.22 LR (cartridge) - a very popular ammunition among hunters and sports shooting enthusiasts (in the original Long Rifle, translated from English - "long rifle"). There are few weapons for it now, which is associated with a very narrow specialization: it is mainly used for hunting small game.
Differences
.22 LR is a small caliber rimfire cartridge. This means that when fired, the firing pin does not hit the center, but the sleeve flange (peripheral part of the bottom). Thus, in the ammunition, the primer does not exist as a separate unit, the entire shock composition in a compressed form is located right in the bottom of the cartridge case. As a rule, bullets in rimfire cartridges are lead, although others are sometimes found. Low-powered ammunition is used for the extraction of small animals: squirrels, marmots, as well as in trap shooting. For example, in the USA it is considered the most convenient cartridge for shooting gophers.
History
In 1887, the world first heard about the.22 LR. The cartridge was issued by the American company J. Stevens Arm & Tool Company. These days, rimfire cartridges are almost never used, but the Long Rifle is still in use and popular. He holds the record fornumber of issues.
Reason for popularity
It might seem that a modern person can hardly be attracted by.22 LR - a cartridge that is more than a century old, and only lovers of antiquity will use it. However, it is not. There are three reasons for its popularity: low cost, almost no recoil, and good ballistic performance at close range.
Based on this, the ammunition becomes ideal for long-term hunting for small fur-bearing animals and for training, because when compared with a center-fire cartridge,.22 LR can be used up an order of magnitude more in the same time. This is especially true for clay shooting, when several hundred shots must be fired in a very short period of training, and even the average recoil becomes very sensitive.
A little about weapons
It is also important that the weapon chambered for.22 LR cartridges has, perhaps, almost the lowest price on the civilian market, and basically the device is as simple and reliable as possible, thanks to its low power. Such a weapon will suit even the most inexperienced shooters.
These are mainly hunting and sporting rifles, but there are also pistols, most of which are also training and sporting. Rarely found pistols for self-defense under LR. Interchangeability of various modifications of.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 due to the difference in sizecases (6.1 mm and 5.75 mm for Magnum and LR, respectively).
Weapons chambered
There are a lot of models for.22 LR ammunition. This includes both revolvers and self-loading pistols, such as the Margolin pistol (a Soviet pistol for sports shooting, used in competitions from 1954 to 1979), as well as IZH-34 and MTs-3. From hunting magazine rifles and carbines, models such as TOZ-11 (Soviet hunting carbine, produced by the Tula Arms Plant), TOZ-17 and 18, as well as TOZ-78 are suitable for this caliber.
In a number of sporting and training magazine rifles, BI-7-2 and TOZ-9 can be included in the list of weapons under LR. Further, if we talk about self-loading rifles, the Long Rifle will fit the American AR-7 folding rifle, developed in the late fifties. In the States and Western Europe, it is still very popular. It is considered an ideal option for learning to shoot, and tourists also take it with them on their travels. The list can be completed with the TSV-1, the Training Sniper Rifle, which was developed on the basis of the 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.22 LR sniper rifle is the SV-99, which is now used in some Russian units. Its rate of fire is about 10 rounds per minute, and the bullet speed is 345 m/s. The magazine holds five rounds, and the maximum firing range is 150 meters.
For special forces
Special Forces also have.22 LR weapons. The standard for these "guns" is an almost silent shot. These are silent pistols, such as 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 nominal magazine capacity of eight rounds, it was recommended to equip only five to ensure reliable supply. This should also include the so-called "De Lisle" - De Lisle carbine, also an English weapon: a magazine carbine with an integrated silencer. "De Liesle" 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 also many other hunting and sporting models of weapons chambered in.22 LR.
Features
Chuck length is 25.4mm. 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: 55 to 90 for pistols and 125 to 259 for rifles. The diameter of the flange (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 powder charge used can be from 0.07 to 0.11 g.
In military affairs
If we talk about using a cartridge against people, then here it does not have outstanding qualities. Due to its low power, it is practically not used inmilitary affairs, because in order to simply disable a person, a fairly 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 fairly large 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 the personnel of the Red Army in the pre-war period. Before firing from the Degtyarev and Maxim machine guns, the soldiers were trained on the Blum small-caliber machine gun, a training substitute for a combat machine gun. This made it possible not only to minimize the number of accidents, but also to significantly reduce the cost of training personnel. Subsequently, the Blum machine gun was sometimes used as a weapon to shoot wolves.
