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?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.22_CB

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...

I have CCI CB shorts from many years ago that are not accurate, and I have CCI CB shorts from 2.5 year ago that are 1.7 moa vs 4.8 moa to 8 moa for the old stuff.

1.7 moa is smaller than a squirrels head at the distances they are usually shot.

That was at 42 feet [basement hallway length]

Ten or more years ago I was given a box of rimfire ammo marked -- CB CAPS.
They are distributed by Stoeger Arms and made in Germany. Each round
is half the length of a 22 short. I fired a few rounds thru a Marlin bolt action
and it made no sound at all. I stopped shooting them for 2 reasons
(1) its kinda PIA to single load this very small ammo and (2) maybe one
shot would not clear the barrel.

Should I just throw them out ?

No. Send them to me.

CCI CB shorts suck. Zero was off a little, barrel clean. They usually average around 1/2" at 50 yards, never shot 'em longer.





I shot a coon with one once. In June with a full moon.

For sake of clarity, the BB and CB cap were an offshoot from the invention of Louis Nicolas Flobert's development of the first metallic cartridge which was essentially a percussion cap with a lead BB in the open end.

They are the fist and second cartridge L-R in the image below. #3 is the CCI CB short. The ammo manufacturers of today borrowed the term "CB" to differentiate their low powered .22 ammo from what the public was used to. CB means conical bullet. BB means bulleted breech.



The BB and CB caps shoot well from my rifle but are noisier than CB Shorts. Squirrel die with any of them, no sweat. One of these days I'll whack a pig with a cap...just because.

And here be some 4mm BB Caps, still available and popular in Europe.



That would be .177 caliber for you Yankee Running Dogs.

I called an Ammo supplier in Pensacola, FL and asked if he had any .22 CB ammo. He said he did and wanted $42 for 100. I called back and asked why I just bought two boxes of .22LR for $12 a box and he wanted twice that for the CB's. He said they just cost more and are hard to find. So I went to a Pawn shop and bought two boxes of No-Powder Quiet-.22' for $8.00/box of 50. They are CCI's and have almost the velocity of a CB. I haven't tried them yet, but this might be an alternative to paying .40 a round for CB's. Price gouging?

Yes indeed. Try $7.40/100 here:
http://www.sportsmansguide.com/product/index/22-cb-short-29-grain-100-rounds?a=476500

They are available at reasonable prices most places.

Dan, that is 7 cents a shot, out of stock.

Here is 37 cents a shot, in stock

http://www.gunbroker.com/Auction/ViewItem.aspx?Item=547407602

Local shop here have CCI CB shorts for $9.99 a box of 100, has at least 100 boxes.

I found some on line in a few years ago.



I have not found any since with the web crawlers I use.
And I have been looking. Not that I am out, just obsessed.

I have a Remington 581 that loves CCI Quite 22's, out of the 24" barrel it's pretty darn quite. It will shoot them into a 1/2" group at 50 yards. I have 10 bricks of them so I can wait till they start making CB longs

Y'all Look at this: It will answer a lot of questions.
http://www.cci-ammunition.com/products/compare.aspx
Pay special attn. to the bullet weights, velocities and trajectories.
Take notice the published trajectories for the 0970 (Segmented Quiet-22) is with zero set at 100 yds.

gemby58: CCI makes CB Longs. See above.

I use CB Longs as they are a bit more accurate than the CB Shorts in my rifle.
Quiet-22s are the most accurate in my rifle. I'm more careful about my "backstop" as they penetrate a good deal deeper.
I have 100 rounds of the Segmented Quiet-22; I just haven't tried them out yet.

DigitalDan did a good job of explaining a good bit of the BB, CB, etc. information. IMHO most of the crap posted on Wikipedia is just that. Crap.

You guys have given me a lot of info. Thanx. I'm on vacation in Florida,now, but when I get home, I'm going to start trying out some of these low velocity quiet rounds. I live on a Lake and there's a lot of houses around, plus all the Berry pickers walking around the area, so I was always careful of what I was shooting at. I feel a bit better using less powerful rounds.

I know that CCI makes CB longs, they just haven't been making them to sell as my supplier haven't seen any for 5 years, he had just about everything that CCI makes but CB longs.