22Mag vs. 22 LR

Ganderite

Ganderite

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I was discussing these two calibers with an engineer working for a rifle maker, and he shared this as part of our discussion:

The mag bore and groove was .002 larger the 22 S-L-LR as per SAMMI spects.

I chambered a batch of 22 Mag barrels with 22 LR chambers and targeted them and found they shot

better than the LR bore. Since 22LR rimfire barrels were chambered as the first assy operation and then

roll marked I wanted to standardize all rimfire barrels and start assy. with chamber and roll mark.
 
Our 100 Metre Rimfire allow 22 LR, 22 Magnum, and the 17 HMR.
The classes are Benchrest, Target Rifle, Sporting rifle and Semi Auto.
No 22 Magnum has shown up. The 17 HMR is generally beat by the 22 LR.
As long as the 22 LR continues to beat the 17 HMR there is not much concern.
 
horseman2 said:
Our 100 Metre Rimfire allow 22 LR, 22 Magnum, and the 17 HMR.
The classes are Benchrest, Target Rifle, Sporting rifle and Semi Auto.
No 22 Magnum has shown up. The 17 HMR is generally beat by the 22 LR.
As long as the 22 LR continues to beat the 17 HMR there is not much concern.
Click to expand...

For a brief time I had a Chiappa Little Badger in 22 Magnum. I could not get any decent grouping even at 25 yards. For the hell of it I even tried 22LR out of it, with a 22 Mag sleeve and without, but with most brands of ammo it FTF.

I traded that 22 Mag little badger for a 22lr version. It is a tack driver. No problems at all putting shot on shot at 50 yards (my range's max).

I also briefly had a 17HMR savage. It shot well enough, but the cost of ammo and the inability to reload made me ask myself why I was shooting 17HMR and not .223?... since I am not hunting small game I got rid of the 17HMR too.
 
The SAAMI specs for the .22LR and .22WMR for anyone who likes to visualize the comparison are shown below. They are available online from SAAMI.



It's an interesting anecdote about the .22WMR bore shooting better than the .22LR, but it is unlikely to be a universal or game changing experience. Despite the specifications to which manufacturers should follow, not all bores of a given caliber -- LR or WMR -- will be identical. That is to say, some will be bigger, some smaller. Additionally, not all ammo is identical. Bullets are not uniformly of an exact diameter either.* In fact, it seems that at least at one time Lapua purposefully offered bullets of two different diameters in the previous Midas M and Midas L as well as the old Master M and Master L lines of ammo. Bullets are not identical in terms of exact weight, length, shape, or composition either, but that doesn't seem relevant here.

*This is confirmed by what must have been an exhausting exercise by Steven Boelter in the book Rifleman's Guide to Rimfire Ammunition. He measured and compared bullet diameters of literally dozens of different ammos by maker and variety. He also measured overall length, weight, rim thickness, and component weights. His methodology was to select ten rounds at random from two different boxes of each variety of ammunition and then inspect and measure each one for the physical characteristics listed. He did not measure for bullet concentricity or runout.
 
I know Ruger has played jiggery-pokery with bore sizes for years to no net ill effect that I am aware of. .22 LR, and .22WMR on the same gun, .357, and 9mm, using .308 bores on 7.62x39 and (I think).303 British. Etc.

I know that rimfire barrels vary a lot between makers too. Fitted a reamer pilot in to a handful of barrels I have, they go, or don't, in varying degrees, on the same pilot. Hardly a broad sample, but...
 
I asked the engineer about ammo. he said he does not remember what ammo it was, but it was the same ammo shot in both barrels.

I know from some of my 22 guns and the various ammos I have , that some 22LR bullets are fatter than others. Fat enough that they are hard to chamber is some guns.

Armscor Precision brand ammo is fat.
 
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