.22 WRF?

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richhodg66

Well-Known Member
Stoppped at an elderly neighbor's yard sale today, he had a box with an eclectic selection of old ammo in it. Mostly shotgun ammo, but among it all are maybe 30 or 40 rounds of whay I believe to be this old .22 WRF ammo, looks like .22 Magnum, but old and has a lead bullet, not jacketed, with a flat nose point. Not sure what to do with it, I don't have a rifle so chambered. Is there collector interest in this stuff? Not looking to make money on it, just seems uncommon and figured someone out there would appreciate it.
 
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BudHyett

Active Member
You're probably correct as this being to .22WRF. No collector value without the box, it being a full box, and clean. It was once advertised as a cheap substitute for practice .22 WRF Magnum ammunition. That was before it was no longer made and became scarce. If you know someone with a .22 WRF and it is cheap, then buy it for practice..
 
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RicinYakima

RicinYakima

High Steppes of Eastern Washington
I too bought two boxes of those when they came out and put them away. About 10 years ago, the LGS had a Colt Police Positive Target in 22WCF. Until he went out of business, I tried to buy it, but he thought it was a valuable collectable. When he closed he still had it.
 
CWLONGSHOT

CWLONGSHOT

Well-Known Member
That's what I do with them. The power is less than a 22 magnum and they don't tear up game as bad. So they're good hunting bullet with a 22 magnum for small game the only place they'll cause troubles would be semi autos where they may not function because of the less power, basically there are 45 green bullet at about 1400 1500 ft./s versus 40 grain bullet at about 19 to 2000 for the WMR.
Last I knew CCI and Winchester still offered it, but as seasonal /occasional runs.

CW
 
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Walks

Well-Known Member
I have a few boxes of the stuff from the late 1990's. Was told it would shoot in a .22WMR, well it wouldn't shoot in My three guns. So it sits on a shelf.
 
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richhodg66

Well-Known Member
dale2242 said:
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.
Click to expand...
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.
 
RicinYakima

RicinYakima

High Steppes of Eastern Washington
.22 Special is not the same as .22 WRF. Both Remington and Winchester made rifles and runs of ".22 Automatic", that were referred to as "Specials". Find a "Cartridges of the World" and measure to see what you really have in hand.
 
L Ross

L Ross

Well-Known Member
I have a Model 25M Marlin .22 mag that fairly poor accuracy with .22 mag ammo. I tried some CCI .22 WRF with the Speer Gold Dot bullet, the accuracy improved dramatically. It is bigger in diameter that what is typically used in .22 mag ammo. So much so the the tech I contacted at CCI told me not to shoot it in a .22 revolver as it may stick in the bore.
Today a woodchuck violated the "no crawl zone" and took a Gold Dot right behind the left eye at 45 yards. Back when I discovered the .22 WRF was wonderfully accurate in the Marlin I bought an entire brick of it. I only use it to hunt with or kill yard critters so I have almost all of it left.
 
fiver

fiver

Well-Known Member
i got that same Marlin-25.
mmmm, now i gotta maybe try some of the WRF stuff in it, i think i gave my buddy the last i had though.
 
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