.22 LR (cartridge) - a very popular ammunition among hunters and fans of sports shooting (in the original Long Rifle, translated from English - "long rifle"). Weapons for him are now produced a little, which is associated with a very narrow specialization: they are mainly used for hunting small game.
Differences
.22 LR - cartridge of small caliber with annular ignition. This means that the firing pin when fired does not hit the center, but into the sleeve flange (the peripheral part of the bottom). Thus, in the ammunition the capsule does not exist as a separate unit, the entire impact composition in compressed form is located directly at the bottom of the sleeve. As a rule, bullets in ring-shaped cartridges are lead, although others are sometimes found. Low-powered ammunition is used for the extraction of small animals: squirrels, groundhogs, as well as in trap shooting. For example, in the United States it is considered the most convenient cartridge for shooting gophers.
History
In 1887, the world first heard of the .22 LR. The cartridge was issued by the American company J. Stevens Arm & Tool Company. Nowadays, rimfire cartridges are almost never used, but Long Rifle is still in use and is popular. He is the record holder for the number of issues.
Reason for popularity
It may seem that a modern person is unlikely to attract .22 LR - a cartridge that has been around for more than a century, and lovers of antiquity will use it. However, it is not. There are three reasons for its popularity: low cost, virtually no return and good ballistic qualities when shooting at close range.
Based on this, the ammunition becomes ideal for a long hunt for a small fur-bearing animal and for training, because when compared with the central battle cartridge, .22 LR can be used up an order of magnitude more at the same time. This is especially true for trap shooting, when in a very short period of training you need to make several hundred shots, and even the average recoil becomes very sensitive.
A bit about weapons
It is also important that the weapons for .22 LR caliber ammunition have perhaps the lowest price on the civilian market, and basically the device is as simple and reliable as possible, due to its low power. Such weapons will suit even the most inexperienced shooters.
These are mainly hunting and sporting rifles, but there are also pistols, most of them also training and sporting ones. Self-defense pistols under the LR are rare. The interchangeability of various modifications of the .22 caliber is minimal, for example .22 Short and Long can be used in weapons under .22 LR, but others, such as .22 WMR (Magnum), will not work because of the difference in the size of the sleeve (6.1 mm and 5.75 mm for Magnum and LR, respectively).
Cartridge Weapons
There are a lot of models for .22 LR ammunition. This includes both revolvers and self-loading pistols, such as the Margolin pistol (the Soviet pistol for sports shooting, used at competitions from 1954 to 1979), as well as IZH-34 and MTs-3. Of the store’s hunting rifles and carbines, models such as TOZ-11 (the Soviet hunting carbine produced by the Tula arms factory), TOZ-17 and 18, and also TOZ-78 are suitable for this caliber.
In a series of sports and training store rifles in the list of weapons under the LR can include BI-7-2 and TOZ-9. Further, if we talk about self-loading rifles, Long Rifle will fit the American folding rifle AR-7, developed in the late fifties. In the States and Western Europe, it is still very popular. It is considered an ideal option for shooting training, and tourists also take it with them on trips. The list can be supplemented with the TSV-1, Training Sniper Rifle, which was developed on the basis of SVD. Of course, it cannot be called real because of the low firing range: only 100 m, but this is fully justified by its name.
Another small-caliber sniper rifle under the .22 LR is the SV-99, which is now used in some units of Russia. Its rate of fire is about 10 rounds per minute, and the speed of the bullet is 345 m / s. The magazine has five rounds and the maximum firing range is 150 meters.
For special forces
Special forces also have .22 LR ammunition. The standard for these guns is a virtually silent shot. These are silent pistols, for example, the British Welrod, which was developed in 1942 for the needs of intelligence and special units. An interesting feature of it is that with a magazine rated capacity of eight rounds, it was recommended to equip only five to ensure reliable delivery. This also includes the so-called "De Lisle" - De Lisle carbine, also an English weapon: a magazine carbine with an integrated silencer. "De Lysle" was used in the Second World War, in addition to the British troops, they were equipped with some units of America and France.
There are many other hunting and sports weapon models chambered for .22 LR.
Specifications
The length of the cartridge is 25.4 mm. The initial velocity of the bullet is low, from 250 to 500 m / s, depending on the weapon, which is due to the short range. Bullet energy in J: from 55 to 90 - for pistols and from 125 to 259 - for rifles. The diameter of the flange (the peripheral part of the bottom) is 7.1 mm, the diameter of the base of the sleeve is 5.74 mm, and its length is 15.57 mm. The mass of the bullet is from 1.9 to 2.6 g, and the mass of the used powder charge can be from 0.07 to 0.11 g.
In military affairs
If we talk about the use of a cartridge against people, then here it does not possess outstanding qualities. Due to its low power, it is practically not used in military affairs, because in order to simply incapacitate a person, a rather large number of hits were needed. However, several successful applications are known, for example in the case of the American-180 submachine gun. High rate of fire, up to one and a half thousand rounds per minute, as well as a rather voluminous magazine (from 165 to 275 rounds) made it possible to compensate for the shortcomings in the armor-piercing and power of the Long Rifle.
Another interesting use of ammunition was found in the training of personnel of the Red Army in the pre-war era. Before firing machine guns from Degtyarev and Maxim, the soldiers trained on the small-caliber machine gun Blum - a training substitute for a combat machine gun. This allowed not only to minimize the number of accidents, but also significantly reduce the cost of training personnel. Subsequently, Blum’s machine gun was sometimes used as a weapon to shoot wolves.