A lot of uninformed people call the .22 Long Rifle the .22 Long. They are two different cartridges. The .22 Long has a .22 Short bullet, about 29 Grains, in a .22 Long Rifle case. The .22 Long Rifle usually has about a 40 Grain bullet.
My question is why did they even develop the .22 Long? It won't work in automatics, and I don't see what it's purpose is. Does it have more velocity, with a lighter bullet, than the .22 Long Rifle?

I actually found a few new boxes of .22 Long at Scheels a year or so ago. I bought them for the heck of it, and will probably shoot them in my old Single-Shot rifle.

Anyway, what was their purpose?
Jim

In olden days, when real blackpowder was the only propellant, you could only increase velocity one of two ways: add more powder or use a lighter bullet. The latter reason was probably why they made it due to case capacity.

The .22 Long was created to be more powerful than the .22 Short. There was no .22 Long Rifle when it was introduced, so it had a purpose, but is close to obsolete today. I'm not sure any company is producing firearms chambered in .22 Long currently.

The .22 Short had minimal energy and accuracy and sportsmen wanted better ammo and the .22 Long was
the answer.

Big, Huge Bull Frogs took more killing.

Not. Just that rifles were made for the short and long in the early years and did well at putting game on the table with very little cost vs the musket and large bore weapons that used tons of powder and lead to do the same job.

Just salesmanship............Bigger is always better, don't you know....
Todays smokeless powder short and long with different case lengths still get around 727 fps, each, with the 29gr bullets.

The .22 long dates to 1871. The .22 long rifle was introduced as a longer and more powerful cartridge in 1887. When I was younger .22 long was a standard cartridge on all the sporting goods store shelves. People bought it for a less noisy cartridge than .22 long rifle. Some guns fed it better than .22 short. With their light bullet hyper velocity .22 long rifle loadings could have been labeled .22 longs. They weren’t because that would have undercut marketing based on more power than regular .22 long rifles. CCI’s CB long is one .22 long loading that is both useful and still labeled long. In my rifles CB longs have been a little more accurate than CB shorts. Both make no more noise than a pellet gun. There might still be some demand for the traditional .22 long loading for use in antiques.

The .22 Long was more or less the "standard" from the early 1870's. The Winchester 1873 was even chambered in .22 Long later in production, but typically it was the less expensive, light weight rifles for small game and small pocket pistols that made it extremely popular.

In 1880, the .22 Extra Long came along. It contained 6gr of blackpowder at the 40gr bullet, but it wasn't known for accuracy- more of a handgun round.

The .22 Long rifle came along in 1887 when Stevens introduced it, but ammo was more expensive than .22 long or short, and with smokeless powder, it proved much more accurate from rifles than the .22 Extra Long.

I like longs and shorts myself- get more of them in magazines of repeating rifles and many more in your pocket- and .22 short of long HP's are quite effective on bushytails!

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Lost it all in a boat accident

With the exception of the Extra Long, there were (and are) only two .22 RF cases; the Short and the Long. They both used the same 29 gr. bullet, the Long with a trifle more black powder. Both were used in handguns and long guns. When the 40 gr. bullet was loaded into the Long case with smokeless powder, it was found to give superior performance in rifles than either of the earlier two, and was dubbed the .22 Long, Rifle. The comma has become lost by common usage.
Oops, looks like Andy types faster than I do!

Larry

Some early 22 rifles were chambered for the 22 long before the LR
cartridge came out. The Winchester 1890 was made for one specific
cartridge and was made in a 22 long version.

Most common .22LR bullet is 36 gr.

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USAF, 69-92
Vietnam, 72-73

And then there's the 22 WCF. I have an 1885 Winchester low wall chambered in this caliber. Reportedly carried 15 gr of black powder but was center fire.

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Randy
Provenance nerd

When I was growing up in the '50s, hardware stores carried shots, longs and long rifles in stock. The shots were cheapest, the LR' the most expensive and the longs in between. What I shot in my High Standard revolver or my Winchester 67 depended on how much money I had. Shorts were about $.50 a box and LR about $.75. Rifles chambered for the short or long usually had slower twist rifling for the 29 grain bullet instead of the 1:16 twist for the LR, so wouldn't shoot well with LR ammo if re-chambered. The S&W model M ladysmith revolver was chambered for the long cartridge in its standard velocity loading.

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Tom
1560

In my Winchester pump I get the following accuracy with the cci ammo:
cb short #0026 710fps 8 @ 1.74 at 25 yards off a sand bag.
short pistol 0037 830fps 8 @ 1.23
cb long #0038 710fps 4 @ .80
long HV #0029 1215fps 8 @ 1.23

The long when sighted in at 25 yards is a great back yard pest control load. Many gray ground squirrels and one trouble making marmot have been removed over the years.

Thanks for the responses.
I guess I had probably read the Long was introduced first, but I forgot about it. 'Course, these days, I forget EVERYTHING.

As far as "chambering" a gun for the Long, why would it make any difference with the chamber? It's the same case as the LR, and I can't see the fact it's a shorter bullet having an effect on the chamber. Wouldn't it be the same chamber dimensions as a .22 LR? Or with a heel based bullet, is there a difference?

