We called it "22 Special."
Dad Had a Winchester model 90 in 22WRF.
Many a gray squirrel fell to that gun.
The ammo was available back in the 50s.
That is what this old gentleman with the yard sale called it, .22 Special. Nice old guy, I don't live out there anymore, but still own a house and he was just down the street and seems to have a yard sale going all the time when it's warm, usually mostly guy stuff, tools,etc. He had one of these little kit gliders they used to sell for about ten cents still in the package so I mentioned I'd get it for my grand daughter. He asked how old she was and I told him she is nine. He told me to wait a minute, went through some stuff and came back with a beautiful doll, still had the tags on it, I don't know much about such things but looked to be a fairly expensive one, just handed it to me and said to give it to here. He had a bunch of HO railroad stuff, I've never messed with that stuff but always thought it would be fun. Might have to go back.
Kind of likeing the idea of trying it in .22 WRF. I've had a rifle so chambered since I was about 14 and bought it from a buddy. Squires Bingham bolt action like K-Mart used to sell, made in the Phillipines. The rifle never was that accurate, and I bought it against Dad's recommendation that it wasn't as much "better" than my .22 LR was, but I had to have it, we all know how that goes. All that said, I killed more stuff with it as a kid than all the other stuff I hunted with.
I did learn from it; ammo was about five times as expensive as .22 LR. The 40 grain HP stuff destroyed edible small game almost ridiculously and the solid point stuff didn't seem to kill as well as .22 LR HPs did.
I dug the rifle out a few years ago after not having shot it in years. At some point, they started loading .22 WMR with 30 grain bullets and I had some. The rifle shot way, way better than I ever remembered it shooting, not sure if the lighter bullet did it or maybe the QC is better on ,22 WMR ammo now.
All these lessons make me scratch my head when I see the way rimfires have gone. If you want a step up in power over the .22LR, they go with lighter, faster bullets, .17 HMR and such. Seems to me, for edible small game, much better to have something like the old .25 rimfire, soft, slower bullet. But we all know how that turned out.