Buidling the ultimate 22 quiet round

[Stu-NC]

I have been working to devise a custom quiet, accurate 22 LR round and wanted to see what you all though about it. In my locale, there are restrictions on firing anything in the city limit and within the development. We are overrun with squirrels, and I take out a steady stream of them so I can have a garden. I've been using a combination of air rifles and powder burners, they work but all have some downside.

The air rifles are the Benjamin 342, Benj 392 with a MAC suppressor, and a stock 22 Marauder. The first two are iron sights, need to be pumped and can't get headshots on rodents much past 15-20 yards, if that. The Marauder is scoped and can do the job, BUT is heavy as hell, long, and still needs to be topped up to stay within the required target area. It also suffers from what I'm guessing is overpenetration, it just makes a small hole and keeps going. Rodents expire if hit in the vitals but not like the pumpers (drop immediately if hit). I'm leaving out a lot of detail here, it's a story of it's own to describe the work done to get these dialed in..

The available 22 rounds are either inaccurate or way too loud for suburban use. I've tried Colibri (works but under 10-12 yards and only in a carbine), Super Colibri (same), Quiet 22 (neither quiet nor accurate), Aguila SSS (deafening in a carbine), and a pile of assorted subsonic pistol rounds (thought for sure the police were getting called on those). I started looking at how these were made, and have been trying various powder charges and projectiles to see if I could get the magic combination. That being a dime size group at 20-30 yards with a Super Colibri report. The closest I've gotten has been a few days ago with a Quiet 22 40 grain round that had the tip cut off and the resulting wadcutter machined in a lathe for a 45 degree truncated point. It looks like a 30 grain round now, and has turned in a 0.5" pattern at my 18 yard zero. This was out of a Marlin XT-22, it has the longer barrel so I can try it at lower risk of a complaint. A runner up was the "Ultra" Colibri, this is a stock round with a 0.015 cutoff tool applied to machine away the crimp, the 20 g bullet extracted and trued up, 0.6 g of Blue Dot loaded with a new crimp. It drops off rapidly, but groups tight and is super quiet.

So my questions are:

1. Has anyone been able to reload the 22 to get decent accuracy at 30 yards without excessive noise?
2. Is Blue Dot a rational use for this? I've used Red Dot (good but hard to meter for low noise), 20/28 (same), and Reloader 7 (festive unburned gunpower dispenser). None due to wisdom just picking burn speeds from fast to slow. BTW I suspect Nitro 100 is what's in a lot of commercial ammo based on appearance.
3. Is a light bullet (17-25 g) and a small charge better than a heavy (35-40 g) using more?
4. Is slow burning better than fast?
5. Does the projectile shape matter? It seems to be critical based on my experiments, an air gun pointy pellet shape seems to work the best at slower speeds.
6. What roles does the hollow base play, if any? I've tried using 25 grain cast bullets from the reloader kit, both with the flat base and with a machined cup. I saw no difference between the two. Maybe this is only coming into play at higher pressures?
7. Is crimp style and force a factor? I am using the reloader kit crimp, it's leaves two small "ears" on the case but it's all I have now. I've seen people advocate no crimp (hand fitting), but notice the factory puts the holy hurt on the case with theirs. Some are so deep they can't be cut loose without destroying the round.

This all assumes no suppressor device, yeah I know it will help but I'd prefer to avoid that if possible. I also have a 29" sporter barrel on order for the 10/22, should help but won't make a hyper round quiet.

[rockrat]

Don't know of they still make them, but CCI use to make a mini-cap, that in a 24" barrel was pretty quiet. If you could turn it into a flat pointed round, should meet your specs

[w30wcf]

Stu-NC,
Welcome to the forum. Interesting subject.

I have not tried to build a .22 Quiet round. I have loaded .22 RF but it has been mostly with black powder with some smokeless replicating the std and high velocity rounds.

I have shot the Super Colberi and they were accurate to 15 yards but at 25 yards they were all over the place. I checked to see how much priming compound was used by pulling taking 5 rounds and removing the bullets, then weighing the cases. They were fired then reweighed. The average priming compound weight was 1.3 grs. By Comparison, std .22's have .3-.5 grs.

CCI makes .22 Short CB and .22 Long CB rounds. They contain 29 gr. bullets at 710 f.p.s. I find they don't make any more noise than an air rifle. Accuracy is very good at 25 yards. I dissected several rounds and they contained .4 grs. of a fine white powder. If you can find some, I would suggest that you give them a try.

The .22 Quiet cartridge is very accurate from my rifle and were very accurate at 50 yards. I find it interesting that when you reduced the bullet weight, that apparently also made the round quieter?