Out of a rifle, how would the velocity of the Long compare to the LR?
Jim

Back in the 50's, Longs sold for $.50 a box and LR for $.75 a box.
Longs would kill a $.75 Jack rabbit just as well as a LR. Even a 13 year old kid could see the profit margin was better with Longs.

Short, Long, and Long Rifle rounds all feed and shoot beautifully in my 40+-year-old Marlin 39A. I haven't seen a box of .22 Long in many years, and it's been quite a while since I saw any Short.

I never could see a great difference in effectiveness between Short and Long, so I usually shot .22LR and Short. Don't know if that's why the intermediate round went away or not.

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Oh well, what the hell.

Based on my experience with only one rifle chambered for .22 long, the difference is how far forward the rifling is removed reaming the lead. .22 long bullets seated very close to the lead or lightly touched. The longer .22 long rifle's bullets had to be forced in pre engraving them. That rifle was unusual for a .22 rimfire in that it had a heavy bolt which seated .22 long rifles easily but at the risk of bullets being pulled out of the case when live rounds were extracted. I mostly fired it with .22 LR because they were less expensive in the 1980s.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see very old repeaters who’s magazines are too short for .22 long rifles and or autos with recoil springs designed for the .22 long’s lower recoil.

They should just make all modern .22's capable of accepting all 3 cartridges. Now days they seem to push the .22lr more of the 3. Why not just build them the right way like they did the older days.

I have both a Model 61 pump (absolutely love this littl squirrel gun) and a Model 190 semiauto that are chambered for S.L or LR........Wouldnt trade them for the world.

I always figured it was the 40 grain solid.

I got into a source for cartons and cartons of Winchester Western .22 longs years ago. Shot off a boat load of them. They killed the usual run of small game great. Reasonably accurate they were too. My childhood Winchester Model 190 automatic at 'em like candy. So did the Smith & Wesson Model 17 when it came along for I was still buying from the stash at that time.

Think there's a single partial box on a shelf in the reloading room left from those WW .22 longs.

The long actually slowed down in the rifles due to the friction of the barrel from the low fps of the load. One reason the long rifle was designed.
Those had to be very interesting days with the ammo and weapons on hand back then. They still had ten to fourteen years before the primer was invented.

Another little known .22 round was the 22 WRF, also long since obsolete. I bought a couple of boxes of them 40 years ago, and shot some of them in my .22 magnum rifle....they chambered and fired just fine, and were less expensive. Not sure who chambered rifles for them, but am guessing Winchester. And I also have a 1930's, very early Model 62 Winchester pump action that will also load and handle .22 shorts, longs, and long rifles. It is a wonderful little .22 and has a take down action with exposed hammer.

Gee, I've never seen a .22 wheel or flint lock

Interesting thread, my LGS has boxes of the .22 long and .22WRF on the shelves and I never really knew what the point of either was. I figured it kind of went along with some of the cowboy action loads.......... just a niche that not many people are shooting regularly but still had a following

The 29 grain bullet of the Short and Long required a different rifling twist than the Long Rifle. In many cases where a Short chamber was reamed for the LR, accuracy was not as good. This was true eons ago, as with my 1885 Winchester. The rifle is not in very nice condition, so I considered rechambering for LR, but found many references to rifling specific to the shorter, lighter bullets. I know that many rifles were made to handle all three cartridges, but I wonder which of the three performed best. Cheers!

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GMC-USN, Retired/1978 to 2001

Fine reading guys, I have learned much!

Revolvers were chambered for .22 short and .22 long. Because shorter was cheaper if you didn't need the extra velocity. Longs were adequate for what most people used a .22 for for a long time. When .22 LR became common, they probably cost a nickel more per box, but then a nickel was a substantial amount in those days. I'll bet you have to search a bit for .22 shorts today. I see they are supposedly carried by WalMart.

Update: I see that at one point there was a .22 Extra Long, too. People just want more power and the price differences became insignificant.

We used to buy 22 shorts on the Navy base for 10 cents a box. I have some longs around, and a 582 remington that will shoot them, as well as a single shot. I imagine that there are rifles that will still handle them being made today. I know the Remington 552 Speedmaster still does shorts, longs, and long rifles

The .22 WRF was also known as the .22 Remington Special. I came into a brick of those at a bargain price (about the same as .22LR) about 40 years ago and shot them up in a .22 WRM revolver. Found them to be a good small game and plinking round, but inadequate for porcupines, which responded better to .22 Mags, .357s and large rocks.

I have an old Stevens Visible Loader .22 pump that I would shoot more if only I could find some longs. It is chambered for .22 LR but the modern high speed rounds tend not to extract and shorts don't feed well. It is a very fast, short-stroke pump when appropriate ammo is available and really fun to shoot.

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I need ammo, not a ride.

Center fire primers were developed in the 1860s.

bmcgilvray & WR Moore,

I believe Nevada Ed was using Kentucky long rifles to be humorous. Even when some members like myself choose words carefully humor and sarcasm don’t work out as intended.