Question About .22 velocity loss in handgun vs. rifle

sgt.rock

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I am going to buy my first .22 revolver tomorrow from a buddy I know, and just out of curiosity sake, what type of velocity loss should I expect from a rifle to a pistol with the much shorter barrel. The pistol is a 6 shot italian made single action with a 5.5 inch barrel. Thanks for any replies
 
Well i have a couple ruger 5.5" 's and the bullets still go supersonic with target ammo.
I really don't think you lose that much
 
Pistol velocity loss

A .22 rifle will go about 150 fps faster than a pistol. This info is based on chronograph results with a Ruger MKII pistol and a Remington Mohawk 10C rifle and several types of .22 ammo.
 
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Stingers go an average of 1300fps out my 5.5" bbl pistol, through the rifle they shoot closer to the liberally advertised 1640 fps. Very interesting!
 
Stingers go an average of 1300fps out my 5.5" bbl pistol, through the rifle they shoot closer to the liberally advertised 1640 fps. Very interesting!

That is interesting, and it sounds about right to me. Stingers are one of the only .22LR ammo that I find to give off a clearly "supersonic" sound when fired through a pistol (the speed of sound being 1130 fps). While this is not scientific or anything... my guess is that most .22LR ammo, including Mini-mags and stuff like that which is advertised in the 1250fps range, are moving subsonic from a pistol barrel - probably around 900-1000fps in most cases.
 
Cool, I dont have a chrono yet, so I am relying on you guys to give me a round number. I also want to know what are the standard distances you guys set up a target to plink at. I want to lightly sandbag shots (rest) and paper target shoot. Do you guys set up at 25 yards? 20? 50? Anything that you guys do normally, and what do you guys do for a challenge with pistols?
Switch hands? Targets farther? Thanks for the help
 
25yards is pretty much a standard...some shoot from a closer distance (7yards+)

To me .22 isn't that much fun to shoot...I only bought one because I was spending too much money on centerfire ammo ;)
 
I also want to know what are the standard distances you guys set up a target to plink at.

My girlfriend and I mostly shoot at about 10 to 15 yards for both centrefire and rimfire pistols. I used to always set up around 10 yards for a few years. but I'm noticing over the last year or so that I have been setting up a bit longer now, as it seem that I can shoot about the same at 10 yards or 15 yards now as my shooting has improved, and I've gotten some guns that are more suited to me and my shooting.

I tend to think in terms of 7, 10, 12, 15 and 25. There are some people who shoot pistols at 50 yards, but my view is that you pretty much need a special type of gun for that (at least 6 six inch barrel, sighted in for that range, etc.)

It depends what kind of shooting you are doing too. If you are slow-firing for a bulls-eye, then 25 yards is going to be o.k. For anything with any urgency, 25 is going to be tricky. 25 yards is generally fairly challenging until you really figure your gun. Shooting your GLOCK, SIG, Beretta, XD, HK-type gun at 50 yards... I never see people doing that. An 8 and 3/8 revolver with an optical sight maybe.
 
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I really depends on barrel length you will loose velocity fast going down from 6" barrel. I usually think in terms of supersonic- subsonic, and it seems pretty much all "normal" hi-velocity stuff goes subsonic when fired from 5-6" barrel. So I guess 150fps is about right, I thoguht it is closer to 250fps loss of speed. I can see why stingers loose much more - more powder burns outside the barrel.

Regarding distances. There are distinctively two different disciplines - bulleye target shooting and action shooting. Bulleye is better off at 25m as this is olimpic distance. But if never had any formal caching I may suggest you move a little closer or it may be hard to see where did all holes go. And some kind of confidence builder.

For action shooting, whatever distance you can hit silhouette target from. When I start something new I usually move up to 7 yards, sometimes as close as 4-5 yards but I recommend not to dwell on success at short ranges, move up earlier and speed up your learning process. Do some reading, that will save ou a lot of frustration and ammo on learning simple things everybody already know.
 
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