In answer to your questions.....
1.) I have not.
2.) I would think Red Dot would be better since it is faster burning.
3.) I don't know
4.) Faster burning
5.) I don't think so at close range
6.) Higher pressure rounds will expand the base to the groove diameter
7.) Yes. Smokeless requires a crimp for best consistency.

w30wcf

[rondog]

Sounds to me like you need a bolt-action .22 rifle with a suppressor. I'd rather go to that expense than try to make "custom" .22 rounds.

But I feel ya, I HATE squirrels!

[Mica_Hiebert]

CCI quiets will be the ticket in your long barrel. They also make a segmented hollow point in the quiet but they are hard to find.

[jcren]

+1 for Cci hp cb's. In my old long barrel remington, the impact is louder than the shot. One of my favorites for squirrel since it doesn't scare everything in the woods. For home grown, heavy bullet and fast powder is the way to go. Some powders also tend to have a mellower report. A pinch of unique under one of aquilla's 60 grain thumpers should do the trick. You want to burn all the powder and the bullet should be coasting when it exits the barrel.

[labradigger1]

Cci bb caps are quiet

[Stu-NC]

Sounds to me like you need a bolt-action .22 rifle with a suppressor. I'd rather go to that expense than try to make "custom" .22 rounds.

But I feel ya, I HATE squirrels!

Bought a Marlin XT-22, thinking the fixed bolt would help but it seems to be worse than the 10/22 accuracy-wise. It's quieter, but that's the longer barrel. I'm dodging the suppressor for now, but I hear you. It may be needed in the end.

[Stu-NC]

CCI quiets will be the ticket in your long barrel. They also make a segmented hollow point in the quiet but they are hard to find.

I mentioned them in the long-winded post, unmodified they don't group out of the Marlin at 25+ yards. No idea why, but I suspect it's the 40g bullet, combined with low charge and more friction.

[Stu-NC]

+1 for Cci hp cb's. In my old long barrel remington, the impact is louder than the shot. One of my favorites for squirrel since it doesn't scare everything in the woods. For home grown, heavy bullet and fast powder is the way to go. Some powders also tend to have a mellower report. A pinch of unique under one of aquilla's 60 grain thumpers should do the trick. You want to burn all the powder and the bullet should be coasting when it exits the barrel.

I just got the CCI CB shorts, will be trying them today (and a report to follow). OK, so a 60g with say Red Dot? With the lathe, I can cut most factory ammo up and extract the bullet without damage so the SSS is a candidate. I don't have Unique, is that all that special or will RD work? Seems fast to me. Would a slower powder and a heavy bullet work best for this? I realize this is going to take experimenting but looking for some guidance from those who have chased this down.

On a side note, it seems that machining a bullet would yield the most accuracy. I've noticed the sorted match ammo in air guns turn in the tightest patterns, uniformity = tight. Hollowpoints seems to lose here as well, just something I saw when shooting all the varieties in the Benjis. This is really intriguing, as in is it even possible to make a suppressed sound yet still get that small pattern at the distance. Maybe not, but I'm getting close and it seems to be talking be down the path of round design and finish vs powders. Lots of work to be done obviously.

[B. Lumpkin]

Shooting CCI quiet 22 out of a Savage Mark II FVT, they would not knock over the sillywets at 50 yards. At 25 yards, 5 back to back groups at 25 yards had an ag of .9 ish. This was with iron sights.

Pretty much nill recoil and they were very quiet compared to other 22's. Still louder than 22 shorts though.

[NyFirefighter357]

I've taken hundreds of tree rats with one shot with my Beeman Webley Omega 800 fps .177 Cal. Semi-wadcutter hollow points. It's 30+ years old and still deadly. I'm now looking to go to .22 or .25 cal. air rifle at about the same speed. Those super fast pellet rifles are too loud.
As far as quiet .22lr use an old bolt action with CCI cb's. The only noise is the bolt hitting the firing pin. I have 2 Rem Mod 33's and an old pre-war Anschuetz all very quiet.

[andremajic]

I'm using a crossman wallyworld special with .177 devestator pellets with excellent results. All were near instant deaths.

"Almost" all of my shots are over 30 yards with a scope.

What really helped was setting up a "sector of fire" target at the distance I normally see them at, then dial it in until it's hitting a black 1" target. The only tricky thing is shooting up at an angle, which I compensate for by aiming low about 2-3".

So far, I've expended 10 pellets for 8 squirrels which are in my freezer at this moment. I'd recommend that you use a pellet rifle only if you're in city limits. Don't need some bleeding heart neighbor calling it in and getting you in trouble with the law.

Pump bb guns don't seem to do the job as well. The last big one I skinned had a bb pellet trapped under it's fur on one of its hind legs. It had rusted, so it was an older wound that it had already healed from.

