.22 Long Rifle
Overview
Ammunition
Ammunition is a generic term derived from the French language la munition which embraced all material used for war , but which in time came to refer specifically to gunpowder and artillery. The collective term for all types of ammunition is munitions...
, and in terms of units sold is still by far the most common in the world today. The cartridge is often referred to simply as .22 LR and various rifle
Rifle
A rifle is a firearm designed to be fired from the shoulder, with a barrel that has a helical groove or pattern of grooves cut into the barrel walls. The raised areas of the rifling are called "lands," which make contact with the projectile , imparting spin around an axis corresponding to the...
s, pistol
Pistol
When distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...
s, revolver
Revolver
A revolver is a repeating firearm that has a cylinder containing multiple chambers and at least one barrel for firing. The first revolver ever made was built by Elisha Collier in 1818. The percussion cap revolver was invented by Samuel Colt in 1836. This weapon became known as the Colt Paterson...
s, and even some smoothbore
Smoothbore
A smoothbore weapon is one which has a barrel without rifling. Smoothbores range from handheld firearms to powerful tank guns and large artillery mortars.-History of firearms and rifling:...
shotgun
Shotgun
A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...
s have been manufactured in this caliber
Caliber
In guns including firearms, caliber or calibre is the approximate internal diameter of the barrel in relation to the diameter of the projectile used in it....
. It is occasionally referred to by its metric designation of 5.6×15mmR. The cartridge originated from the Flobert BB Cap
.22 BB
.22 BB Cap is a variety of .22 caliber rimfire ammunition. .22 BB cap and .22 CB refer to cartridges that are low velocity and project reduced noise. These rimfires closely resemble a .22 caliber air rifle in power and are often used for indoor shooting and close range pest control...
of 1845 through the .22 Smith & Wesson cartridge of 1857, and was developed by the American firearms manufacturer J. Stevens Arms & Tool Company
Stevens Arms
Stevens Arms was an American firearms manufacturer founded by Joshua Stevens in 1864. The company introduced the .22 Long Rifle round and made a number of rifle, shotgun, and target pistol designs before being bought by Savage Arms in 1920. After 1920, Stevens made training rifles and machineguns...
in 1887 by combining the casing of the .22 Long
.22 Long
.22 Long is a variety of .22 caliber rimfire ammunition. The .22 Long is the second oldest of the surviving rimfire cartridges, dating back to 1871, when it was loaded with a 29 grain bullet and 5 grains of black powder, 25% more than the .22 Short it was based on...
with the 40 gr bullet of the .22 Extra Long
.22 Extra Long
The .22 Extra Long is a .22 in American rimfire rifle and handgun cartridge.Introduced around 1880, the .22 Extra Long was used in Remington, Ballard, Wesson, Stevens, and later models of Winchester's M1903 and M1904 single shot bolt action rifles, as well as in Smith & Wesson revolvers.Using the...
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