22 WMR: The Most Powerful .22 Rimfire of All Time
BY Herschel Smith
2 years, 9 months ago
“Magnum” is the perfect name for this cartridge because it does for the .22 rimfire what the .30-378 Weatherby Magnum did for the .308 Winchester: makes it shoot faster, flatter, and hit harder. And that’s been the trajectory of .22 rimfire cartridges since 1845.
Ron has a really interesting table of windage hold-offs and elevation hold-overs too.
I really love the .22 WMR, and with the advent of reliable ARs chambered in this cartridge, it’s become a legitimate home defense gun.
Although I choose to use something much bigger bore, America’s cartridge (from youth through adulthood) has always chambered the .22 caliber bullet, from the .22LR to the .22 WMR to the .223.
I learned to shoot using a .22LR plinking at trash can lids in my backyard. But the .22LR has always seemed a bit underpowered to me.
On March 11, 2022 at 4:29 am, Plague Monk said:
Sorry to be a nitpicker, but I think the energy value for the 22 WMR 40-gr at 120 yards is a typo. Going by the average of the adjoining numbers, I would expect the value to be around 150 instead of 15.
I was a designer/checker for nearly 40 years, and old habits die hard.
On March 11, 2022 at 7:35 am, Herschel Smith said:
Oh, it obviously is. I copied and pasted the table from the article without inspection, assuming they had done their own check.
On March 11, 2022 at 10:53 am, Frank Clarke said:
…and THEY did a cut-n-paste that snipped off that trailing digit.
On March 11, 2022 at 11:19 am, CM Dutch said:
Where you really notice the difference is on the larger small game such as racoons.
On March 11, 2022 at 12:17 pm, Name (required) said:
I have an ancient 22WRF. It’s not quite the magnum, but it’s definitely a nice step up from the 22LR.
On March 11, 2022 at 5:43 pm, Joe Btfsplk said:
Cough, cough … .17 wsm … cough, cough, … 400 fpe, … cough.
On March 11, 2022 at 10:44 pm, Herschel Smith said:
@Joe,
Yea, I know. It occurred to me while posting this that I might want to look up the data on 15 WSM and 17 HMR, but I just can’t do everything.
Then again, I think you’d want to consider sectional density in this mixture of performance too.
On March 12, 2022 at 5:27 pm, Paul B said:
22 wmr is the bees knees as far as I am concerned. Pinged lots of critters with it over the years and it has always worked. 22 LR works good on squirrels out to abou 30 yards. Anything farther I want 22wmr.
17 hmr might be good and I might have liked it if I came up with it but I remember when it was new.
On March 12, 2022 at 6:40 pm, =TW= said:
Chuck says:
https://www.chuckhawks.com/5mm_rem_mag.htm#:~:text=The%205mm%20Rimfire%20offered%20more%20energy%20down%20range,lbs.%20for%20the%20.17%20HMR%20at%20100%20yards%29.
On March 13, 2022 at 3:28 am, Ohio Guy said:
Say what you will about thee .22lr being underpowered. If you get hit by one, say, in the meaty part of the upper thigh, comes out the bottom of your butt. And that’s subsonic .22lr. I won’t go into details but you’ll worry about finding a touniquet, or in my case, a belt, and then, overcome the pain to avoid going into shock. Well, it took me out of the “game” for a spell. A well placed .22lr is just as deadly as your favorite bigger bore cartridge.
Can’t believe I shared that, but there it is.
OG
On March 13, 2022 at 10:16 am, NOG said:
The home defense gun I would like to have is a air powered 50 to 75 cal that would be able to fire 6 to 10 shots of a soft lead 300gr flat nosed slug. I think most folk have not had the pleasure of shooting a +P round inside a room or house. A 300gr traveling at about 600-700 ft/minute would put down even a meth head on a 3 day binge, but only his last breath would bother my ears and bonus it would not keep going into my neighbor’s house. I’m sure some bright engineer out there could design this.
On March 13, 2022 at 8:23 pm, Herschel Smith said:
@NOG,
I think there are air rifles like that. Or close to it.
There’s been a lot of development in air rifles, but I’m not an aficionado, so I’ll leave it to someone else to fill in the details.
A lot of guys use it for hunting in areas where it would be unacceptable to have a rifle (e.g., within city limits).
On March 13, 2022 at 10:32 pm, BRVTVS said:
@NOG
See this – https://www.jacklambert.com/2014/01/quiet-without-the-can-hunting-quietly-without-a-suppressor/
On March 14, 2022 at 10:35 am, NOG said:
BRVTVS- I have seen the hunting rifles loaded down, but they still can be quite loud inside (140DBs is quite loud). What I would like is a semi-auto air powered large pistol/short rifle kind of like the kids using for paint ball games, only for inside home defense. Such a animal might exist, but at my age I don’t tend to keep up with things anymore. I have never even sent a text message (perhaps because I have never owned a smart phone, but I can still swing a mean slide rule…..