Why would I want to change your mind?
Just use a 17HMR
1 Like
I have this conversation with myself. Its a good round, but if you need more than 22LR, what are you shooting? I mean my dad would use WMR on foxes, but that’s because having TWO rimfires in a country victoria house was a bloody luxury in the old days. The WMR was only taken out on specific hunts. Any fox that got within range of 22LR was a gonner, that was a given. But wasting WMR on bunnies was unheard of, in his time and place anyway. I don’t think I could change your mind.
Mate I don’t reckon there is any such thing as a useless calibre / cartridge. They all fit in somewhere and have a purpose for someone. I believe they were a little inaccurate in the day however they seem to have come a long way in some of the reviews I have watched.
2 Likes
Rimfire magnums are in the same boat as .303 and 7.62x54r.
Yep they are effective but moving forward they are obsolescent.
The sheer cost of rimfire magnums, to me, makes them useless.
Those that own a firearm in a magnum rimfire are not exactly suffering though.
People get caught up in the “is it useful?” arguement , of course it is.
But they are not economical and fill a very niche role.
A role covered far more effectively by pretty much any centrefire.
I see no niche!
Whilst illegal I’ve heard first hand from my friends in the pro-Roo shooting game that they use 22mag for roos at close distance due to the substantial cost saving compared to something centerfire.
22mag is getting expensive these days so i can see why people are starting to question its usefulness. I’ve always seen is as a 22 on steroids. Its muzzle velocity is almost double in most cases (2200 vs 1200) so you can hit the same small vermin but at longer ranges. I still have a large stash of 22mag which will take me a long time to chew through, but if i was a new shooter paying upwards of $25 for a box of 50 I could see the confusion it would create.
Yeah, I can reload .222 cheaper and reach out further.
I was loading 55gn roo Max on trail boss for a great 100m bunny, fox load.
I’m sure they’d do roo’s fine, mind you I wasn’t going through them like a pro roo shooter.
You can’t reload rimfire so thats not really a fair comparison. Barrel life of .22wmr vs .222 and the upfront cost of the rifle are also two important distinctions. If it wasn’t the recently stupidly high cost of 22wmr ammo I think you’d find it’ll be still a popular choice for many.
The fact that you can’t reload the 22mag is what makes it redundant. Barrel life is redundant too, most people would never shoot out the barrels on either one, 22-250 maybe, 220 swift yeah ok, but a .222 will last forever for most people.
Even if you don’t reload you can buy bulk .223 for roughly the same price as 22mag.
22lr is never going to leave us, I can see the benefits of a 17hmr (I rather a 17 hornet, but still), but I just don’t see a spot for 22mag other than nostalgia or like you said you still have a heap of ammo.
I can’t see there being any reason for anyone to ever buy one again.
I don’t know how old you are but back in my day 22wmr was popular because it was cheap. Thats the whole point of rimfire; to be cheap. 22wmr has been made a tough sell due to the rise in ammo price to parity with centerfire. So its become far less useful, but it still has its place.
If i was shooting on a small block and wanted a bit more power than a 22lr but didn’t want the extra backstop worries with a centerfire, a 22mag would be my top pick. 17hmr I don’t own and its even more fuckin expensive.
Thats the wrong attitude. Guns are supposed to be passed down to the next generation. I’d hate it if my pop had some gun in a caliber that suffered from expedited barrel wear and I couldn’t spend the next 40 years also shooting the snot out of it, then passing it to my kid to do the same thing.
Yeah some peoples grandfathers were just selfish c$%T’s, buying guns and shooting them and not ever considering what their great grand kids might think about having to rebarrel the ol’ .222!
Most guns are just tools mate.
2 Likes
Your whole frame of reference i think is wrong. Theres nothing inherently wrong with 22mag, its just gotten expensive to the point that theres better options for the same price.
To reference the OP: “Dead and useless”
Dead perhaps
Useless? Only to those who don’t have a stash. Even then I think it has merits as i said earlier in locations where backstop is a bit of an issue.
I agree. It’s dead!
And once your stash runs out it’s useless too.
Not that I have a problem with shooting shit just coz you want to, if you wanna shoot 22mag imhappy for you. I like to shoot rabbits with a .64 smooth bore musket.
It’s dead too.
And the fuck around I go through to do that makes it practically useless.
1 Like
I never said it wasn’t great back in the day, @anon73442478. I’m talking about current day and current climate. For example, if you’re already an owner then great, I mean, I own some oddballs. But, if you’re not, then I think it’s time to move past that option, because of everything that perhaps made it great back in the day is now it’s clutch.
Sooo to the vast majority yes dead and useless lol
How so? I fully understand people are confused by it in 2021, when a box of ammo is now nearing $30. But not too long ago you could get bricks of 500 for $130.
How much do you think they’ll cost by the time you hand itdown to your grand kids?
I was originally thinking to get a 515 in 22WMR, till @juststarting told me how exxy ammo was.
I don’t really fancy dropping $100 in ammo every time I go to Springy.
Outside of a particular farming/hunting niche, no one uses it for plinking right?