If rimfire sucks so much...

[Stiletto]

...why do we still use it?

(Context: engineering, rimfire vs. centerfire, etc.)

[smokin54]

Cheap practice of basic marksmanship without the time required to reload . No better round for rabbit hunting .

[Mike Irwin]

Uh... use it for WHAT, exactly?

Personal protection?

Recreational shooting?

[sterno]

Because it's a great place to start.

[jonathon]

Theres nothing wrong with most of the rimfires. I personally prefer the .22 LR for target and various pests to any centerfire cartridge, though for Stellar Jays the only thing that works is super sonic rounds. I also think that learning marksmanship with a .22 turns someone into a better shooter, FOR CHEAP

[Stiletto]

Should have qualified. I meant the design. Why do we still use rimfire technology as opposed to centerfire?

[novus collectus]

Cheaper to make than a two piece (actually three) case in that size.

[Mal H]

Who says it sucks so much?

[Mike Irwin]

Fundamentally, it's still a good design, especially for the smaller cartridges.

[Garand Illusion]

Doesn't suck; works great to hone skills. And will bring in the occasional rabbit if you want to use it for such, though I doubt many do.

Great for plinking and not nearly so much danger from ricochets.

[kojak]

The best advantage is lower cost because no primer is needed.

Unfortunately longer sized rimfire cartridges tend to be very inaccurate, the .22wmr must be manufactured with very tight specifications.

Another issue is that certain brands of ammo won't work in certain rifles..

[novus collectus]

I say that they should bring back the .54 56-56 spencer rimfire. THAT was a rimfire. (I'm just nostalgic for the 1860's)

[Russ5924]

There are days when the .38 and .45s stay home and I take the .22s why because they are just plain fun to shoot

[Mike Irwin]

"I say that they should bring back the .54 56-56 spencer rimfire. THAT was a rimfire. (I'm just nostalgic for the 1860's)"

Years ago a friend and I fired his .56-56 military model with ammo that, as best we could determine, was made sometime between 1880 and 1900.

What a hoot!

[mtnbkr]

I love 22lr. It's cheap, it's fairly quiet, and I'm not tempted to save the brass.

Chris

[DennisD]

I believe Novus Collectus got the original question. I don’t think Stiletto was questioning the caliber or cost of shooting a .22 but was questioning the design of the ammo itself.

Ammended

Sorry, I didn't catch that Stiletto had clarified the question himself.

[Stiletto]

Yeah, I did after the first couple of responses.

I guess the manufacturing thing does matter; then again, how expensive would it be to just make polymer (as in recyclable) casings? Just pour into mold, stamp a primer cap in there (I guess some standardized blasting cap type thing), and load in propellant and bullet. Done.

Nice for cheap 'n' cheerful, and they might even be able to get the damn things to feed reliably where rimfire casings don't.

[Mike Irwin]

Why switch to polymer?

It's more expensive than brass currently, it isn't maleable like brass, in fact it's a bit on the elastic side, meaning that a firing pin might not be able to set off the priming compound in the rim, and I'm not so sure that it can take the pressure levels that brass can.

I don't really see an upside.

As for rimfire cases not feeding reliably, I'd say I've burned up close to half a million rimfires in my 35 years of shooting, and I've NEVER had a case of rimlock disable either a rifle or a handgun that I've been shooting.

[novus collectus]

As for rimfire cases not feeding reliably, I'd say I've burned up close to half a million rimfires in my 35 years of shooting, and I've NEVER had a case of rimlock disable either a rifle or a handgun that I've been shooting.

Yeah but some of us don't bother to clean our 22s. My $90 22 bolt action rifle fails to extact shells all the time.

Polymers can be made hard enough, malleable enough and strong enough to do just about anyting these days(I beleive). But I vote for casesless ammo as the new tech. Sure you need a better gas seal, but it would be so much cheape. Also if they made the outer portiion of the cartridge real tough and somewhat malleable that burns at a much slower rate then it might seal the chamber until the pressure subsides enough.


Mike Irwin,
Funny you mention that bout the spencer. Cousins have one and a few rounds that may be between 1880 and 1920 as well. What was your experience like and did they all work. At $20-$70 (guess) a shell I don't think they will fire theirs. You can send me a PM if you feel like it.

[jonathon]

As for rimfire cases not feeding reliably, I'd say I've burned up close to half a million rimfires in my 35 years of shooting, and I've NEVER had a case of rimlock disable either a rifle or a handgun that I've been shooting.

I've had one problem with my 10/22 that took me a while to fix, not sure what caused it. Basically, I was using the same ammo as always, Remmington Hollowpoints, and I got an almost jam. What had happened was the rim on the cartridge was seperated from the brass, well most of it anyways, and another round was jammed half way in chamber(and an accident waiting to happen if something hit the live round's primer), with the nose of the bullet inside the bad case. I couldn't get it out with my fingers, so I had to lock the bolt back and get my leatherman and gently pull the live round out, and it came out fairly easy. The trick was getting the dang broke casing out, had to use the rod and the leatherman to get it to budge but it did.

Good times.. only once though, and since then, I've fired 2 boxes through it no problem. I still use Remmington to

[Mike Irwin]

"Yeah but some of us don't bother to clean our 22s. My $90 22 bolt action rifle fails to extact shells all the time."

And that's a FEEDING problem caused by rimmed ammo... how?

Extraction problems are separate and distinct from feeding problems.


.56-56 ammo isn't that expensive, even at the ammo collector shows that I've attended.

IIRC out of about 25 rounds, I think we had 4 or 5 complete duds.

There were a couple of hang fires, but most went off just like they were supposed to.

Dixie Gun Works for a number of years offered Spencer cases that had the rim drilled to take a .22 Short blank. It would act as the priming source for the cartridge. It required single loading and careful orientation in the chamber, but it did work.

[novus collectus]

"Yeah but some of us don't bother to clean our 22s. My $90 22 bolt action rifle fails to extact shells all the time."

And that's a FEEDING problem caused by rimmed ammo... how?

Extraction problems are separate and distinct from feeding problems.

I was just using that as an example of what not cleaning the rifle does. I do have problems with feeding as well though. But that is not related to cleaning the gun but to it's cheap make. I should have been more clear and sorry.

I saw that they put 22's in the holes drilled into the rim of the 56-56 (56-50? ) before. Didn't seem right to hand load single shot with a lever action though.

I wonder if it is cheaper to make a rimfire 9mm than it is to make a non-reloadable berdan primed 9mm?

[Mike Irwin]

"the rim on the cartridge was seperated from the brass"

That sounds like one of those occasional flaws in the brass.

I've had .38 Spl. and .357 Mag. cases split from case mouth to head on the first firing (new ammo) before.

Normally, problems such as that are the result of either weak spots in the brass for one reason or another, or a manufacturing defect.

I've never been fond of Remington's .22 LR ammo, so I rarely use it.

Federal and PMC are my first choices for my rifle, and Winchester Wildcat is my primary choice for my Taurus PT-22.

[jonathon]

Remmington is the only stuff my 10/22 will eat without a hitch for some rather annoying reason. I think part of that is that the Remmington is fairly clean(not oily on the outside) and part of it is I am still using those awful factory mags which don't feed like they should unless you can figure out how to take them all apart.

[npcolin]

With the same container, I can store a lot more rounds with .22s than center fire ones.