#22

A reader from Washington State who buys the contents of abandoned storage lockers, in the hopes that he can sell them for a profit, recently purchased a locker at auction for $90. Among this locker’s contents was a .22 single shot pistol wrapped up in newspaper and stuffed inside a cloth bag. He took the pistol to a couple of local gun shops who told him it was homemade. It only contains one marking: “A 367”.

Ruger has just announced the Ruger American Rimfire, a bolt-action rimfire rifle that uses the Ruger 10/22 magazine. As much as I love the .22 cartridge, feeding it is a problem in many guns. I generally find a brand of ammunition that feeds well in a particular gun and stick to it. The Ruger 10/22 is the exception, its rotary magazine makes chambering the rimmed .22 LR round easy. Like with the Ruger 10/22, both the .22 Magnum and .22 LR magazines sit flush with the stock. The magazine release is an extended 10/22-style release.

The new CMP 22 Side Wheeler target has two spinning targets side-by-side so you can complete with friends on the same target. As the name suggests, this target is for .22 rimfire rounds only. The MSRP is $169.

Last week I blogged about the Lithgow Arms LA101 CrossOver, Australia’s first production rifle in four decades. A Australian kindly gave us permission to publish the below photos.

If you have not heard of them before, The Ballistics By The Inch project tests cartridges by shooting them through a rifle-length barrel, noting the velocity, then cutting an inch off the end of the barrel and repeating until the barrel is just 2″ in length. This provides valuable information because the velocity published by ammunition companies come from measurements through a long test barrel. For example .22 Magnum bullets are usually tested by the manufacturer with a 24″ barrel. Nobody these days shooting .22 Magnum with a 24″ barrel, and the .22 Magnum has a growing following among revolver and pistol shooters who are shooting with 4″ or shorter barrel.

US Firearms has developed a nifty modular .22 firearms system called the ZIP. This little rectangular gun will be available in a pistol configuration or an SBR configuration. The SBR can be accessorised with a number of stocks or used as a secondary gun mounted underneath a rifle.

The makers of the GMG .22, a fully automatic air gun, are considering open sourcing the design. Sales have not been good and they think there could be more money selling plans, kits and parts than fully assembled guns.

Magnum Research has apparently re-engineered their Magnum Lite .22 Magnum rifles. The Magnum Lite are high-end clones of the Ruger 10/22 and chambered in .22 WMR.

It has been a long time coming, but the GSG STG-44 .22 LR is finally shipping.

American Specialty Ammo is selling a registered NFA suppressor for $55 (+ $200 tax stamp) that is nothing more than an adapter to attach a car oil filter to a 1/2-28 threaded barrel. The first bullet punches a hole in the end of the oil filter.

UPI reports …

A political scandal broke out in Mexico today when a photograph of a young congressional candidate posing with a firearm was published on Facebook. The politics of this is far outside the scope of TFB, but what I do find interesting is the gun itself. The Mexican press are calling it an “UZI submachine gun”. It is about as close to an UZI as it is to an AK-47!

The pistol-sized rifle craze is hitting Europe. Beretta has revealed that they are developing a .22 LR pistol based on the Beretta ARX-160 rifle. I do not think the receiver or internals will be compatible with the full size 5.56mm ARX-160.

Magnum Research’s latest Magnum Lite (premium/target Ruger 10/22 clone) is the MLR22AT.

No longer do you need to be a dictator of a small country or a drug lord to afford a gold plated AK or MP5. ATI will soon be importing gold plated versions of the GSG-522, GSG Kalashnikov and GSG-5PK. It is real gold plating, not a faux-gold finish.