a few things along the way.

Hey, last time I pulled a rimfire bullet I might have been 18 or so...



The victims and specs, such as they are, follow in LR order of the photo. I will post the mic'd diameter of the bullet heel but see no use in the information due to distortion from pulling same from crimped cases.


Old school Winchester EZXS in the 50 round yellow box: Heel - .180-.190"; case wall .008", charge weight 2.5 gr/~60% load density

CCI Quiet: Heel .198-.202", case wall .008", charge weight .55 gr

Federal Auto Match: Heel .204-.206", case wall .008", charge weight 1.4 gr.

CCI SV: Heel .197-.201:, case wall .008", charge weight 1.0 gr, Load Density ~40%

The bullet/case diameter for all but the CCI SV was .224". The CCI SV case was .224" and the bullet .2235"

Logic suggests the heel diameter prior to mutilation should be .208". Having no frame of reference I was somewhat amazed to see common aspects of some components. All bullets had a cupped base that was close to a full hemisphere in form. All cases were primed with what appeared to be the same light green priming mix despite the age of the Winchester sample. Sticker on the box said $1.29 and the bullets had converted their copper wash to a white powder fungus looking mess.

The exercise raises a question for which I have no answer. How did Col. Askins pull and reuse the bullets successfully for his .221 Askins? I define "successfully" as winning the championship at the match referenced previously. Did he sneak in a swage die we don't know about?

The array of powders found in the cartridges just amazes me. The dark powders at each end of the array are quite similar in appearance and ridiculously fine, almost a true powder, or dust like. The CCI Quiet powder looks a lot like a flake version of Trail Boss. Number 3 looks a bit like WW231 in form but the color is quite a bit darker than 231. Lots of graphite on #2 & #, otherwise not a hint of that in the other two.

I'll be back in a day or three with a sketch of what might serve the cause and we can have us a "design a new cartridge" contest. First prize is a plastic hula girl for the dash of your truck.

DD

Fifty years ago, when I was a young trooper with a steady hand, I did some exhibition shooting. I used a first generation Colt Trooper loaded thusly. .38 Special brass, with the flash hole drilled out, leaving more than enough shoulder to hold the primer. Push the unprimed case into a block of paraffin, Gulf Wax, available at grocery stores, if my memory is still good. This loads the projectile -think cookie cutter. Insert primer. No powder needed. You can target shoot with this. An aiming point above the target is required, as there is no recoil to speak of. A bullet trap of some kind is required. I used a box filled with magazines. It will penetrate drywall at 30-40 feet! Mark your case heads so that you don't mix them with the real stuff. Back then I filled the head stamp markings with red nail polish. There are more and better permanent markers available today.

I see no reason this would not work in straight wall chambered rifle. A top break single shot (TC Contender et al) might be ideal. The rifles might not tend to shoot so low.

I do not recall how often cleaning was required. I started the demonstration with a clean, lightly oiled bore. Most demonstrations involved less than fifteen rounds and the bore and chamber was cleaned immediately for duty ammunition.

I try to keep a good supply of .22 lr on hand. I don't think I dropped below 7000 rounds and I did not buy any from black marketers during the latest crunch. Pellet guns are a good alternative for I targets and plinking.

Not a writer, butI thought this might interest some.

Jack

Bill Jordan used to toss aspirin tablets out in front and smoke 'em from the hip with those wax bullets. A previous Mrs. Pappy saw him do it when she was a girl.

From the American Rifleman. A little more detail that Skeeter's version.



And this from the Casual Shooter.

A man after my own heart.

Thanks for putting that up, I had recalled he used the pulled bullets and this makes much more sense. Puzzling about the "reaming" of the case mouth....I'll not go down that path if only because it would have an deleterious effect on costs and maybe utility. If the ammo factories these days can make a heeled bullet sing, then I can too.

THAT's the attitude I like to see!

A sketch for consideration and a few things I puzzle about. It is not to scale, but the basic dims of the .22 LR case were filched from SAAMI. That said...



A few "issues" which I have no answer for and maybe one of you do.

- The rim is radiused on the rimfire ammo, but I doubt that building brass for a cf cartrige is amenable to that form. The SAAMI chamber spec. indicates a rim recess w/o radius and the one chamber I've looked at does not have a radiused rim recess. Anybody have any thoughts?

