ihmsa forums

A friend ask me if he would be making a good choice of using the 22 WMR for shooting Field Pistol. I thought it made a lot of sense for those targets. But when I looked for results, they just don't appear to be many. Why is this cartridge not used much?

I have made a few guesses why not, but I would (so would my friend) like to hear some real range facts about what is right & wrong with using this cartridge for our FP matches.

Forest, my guess is that most of us reload and it isnt much of a step to shoot and reload the Hornet.
For those who dont care to reload it may be a good choice.
(Predicated on the ability to obtain components for the Hornet).
Then, you could just shoot 22LR and accept the losses on Rams.
If you can clean the C and P; then hang on for half of the T and R, you get a good score.
rp

It seems to me that all the same benefits to use the 22LR cartridge would also apply to the 22WMR cartridge, except for having to accept lots of ringers and lost targets/points would not be one of them.

What is harder to find these days, 22WMR ammo or 22 Hornet reloading cases?

I would think that buying 22WMR ammo, even as expensive as ammo is now, when you can find it, still would be cheaper then 22 Hornet dies, cases, bullets, primers, and powder, if you could find any of those.

I think developing a unique load for the Hornet (a soft, non-standard load) that would take so much time and money, would be hard to recommend to my friend just so he can shoot only a few matches a year. And as matches are becoming fewer and fewer, it makes less sense to build a highly specialized gun and loading procedure.

I think there must be more to the lack of the 22WMR seen in the results.

I wonder if the 22WMR doesn't share the same level of accuracy as the 22LR.

The .22 WMR will not take Rams reliably. In the past with cheap components available it also made little sense to spend that much money on .22 mags that would leave targets.

The .22 Hornet is the absolute minimum cartridge loaded with a 55 grain bullet, traveling at a speed that will not damage older soft targets, that will reliably knock down field pistol targets.

The .22 mag has never been popular in IHMSA because of that. It was very popular in the NRA competition, Hunter Pistol because many shooters pulled the bullets and replaced them with 50, 52 and 55 grain bullets. I shot NRA national championships for many years and actually witnessed shooters doing that very thing. It seemed like an extraordinarily dangerous thing to me.
It is against the rules in IHMSA to do that as the rules specify rimfire ammo must be fired as manufactured.

Tell your friend if he doesnt want to reload and has .22 WMR available to go that route. As long as he is aware that there will be an occasional ringer.

I have people shoot my field pistol match with .22 LR because they cant reload or dont want to reload. They know they will ring some targets but they still have fun shooting.

Jim Kesser

Back in 1988, I used to shoot a 22WMR and averaged 2 rang rams each time i shot it. I ended up selling it a year later.

But, The ammo has gotten a lot better since then, so it may not be as bad as back then.

and yes, The 22 hornet is a whole lot more accurate. I went with a 30-20 though.

I used a .22lr for many years. I made sure the targets were set easy at my home range and used now discontinued Eley High Velocity ammo. Very few ringers. Went to a .357 magnum. Cheap components plenty accurate enough. Just the loose screw on the trigger can't hit the targets