Another thing you can do is set up snare wires on a 2x4 leading up a tree trunk. They work amazingly well. The only reason I won't do that is because I want to eat what I kill and I'm not too enthusiastic about cleaning a dead squirrel that might have hung from a tree dead for the last 12 hours. Rat traps also work very well to kill the furry tailed versions. Use treadle style snap traps with peanut butter.

I can't find a single squirrel outside now. I think they're steering clear of my yard.

Andy

[Stu-NC]

I've taken hundreds of tree rats with one shot with my Beeman Webley Omega 800 fps .177 Cal. Semi-wadcutter hollow points. It's 30+ years old and still deadly. I'm now looking to go to .22 or .25 cal. air rifle at about the same speed. Those super fast pellet rifles are too loud.
As far as quiet .22lr use an old bolt action with CCI cb's. The only noise is the bolt hitting the firing pin. I have 2 Rem Mod 33's and an old pre-war Anschuetz all very quiet.

Using CCI CBs in the Marlin today, first round was very loud and the second made my ears ring. This is a 22" barrel bolt action. We may have different ideas of quiet, sure as s**t couldn't hear any firing pin strike. Oh and the report was vastly different on the two I shot, with matching divergent patterns. Maybe it's me but these are straight out for my purposes.

I've also taken hundreds of tree rats with the pump Benjis on single shots, but I hates on the pumping. Not that I can't it just gets old, and slows me down when one appears as I'm heading out the door to work or some task. If I had all day to stalk them it wouldn't matter, but they seem to always pop up when I have little time to waste. That's why the stealthy 22 carbine appeals to me, just cycle and shoot.

Don't mention the 177, I may have to go buy one..hah. I've been looking at them for a long time, wondering if the ballistics are better than the 22s.

[Stu-NC]

I'm using a crossman wallyworld special with .177 devestator pellets with excellent results. All were near instant deaths.

"Almost" all of my shots are over 30 yards with a scope.

What really helped was setting up a "sector of fire" target at the distance I normally see them at, then dial it in until it's hitting a black 1" target. The only tricky thing is shooting up at an angle, which I compensate for by aiming low about 2-3".

So far, I've expended 10 pellets for 8 squirrels which are in my freezer at this moment. I'd recommend that you use a pellet rifle only if you're in city limits. Don't need some bleeding heart neighbor calling it in and getting you in trouble with the law.

Pump bb guns don't seem to do the job as well. The last big one I skinned had a bb pellet trapped under it's fur on one of its hind legs. It had rusted, so it was an older wound that it had already healed from.

Another thing you can do is set up snare wires on a 2x4 leading up a tree trunk. They work amazingly well. The only reason I won't do that is because I want to eat what I kill and I'm not too enthusiastic about cleaning a dead squirrel that might have hung from a tree dead for the last 12 hours. Rat traps also work very well to kill the furry tailed versions. Use treadle style snap traps with peanut butter.

I can't find a single squirrel outside now. I think they're steering clear of my yard.

Andy

Oh I can kill them all day long with air rifles, but in the first post I spell out why this is not so hotso for me. I do however continue to practice and refine my shooting with all three, it's a challenge but serious pest control needs a better solution.

So here's the latest update: with the warm spell, I got out and tried more of the Ultra Colibris. I made two more with 0.6g of BD, they grouped the same as the previous two which was huge. I got a 5/8" spread at 18 yards (scope zero), then bumped up to 0.9 grains on a couple more. Spread dropped to 3/8", which historically is superb. Report is a tad loud, the 0.6g load is very quiet and would not be noticed by anyone. This is using the 20g Aguila bullet, extracted from stock cases. Seems like I now have a recipe for this, the trick was using Blue Dot vs fast powder. I can dial the charge up/down linearly to trade off noise vs accuracy, which I could not do prior. Things were very inconsistent and/or had a threshold effect. Anyway, I'm pretty please with the results so far. Now I need a pile of primed brass and 20g bullets, that's the next challenge.

[w30wcf]

Using CCI CBs in the Marlin today, first round was very loud and the second made my ears ring. This is a 22" barrel bolt action. We may have different ideas of quiet, sure as s**t couldn't hear any firing pin strike. Oh and the report was vastly different on the two I shot, with matching divergent patterns. Maybe it's me but these are straight out for my purposes.
............

Something is not right with the .22 CB's you are using. Is the box marked with the 710 f.p.s. velocity?
I have probably shot over 300 of them in my Marlin and they were all pretty quiet....no louder than an air rifle.....actually quieter in these videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_mWGgjxvrE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B--ZzuG3FF8

Here's a source for 30 gr. bullets....
https://northamericanarms.com/shop/parts/cbb2/


w30wcf