The .22 Winchester Rimfire (commonly called the .22 WRF or .22 Remington Special) is an American
rimfire rifle
A rifle is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting and higher stopping power, with a gun barrel, barrel that has a helical or spiralling pattern of grooves (rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus o ...
cartridge.
[Saami rimfire cartridge catalog: The Ballistic assistant. The Ballistic Assistant , An Ammunition, Component, and Technical Resource for Ballisticians, Commercial Loaders, Hobby Handloaders, and Firearm Enthusiasts. (2021, January 17). https://www.theballisticassistant.com/saami-rimfire-cartridge-catalog/]
History
Introduced in the
Winchester
Winchester (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs N ...
M1890 slide
Slide or Slides may refer to:
Places
* Slide, California, former name of Fortuna, California
Arts, entertainment, and media Music Albums
* ''Slide'' (Lisa Germano album), 1998
* ''Slide'' (George Clanton album), 2018
*''Slide'', by Patrick Glee ...
rifle, it had a flat-nose slug, and is identical to the .22 Remington Special (which differed only in having a roundnosed slug).
[Barnes, p.275, ".22 Winchester Rimfire (WRF)".] It uses a flat-based, inside-lubricated
bullet
A bullet is a kinetic projectile, a component of firearm ammunition that is shot from a gun barrel. They are made of a variety of materials, such as copper, lead, steel, polymer, rubber and even wax; and are made in various shapes and constru ...
, which differs from the outside-lube
heeled bullet
A heeled bullet is a bullet that is necked down at its base to allow a projectile the full internal diameter of a gun barrel to fit in a cartridge case of the same or narrower dimension. Heeled bullets mostly disappeared with the advent of smokel ...
of the
.22 BB,
.22 CB,
.22 Short,
.22 Long,
.22 Long Rifle, and
.22 Extra Long cartridges.
When introduced, the .22 WRF "was the first notable improvement in the killing power" over the .22 LR,
[Barnes, p.275, ".22 Winchester Rimfire (WRF).] and was able to kill cleaner at up to . It is somewhat less accurate than the .22 LR
and is most suited to hunting small game such as
rabbit
Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae (which also includes the hares), which is in the order Lagomorpha (which also includes pikas). They are familiar throughout the world as a small herbivore, a prey animal, a domesticated ...
s or
prairie dog
Prairie dogs (genus ''Cynomys'') are herbivorous burrowing Marmotini, ground squirrels native to the grasslands of North America. There are five recognized species of prairie dog: black-tailed prairie dog, black-tailed, white-tailed prairie dog ...
s.
Shortly before World War II, propellants were developed that greatly increased the effectiveness of the .22 LR. These new "High Velocity" loadings offered a nearly increase in velocity over the original .22 LR load. This increase in power of the smaller round, coupled with its cheaper price and sheer number of rifles already owned in .22 LR, effectively killed the .22 WRF.
A variety of Winchester,
Remington, and
Stevens single-shot and
repeater
In telecommunications, a repeater is an electronic device that receives a signal and retransmits it. Repeaters are used to extend transmissions so that the signal can cover longer distances or be received on the other side of an obstruction. Some ...
rifles were offered from 1890 onward, but new rifles are not made for this cartridge. .22 WRF ammunition is periodically offered by commercial makers for use in the old guns.
It can be fired in any rifle chambered for the more powerful
.22 WMR.
The shorter WRF cartridge may be limited to single shot use in WMR rifles since it may not feed from WMR-length magazines, depending on design.
Dimensions
Cartridge dimensions as specified by ANSI/SAAMI.
See also
*
List of cartridges by caliber
Calibers in the size range of (mm, inches):
*2 mm caliber, 2 mm (.079+ caliber)
*3 mm caliber, 3 mm (.118+ caliber)
*4 mm caliber, 4 mm (.157+ caliber)
*5 mm caliber, 5 mm (.197+ caliber)
*6 mm caliber, 6 mm (.236+ caliber)
*7 mm caliber, 7 mm ...
*
List of rifle cartridges
List of rifle cartridges, by primer type, Caliber, calibre and name.
File:Cartridge Sample 2.jpg, 350px, From left to right: 1 .17 Hornady Mach 2, 2 .17 Hornady Magnum Rimfire, 3 .22 Long Rifle, 4 .22 Winchester Magnum Rimfire, 5 .17/23 SMc, 6 5mm ...
*
List of rimfire cartridges
Below is a list of rimfire cartridges'' (''RF), ordered by caliber, small to large. Rimfire ammunition is a type of metallic cartridge whose primer is located within a hollow circumferential rim protruding from the base of its casing.
The most ...
*
5 mm caliber
This is a list of firearm cartridges which have bullets in the caliber range.
*''Length'' refers to the cartridge case
Case or CASE may refer to:
Instances
* Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design
* Sp ...
References
Notes
* Barnes, Frank C., ed. by John T. Amber. ".22 Winchester Rimfire", in ''Cartridges of the World'', pp. 275 & 282-3. Northfield, IL: DBI Books, 1972. .
External links
Pistol and rifle cartridges
Rimfire cartridges
Winchester Repeating Arms Company cartridges
Weapons and ammunition introduced in 1890
{{ammo-stub