S&W Model 17

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Welcome to the S&W Forum. Just remember that shooting shorter rounds you will need to clean the chambers real well with a brush as the shorter rounds will leave a carbon ring at the shorter case length point. Failure to clean out this ring will cause difficulty seating a Long Rifle round, and will also make for harder extraction.
 
Welcome to the S&W Forum. Just remember that shooting shorter rounds you will need to clean the chambers real well with a brush as the shorter rounds will leave a carbon ring at the shorter case length point. Failure to clean out this ring will cause difficulty seating a Long Rifle round, and will also make for harder extraction.

What H Richard said. Clean the chambers!
 
It all depends upon your objective when you shoot. Some, many it seems, fire a gun to hear it go bang. All of the cartridges you name will go bang in your gun. Others, members of what seems to be a vanishing breed, actually want to hit something-----something they aimed at. The real loony tunes not only want to hit what they aimed at, they do their damnedest to get all the shots after the first one through the hole made by the first one---or at least touching it------and they want to do that at rather astonishing distances. These folks are known as shooters.

Shooters---a vanishing breed, know and think about things like the rifling in the barrel of their gun. That's pretty much the deciding factor in hitting what you aimed at----at anything approaching a challenging distance----any distance further away than you can throw a rock----and hit something---something small----like a bumblebee.

So what's the rifling best for a .22 Long Rifle? I don't know right off---something like one turn in 15-16 inches maybe? Yeah, something like that-------how 'bout for a .22 Short-----or a .22 Long----they use the same bullet as a Short, right? I don't know that either, but it's different. Next time you get your paws on a gun made for Shorts, check it out.

All you have to do after that is decide if you're a shooter or a noise maker.

Ralph Tremaine

It just dawned on me----they do stuff like stamp .22 Long Rifle on the barrels of guns for a reason.
 
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I have fired many rounds of .22 short, and long rifle, in my model 17. Works great. .22 short cartridges are still available at least where I live.

I'm 45 years old and I can't tell you how many gun shops, pawn shops and gun shows I've been in and out of...I've never seen .22 long ammunition.
 
I was given some shorts. Fun in a revolver though not quite hearing safe. I have a special mag for my 10/22 to shoot them, though they will short-stroke the action. You hold the bolt closed with your off-hand thumb. :)

.22 Longs are pretty hard to find. Same case length as Long Rifle, .22 Short bullet. The 30gr Aguila super high velocity stuff pretty much takes care of the Long niche unless you have a real antique. .22 Shorts remain with us b/c there are still plenty of working firearms chambered exclusively for it. The .22 Long, not so much.
 
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Though the Pistol Competition Classes that used to require the use of Shorts are gone, I have not had any problem finding shorts. Some have competition pistols that can only short shorts or conversion kits for .22 short for the Model 41 or many of the High Standards. You can also get .22 Shot Shells, .22 Sub Sonic Low Noise.22 CB Caps and .22 BB Caps, all of which I have shot in some of my .22 LR Revolvers. As pointed out, just like shooting .38 Specials in my .357s or .44 Specials in my .44 Magnums, since the round is shorter than the chamber, clean real well after use.

I was recently at a Walmart in North Carolina (Well pre-lock down) that was closing out their ammunition department. I bought a lot of ammo at 70% off including a bunch of CCI .22 Short Sub-Sonic Low Noise. They sound like my pellet pistol.

Bob
 
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When I was a kid we shot tons of shortsfrom remington 510's. Soda bottles were the best thing ever invented. Not for targets, but 2 cent refunds on small ones, and a nickel on the large ones. 10 cents was all it took to buy a box of shorts at the Navy exchange. I might even have a box in a 30 cal ammo can somewhere:)
 
I used to have a High Standard Olympic in 22 Short and still have some boxes of shell around. Never did shoot any 22 Longs because back then, always wanted the "More Power" from the 22 LR. As Narragansett pointed out, the refunds on the soda bottles paid for many a happy day at the range.
 
Ah, for the days when 22 shells were $.50 a box and white, winter jack rabbits sold for a $1 and every hay stack had some around it. Drive around a night with your spot light and make some money. $30 or 40 bucks for a night was big money in the 60s. In the mid 70s it was raccoons for me. Partner and I got 32 of them one night and got the amazing sum of $12 apiece for them round. To bad there we not more corn fields in eastern Montana. Buddy, Jerry, whose dad owned the farm, wounded a coon and it was going across a corn stubble field. While I held the light he chased it and when he tried to kick it, it turned, climbed up his body to his head, then he threw it off and killed it. I was laughing so hard, he wasn't. No sense of humor I guess.

When I was in Jr high and high school these things were true. Then they quit poisoning coyotes, DDT was outlawed and owls, hawks and eagle populations came back and the jack rabbit population dropped as did the demand for jack rabbit fur. For a while you couldn't find a jack rabbit in this part of the country. But, the must be coming back as last winter I started seeing some of them smashed on the roads.

Yea, most 22s will shoot shorts, but they are not much cheaper They are less powerful and much quieter. Unless your trying for a one hole group, the accuracy is OK for rabbits, bird, etc. Less worry about the bullet going far. I once decimated a flock of sparrows on a farm miles from anyone else with shorts and a Winchester pump to have something to do one boring summer day.
 

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