S & W Model 22

[frank505]

Theres a Model 22 45 ACP in town for sale. Kinda makes me wanna buy it. Has anybody have any experience with one, like shooting 45 Auto Rim brass and 265 grain Keith bullets and where does it hit in relation to the sights.

[MtGun44]

I have a friend that got one of the new fixed sight M22s and sent it
back to S&W because it was very inaccurate. He is capable of excellent
shooting, so it was the ammo or gun. These pistols can be pretty
tempermental with cast boolits, as the rifling is very shallow and they
are designed to shoot 230 FMJ ball rounds.

I have a Thunder Ranch M21 that looks identical in .44 Spl that shoots well.

My Brazilian M1937 .45 ACP is a nice gun but is also very picky on what
it will shoot well. I finally followed Elmer's advice and loaded his 452423
sized to .454 (my throats are .454") with a HOT load of Unique and
got accurate shooting to the sights. Elmer recommended 7.5 gr Unique,
and I would not go that hot as it is way above the book values. I
did shoot 7.0 and it shot well and too sights. Lower vel loads shot
about 3" or worse at 25yds, and ordinary .452" commercial cast boolits
shot about 8+" at 25 yds !!! Be careful of these hot loads, but they should
be better in a new M22 than in my ancient M1937!

If you have a machinist friend maybe you can borrow the pin guages for
.452 thru .455 and check the throats before you buy. If the throats are
about .453 or so, should be a shooter. If they are .454 or .455 it will
likely require oversized boolits or very soft boolits that can bump up
with fairly hot loads.

Bill

[frank505]

Thanks, I have set of pin gauges and 452423 four cavity mold that casts 456 diameter bullet. I was even thinking of using WC 820, might work in small case and modern strong gun. Hmmmmm.

[MtGun44]

Frank,

Great that you have the pin gages. Please report back what you find
as cyl throat dimensions on that M22, as I have been interested in one,
but have not had one on hand to measure (my friend sent his back before
I found out that he had probs) and with the 'issues' with my M1937,
I wanted more info before trying one.

Very interested in what you find, and in your shooting results if you
buy it.

Bill

[frank505]

I will give a report if and when I get it. The trade rifle has some work to do before it goes away. I need to test some very blunt 45 bullets out of a rifle to see if they still are offender bullets. We know this design will not shoot at longer ranges from a sixgun, but we thought we would try from a rifle even though the twist is not the same.