10/22 question

chuck buck

chuck buck

Joined
Nov 4, 2007
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i have a 10/22 in 22LR with the common setup of houge overmold stock and tactical innovations barrel. usually shoot federal target ammo but heard good things about CCI ammo from this forum. anyway i went and picked some up but accidentally bought 22LONG sub sonic. i noticed the bullet is a good bit shorter (1/8th" give or take) and it certainly wont feed in the steel lips magazines... that is when i realized my purchasing mistake. that was about a year ago.

so today i am bored and figured id throw 5 rounds of the 22LONG into a standard 10/22 box mag since the casing is the same size. they all fired and were super quiet. however, not a single one extracted and i had to pull the bolt back and drop the casing out of course. so heres the questions:

a) this is a difference in 22LR and 22LONG i see, are they 2 completely different rounds? or made for the same guns?

b) i have 200 rounds, will it harm my rifle to shoot them even if they dont extract? i really dont mind it not being semi auto, just gonna shoot squirrels and plink.

c) is it possible that the ammo being subsonic didnt have the power to push back and cycle another round?

i shot more federal target afterwards and it cycled fine. please excuse my ignorance im new to shooting and no one else i know shoots so im kinda on my own! thanks- CB
 
They stopped making Longs years ago, as far as I know. That ammo might be of interest to collectors; look into that before you shoot it up.

A Long has the bullet of a Short in the case of a Long Rifle. Historically, the Short came first (pre-Civil War) then the case was lengthened to make the Long, then a bigger bullet was added to make the Long Rifle. All three sizes were available for a long time....

I wouldn't expect Longs to cycle any semi-auto but it won't hurt anything to shoot them.
 
They are two different rounds. The .22 longs are (I think) lighter and slower and the L.R. is a "newer" round that uses heavier bullets and has higher velocities generally.

Don't know if you could use them interchangeably, I'd think using L.R. in a long rifle wouldn't be a good idea. I think that my old tube magazine .22 of dubious origin says on the barrel or action that it accepts shorts, longs or long rifle.
 
they work great in a bolt, pump, or lever action rifle but it will be a rare semi-auto that will cycle them due to it being a lower pressure (slower) round.
Same thing with the .22 short and CB cap.
It's sort of like the difference between 38 spl & .357 mag - shorter case, lower pressure, lower velocity -- but no harm in shooting, as long as you make sure to thoroughly brush out the chamber in case there's any leading that might cause feeding problems with the LR ammo later.
 
chuck buck said:
a) this is a difference in 22LR and 22LONG i see, are they 2 completely different rounds? or made for the same guns?

b) i have 200 rounds, will it harm my rifle to shoot them even if they dont extract? i really dont mind it not being semi auto, just gonna shoot squirrels and plink.

c) is it possible that the ammo being subsonic didnt have the power to push back and cycle another round?

i shot more federal target afterwards and it cycled fine. please excuse my ignorance im new to shooting and no one else i know shoots so im kinda on my own! thanks- CB
Click to expand...

a) There are three different sizes of standard ".22's" -

.22 Short - 29 gr. bullet, very short case. (Little used outside of formal target shooting today)
.22 Long - 29 gr. bullet, longer case. (Rarely used today except for specialty rounds.)
.22 Long Rifle - 40 gr. bullet, same case as long cartridge. (Widely used)

b) The .22 Long is just a .22 Long Rifle case with a lighter Short (29 gr.) bullet. The subsonic .22 Long ammo you bought will not harm your Ruger in any way. Many folks use .22 Long subsonic for plinking, varmint control and hunting small game due to the lack of noise. (I do, myself.) However, as you found out you will have to manually cycle the bolt.

c) At one time there were a number of semi auto rimfire .22 rifles made that would load and fire all three shells - .22 Short, .22 Long, and .22 Long Rifle. However, your Ruger was designed to only cycle with the more powerful .22 Long Rifle. It does not hurt anything to use the smaller .22 Short or Long in your rifle but you will have to single load Shorts, and neither will cycle the action on your Ruger.

