Subsonic or "quiet" .22 mag ammo?

[TOP PREDATOR]

just curious, has anyone heard of any?


i thought maybe the hornady critical defense, i looked on their site, through a 24" barrel 1700 fps, no data on the speer 40 personal protection through a rifle but the 1.9 barrel is reading 1050 fps.

i know that's where the .22lr comes in, but wouldn't it be nice if those that only have a .22mag to play with had a .22 mag subsonic / quiet ammo?

 

[PRDRIVER]

Re: Subsonic or "quiet" .22 mag ammo?

I have not heard of any.

Before reading your post, my first thought is why would someone want subsonic .22 mag ammo when you would get the same ballistic results from a subsonic .22 LR for a lot less $.

But I can understand your desire for the ammo if the mag is your only .22 rimfire rifle.

Since getting my .22 suppressors, by .22s have seen way more use. If you have the same sort of experience, buying a dedicated .22 LR may pay for itself considering the price of .22 mag ammo.

 

[Anvil_X]

Re: Subsonic or "quiet" .22 mag ammo?

my little Savage 22WMR is my go-to for taking anything up to small wolves, I love it, and totally see where you're coming from. I have shot 22LR through it before... definite disclaimer there... and its worked. I can't tell you whether it is accurate or not because I was just screwing around at 25 yards with some cans... but it does work(WITH MY RIFLE).

just like shooting a 22short out of a 10/22, you can single load those bad boys all day long.

Another thing to mention- I'm no expert in 22WMR rifling, but one would think that a rifle designed to be laser accurate with a 40 grain bullet pushing 1800FPS would have rifling to do so.

if you had the cash, I'd say go with RMW's suggestion and get a nice 22LR gun. A brick of subsonic 22LR costs 40-50 bucks. that same amount of cash may buy you 250 rounds of 22WMR.

if not, join me in the stupid zone. but do so at your own risk.

 

[TOP PREDATOR]

Re: Subsonic or "quiet" .22 mag ammo?

oh no worry, i have several .22lr with subsonic / quiet loads, etc.

i've read an article somewhere that the guy took a .22 mag shell, cut it to act as a spacer of sorts in the .22 mag chamber so that he could run .22lr in it.

don't know if he ever was able to get that spacer out or not (probably not).

i thought of the rifle twist angle, both savage and marlin list their .22 mags with the same twist as .22lr - 1:16

 

[bohem]

Re: Subsonic or "quiet" .22 mag ammo?

Anyone ever tried firing 22LR from a 22WMR chamber? I suspect it would eventually lead up the rest of the 22WMR chamber but for a few hundy rounds between a good cleaning of the chamber I would be willing to try it if I had a 22mag. They both headspace on the rim, it should be similar to shooting 38spc from a 357mag chamber.

 

[frog5215]

Re: Subsonic or "quiet" .22 mag ammo?

It since my tumor, but why would 1000-1100fps, 1/4 energy of .22 LR as 1600-2000 .22 Mag.

 

[bohem]

Re: Subsonic or "quiet" .22 mag ammo?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: frog5215</div><div class="ubbcode-body">It since my tumor, but why would 1000-1100fps, 1/4 energy of .22 LR as 1600-2000 .22 Mag. </div></div>

I'm assuming you want to know why anyone would consider such a project?

Supersonic projectiles make a lot of noise that a suppressor cannot do anything about. The shock wave generated by the supersonic bullet flight makes a crack that's almost as loud as an unsuppressed 22 shot alone, making supersonic ammo from a 22 rimfire basically a waste if you run a suppressor.

The subsonic stuff is essentially silent. The noise of the action functions (firing pin, trigger, cocking the bolt, etc) are the only things that someone standing nearby would hear.

 

[Anvil_X]

Re: Subsonic or "quiet" .22 mag ammo?

here's a splendid reason for wanting to go subsonic-
I went out to Resurrection Pass last week to do some Spruce Grouse hunting with my go-to gun (Savage 93 in 22WMR). as I was tooling around, trying to find me some chickens, I ran into a squirrel. I love squirrel dumplings. so I aimed for his pretty little head with some CCI 40 grain TMJs and took my shot. hit em in the head, fell out of the tree, and as I picked him up, I noticed that, while it did hit him in the head, the bullet travelled down into his chest cavity, blowing an arm off in the process, and pulled nearly every one of his internal organs out through an inch wide hole in his stomach. his little heart was still beating in the gut pile. also clipped his kneecap off on the way out. seeing what my least damaging round did to the little bugger, I pulled out some 22LR wolf match subsonics and loaded one into the chamber. worked pretty good and gave me some decent accuracy. sounded goofy as hell though. long story short, went to clean out the chamber, and there was not a spot of lead fouling from shooting the 22LR out of a 22WMR.

hindsight being what it is, I should have taken a 22LR gun to do a 22LR gun's job. But it is nice knowing that I can simply take one gun and solve problems ranging in size from a itty bitty squirrel all the way up to dogs.