.22 shorts with a suppressor, any advice?

[hardcase]

I have a SWR (SilencerCo) Warlock II .22 suppressor. Love it. I'm trying to get either and adapter for, or get the barrel threaded on as many of my .22s as reasonable (if there is such a thing when dealing with cans).

At any rate, I have a 45+ year old Remington 552 Speedmaster automatic .22 that reliably shoots shorts, longs, and long rifle ammo I bought when I was an avid, some say rabid, squirrel hunter. It holds something like twenty-two cartridges when fully loaded with shorts. I'd love to get the barrel threaded. The gun appears to have enough barrel distal to the tubular magazine to allow for threading.

Anyone with experience shooting shorts in a .22 with a can?

Most of the current batch of .22 autos on the market are only set up for LRs.

Seems like I read somewhere that some light weight centerfire rounds were not practical with suppressors, i.e. could damage the can. I'm not sure I understand the reasoning behind this statement. My concern was the reasoning would carry over to .22s.

[LawBob]

You should have no issues. They are usually subsonic but shoot lighter bullets. The only .22 issue are the agila sss because they may not stabilize ...

[LawBob]

And post pics

[T-Rex]

I haven't had any issues with my cans and shorts

Seems like I read somewhere that some light weight centerfire rounds were not practical with suppressors, i.e. could damage the can. I'm not sure I understand the reasoning behind this statement.

To understand the reasoning behind lightweight rounds not being practical, I use this example:

Out of the 2, which would you choose to destroy a structure?

A Porsche going 55mph or a Mack truck, doing the same speed?

Of course the Mack truck, it has more mass!

When firing subsonics, your velocity is limited to less than the speed of sound. This being the case, you want to fire the largest (mass) projectile you can. A 55grn, 5.56mm projectile doing 1000fps is far less effective than a 79 or 82grn. I use 110-123grn for supersonic 300blk, but switch to 220grn when I'm shooting subs.

[hardcase]

The stability issue was what concerned me and the reason for my question. I want to avoid baffle strikes if at all possible.

My .22 can doesn't have as much clearance (as big a hole) as my Liberty Mystic 9mm, also rated for .22. A short could probably go through the Mystic sideways and not hit a baffle

With my center-fires, I try to shoot paper first to check for keyholes. The .22 shorts are so stubby and make such a small hole, I might not detect a keyhole.

I also sight down the barrel with can in place to see if there is an elliptical pattern or a shadow. This is harder for me with a .22 rifle and .22 can.

I just finished reading in my last edition of "Guns & Ammo" about Aguila ammo and the 60 mg sub-sonic SSS .22 bullets "in a case half the size of a .22LR" (quote from Guns & Ammo). I appreciate the heads-up as I would have been on the prowl for some of these at my local gun shop. Not now.

[rcn11thacr]

I've used shorts in my Mystic, Sparrow, and the Spectre 2 with no problems. I would feel safe doing so in your cans also.

[LawBob]

I haven't had any issues with my cans and shorts

Seems like I read somewhere that some light weight centerfire rounds were not practical with suppressors, i.e. could damage the can. I'm not sure I understand the reasoning behind this statement.

To understand the reasoning behind lightweight rounds not being practical, I use this example:

Out of the 2, which would you choose to destroy a structure?

A Porsche going 55mph or a Mack truck, doing the same speed?

Of course the Mack truck, it has more mass!

When firing subsonics, your velocity is limited to less than the speed of sound. This being the case, you want to fire the largest (mass) projectile you can. A 55grn, 5.56mm projectile doing 1000fps is far less effective than a 79 or 82grn. I use 110-123grn for supersonic 300blk, but switch to 220grn when I'm shooting subs.

That's an issue with cycling on a semi auto, not a suppressor issue.

His concerns is baffle strikes. A 22 short goes 1000fps w a 30gr bullet -/+

It won't have tumbling issues.

[T-Rex]

That's an issue with cycling on a semi auto, not a suppressor issue.
His concerns is baffle strikes. A 22 short goes 1000fps w a 30gr bullet -/+
It won't have tumbling issues.

What's an issue with cycling? Larger rounds or the smaller? I find it depends on the platform.

At the time I wrote my response, there was no mention of baffle strikes being a concern.

I agree, there shouldn't be any reason your projectiles become unstable.

[LawBob]

Your earlier comment only makes sense if what you are talking about is that you want more mass for more effective cycling. That is, a 187 gr 300 blk subsonic won't have as much power to cycle as a 220gr, provided they have equal velocity and both remain subsonic.

[LawBob]

Where he wrote "Seems like I read somewhere that some light weight centerfire rounds were not practical with suppressors, i.e. could damage the can. I'm not sure I understand the reasoning behind this statement."

The issue is not it could damage the can, but that they won't be subsonic due to light weight bullets, and/or if they are subsonic, they can't produce enough pressure to cycle. Like a subsonic 55gr 556 in an AR.

[quietoldfart]

While I haven't tried the 60g Aguila, I have found that I get a slight graze with most shots when using CCI Quiet through the ported 7.5" barrel of my .22" pistol. Never a trace of it with faster ammunition such as Remington subsonic or CCI SV. Those and other projectiles leaving the muzzle at ~800fps and faster always form perfectly round holes in target paper which cuts cleanly. Somehow the Quiet, which my pistol puts out at about 570fps, begins a yaw in the 3" of very small K baffles and lightly clips the front cap. Never any damage to the cap or the extremely lightly built 7075 baffles, just a clean spot on the front cap bore, which isn't there when firing a series of faster rounds. Recovering the bullets from a soft putty trap I can see that the faster ones form perfect little mushrooms about 1/2 their original length, with the tails displaying clean rifling grooves all the way around. The Quiet become slightly banana shaped and show a shiny area with no rifling grooves for about 1/6th their circumference on the curved side, throughout their length. The low energy of the CCI Quiet makes it uninteresting anyway; I have air rifles to cover that range of power and the pellets cost much less per shot. So I'm content using normal subsonics. The bore size in my case is 17/64". It had initially been 1/4" through the K baffles and cap, but I reamed it owing to this clipping with Quiet. No change at all. And certainly no alignment issue with my integral suppressor, tested optically and with a known-true steel test rod. And the muzzle has been carefully re-crowned and proven flawless using standard tests.

So I conclude that at too low a velocity makes for instability with longer projectile, at least with a modest twist rate and short barrel. As your case involves a rifle, I'd expect no such problem even if your short-cased ammunition carries long-ish bullets and shoots them quite slowly, though perhaps below 600fps might bring about instability.