Welcome to the wonderful (and sometimes confusing) world of .22 rimfires. Just be glad you didn't buy .22 Mag or worse, .22 WMF. Those would have not worked at all....

TR Graham
The Glocksmith
 
I used to (only a few years ago) shoot the CCI "CB Long" rounds in my .22 rifles when I needed to dispatch a varmint near the town limits. They are basically a light lead round over a primer charge; no powder. That may be what you have there. Other than that round, I believe Cougar is right that there are no other "long" rounds out there currently.
 
thanks a ton folks! i really liked how quiet they were.. can anyone recommend a 22LR round that would cycle and still be relatively quiet? guessing i should just look for lower FPS?
 
if you can find a "standard" velocity .22LR it should still cycle.
the stuff you find commonly is "high" or "hyper" velocity.
try Cabela's, Bass Pro, Graf & Sons, or Natchez shooter's supply online for availability.
Aguila will likely be the easiest to find, but there may be others.
what you're looking for is a velocity under 1050 fps to avoid the harsh "crack"
 
There are plenty of sub-sonic .22 lr rounds out there. Whether or not they'll cycle is another question. If you don't mind a bit o' table top gunsmithing, you could try to slick up the action on the cheap. Here's a link for a bolt chamfering tutorial. I did mine with coarse sandpaper and a file.
 
Great answers in this thread.

Can anybody comment on the noise difference between the standard 22LR, and the Subsonic round? I imagine it still will be fairly loud. It may be too subjective of a request...
 
i shot it out of a tac sol 16.5" barrel and i would say the 22LR sounded very "crrrackkk!" and the 22long sounded like a c02 pellet gun to me. i really dont mind having to pull the bolt back myself since it keeps me slightly slower and more mindful and i dont really see myself needing super quick follow up shots at this time. thanks for this information everyone, i have a new excitement for shooting the .22 again!
 
sounded like a c02 pellet gun
Click to expand...
Sounds like cheekser has guessed right and what you have is CB Longs. What does it say on the box? Is there a headstamp?

CB Longs have no powder charge, just the primer. They're for low-noise indoor target shooting. Lots of fun, relatively safe (you still don't want to get shot with one, but you don't have to worry much about richochets or overpenetration) and very quiet.
 
I was prairie dog hunting with standard shorts (NOT CBs) in a Henry lever gun a couple weeks back -- air gun is about right for noise level.
Also - got the new natchez flier in the mail last night. They list 22 lr standard velicity as 1050fps , but 22lr subsonic as 1030fps both using a 38 or 40 grain bullet. Then there's the aguila sss: 60 grains at 950fps.
 
cougar- the box says .22long Conical Ball which i assume is CB and under that 750fps. btw, nice eye patch. also about being rare... i picked these up at Gander Mtn. chain sporting good store when they first opened here in richmond about 2 years ag. ill have to go back and check if they have more. unfortunately its the only reason ill go back... that place is too high priced and cant compete with our awesome local hunting store greentop and the new bass pro. i did some searching and found a couple good older threads here and in W/SS when i searched for ".22" and ".22LR".
 
Remington makes a Subsonic 22LR that is powerful enough to cycle a 10/22. They are louder than the CB caps but not by a whole lot. There only problem is that they may be super sonic in a non-semi auto. They are just below the sonic range, about 1068 FPS or so, and give the best subsonic properties in a semi-auto. Here is a good article on subsonic 22LR using a silencer. http://www.silencerresearch.com/subsonic_22_ammunition.htm
 
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eomeo said:
Great answers in this thread.

Can anybody comment on the noise difference between the standard 22LR, and the Subsonic round? I imagine it still will be fairly loud. It may be too subjective of a request...
Click to expand...

again, its the sub sonic, you don't get the 'crack' of the sonic boom. All you need is a suppressor :cool:
 
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