- The primer pocket depth above is a WAG based on dims from a .22 Hornet case and measurement of a CCI primer. My measurements were not precise due to a concave face in the primer pocket. The diameter is fairly solid however. Measurement of the primer yields .175" diameter and .118 length. The pocket mic's at .1725" diameter and .114" depth.

- I have no way to measure the web thickness accurately and do not know the industry standard. Crude measure on the Hornet brass suggests a ballpark of .070", but my eyes are skeptical. I pulled .050" web out of the air.

- Pocket wall thickness is a puzzle for me as well. My calcs suggest a .026" wall around the primer and I've no idea if that is good, bad or indifferent. The steering wheel states the first priority is safety, second is durability. Any insights would be appreciated.

Note the case capacity is reduced approximately 1/3. This was calculated on the assumption that the bullet heel is .125" long. Previous poking around puts capacity of the RF case around 3.0 grains of Bullseye and charges ranging from .55-2.5 grains of whatever they load RF ammo with. Were I a gambler I'd think the reduction of capacity would help reduce velocity spreads with handloads and currently available powders.

Anyway, that's my .02 worth today.

Dan

Geno

Well, a few more tidbits?

Took a look at a couple of fresh out of the mould 225438's of the Lyman persuasion and find the approximate diameter of the gas check shank with Lyman #2 alloy is ~ .215". So close, yet so far. Dang it....

Waiting for a call back from a custom brass maker to see if they want a piece of this with their fancy CNC equipment. If they are game I will start the ball rolling just to see how it works. It's only money.....

What are we going to name this thing?

When it comes to rolling ammo with small charges and speeds, I recall an article years ago in an issue of Shooting Times, I think, that attempted to reveal some of the factors that went into the the making of precision rimfire target ammo. As I recall it was Eley 22 LR ammo commonly used in biathlon competition. As I also recall they had worked out a couple of very significant factors which affected the accuracy of the finished rounds. One was the priming process , the distribution of the compound, and the consistency of the quantity. The other factor involved the effect of ambient conditions on the powder when the rounds were assembled, perhaps especially humidity. By controlling for these things, they had managed to create a product which earned a reputation for a higher degree of accuracy than other manufacturers had at the time.

Thankfully, Remington still maintains their line of Golden Bullet ammo as a baseline, so we can see how far the world of rimfire ammo has come.

God willing I will crush the Golden Bullet standard and threaten Ely enough to make them pay attention.

There be a bunch of puzzles in this journey that I guess only testing will resolve. Fortunately it won't be terribly expensive as I have one of those "plays both ways" T/C Contenders and a LR barrel won't break the bank. Yeah, I know, "You don't have a LR barrel!?!?" Never occurred I needed one until I started hanging out with you maniacs.

Will have to reacquaint myself with ancient style reloading techniques, mebbe a mould but the jury is still out on that. Pretty much hinges on whether the folks out in WY will want to play ball with making the brass. If anyone has first hand experience in having ANYONE make custom brass that led to a good conclusion, would appreciate an ID and/or phone number.

Well, in case the idea of casting such small bullets scares you, don't be. I bought my .225 mould before the big rimfire scare, when MidwayUSA offered a birthday discount (and moulds were yet in less scary price territory to begin with). But the mould has proven to be easy to work with and, while I haven only begun to tinker with loading tiny cast bullets, I can see where messing around with this stuff could become somewhat addictive. (I certainly like shooting small centerfire pip-squeak loads via single shot more than shooting rimfires singly loaded.

I don't have that phobia.



Issue at hand is the heeled bullet geometry. Maybe, might be, possibly a swage die and big hammer would serve the purpose? I have some experience with that an much larger calibers. Maybe I need a smaller hammer?

I have a smallish 30 caliber Lyman mould which has a heel and drops like a dream from the moulds. I bought a couple thousand 22 cal gas checks when I bought the 22 cal mould, so I have been using them, but I suspect I could probably forego them without any serious issues. Lots of stuff to play with. I guess I could be one of those odd-balls at the public range who attract other interesting oddballs. I wish I could get a 22 mould similar to that 30 cal mould, but perhaps that's overthinking things.

.22-2-45
.22 Alt (for alternative)
.22 Hot Dog (hey, I'm eating a hot dog right now)
.22 Wisp
.22 Zephyr
B-22

-laffin'-,,,,,,,B-22 has a ring, no?