Interesting ammo topic has came up

[Pat C]

In my resent quest to resurrect my early Police Positive and approaching time for range report. The caliber is .22 WRF and when Colt originally made these revolvers lead cartridges were all that was out. It appears at least some of these early revolvers were made using standard .22 L.R. bores .

The subject revolver is one of these and the result someone shot modern jacketed bullets causing the stoppage.

CCI warns against this on using their ammo.

Only other option is Winchesters copper plated lubaloy lead bullet.

Some folks say they should be fine to shoot since it's thin copper plated lead. But the boxes says for nostalgic rifles.

So I wrote Winchester to find out whether their ammo can be used in this Colt revolver . Guess what , they do not know.

Basically they said call Colt . Colt hasn't responded yet.

My plan is to make supplement cartridges from fired WRF cases with rims removed . And use .22 L.R. target ammo which will slide into the WRF case .

I'll roll the bullets in lapping compound and fire lap this bore see if it will open up any . Possibly cast the bore and hand lap too if needed.

The other possibility is using old stock lead Remington kleanbore lead high speed . But even that I'm not sure if high speed ammo is safe in these early guns either.

[Pat C]

For those that do not know

22 WRF specs is .219" lands .226" grooves
.22 L.R. specs is .217" lands .223" grooves.

For lead only bullet this variances is of no real concern but when copper is introduced as a jacket or coating that's when the issue is considered.

Right now my bore in center has .215" lands right where the stoppages were.

[Rimfire McNutjob]

I've got five 50 round boxes of the Winchester copper washed lead flat point on my shelves. Let me know if you need them. I've also got some of the CCI jacketed that I will sometimes shoot in a Smith 648 in 22 WRM. So I don't NEED the Winchester stuff per se.

The boxes say "Lead lubaloy bullet".

[JimT]

That bore difference is not enough difference to stop a bullet unless they are really low power. If the bullet moves .125" it is sized down and will not cause any issues. I shoot .452" bullets through my .44 Special .430" bore. The bullets are sized down in the chamber and shoot pretty nicely. The load is about 800 fps.

c.jpg

Heel bullet .. heel is .430" and the nose is .452"

f.JPG

Unfired and fired bullet

o.JPG

Target and sixgun

e.jpg

Loaded round ready to shoot

Shooting the undersize .22 LR should not present any problem, even the copper-washed ones. I have done that trick in .22 Magnums that you are thinking about doing to shoot the LR in the WRM chamber.

[elmo123]

Why not leave a small portion of the magnum case rim on the case and make an insert that remains in the cylinder. You can remove them with a brass cleaning brush if need be.

[Pat C]

The fact is the bore size is enough to stop the jacketed bullets. CCI warns of it and this revolver is proof .
Remember from my other thread it had five stuck jacketed bullets in it. The bore is tight even for .22 L.R.

Thanks for ammo offer I have plenty of ammo as I have an 1890 Winchester. I have both vintage Winchester and current as well as CCI.

You might be able to counterbore the back as .22 L.R. rim is much smaller. It will have to done in lathe which I can .

[JimT]

VERY INTERESTING ... that's the kind of stuff that .. for me ... is fun to try to work out. I will be interested in seeing what you do and how it works.

[Scott Tschirhart]

Jim, I have some older .22 WRF that you can have my friend.

[JimT]

Jim, I have some older .22 WRF that you can have my friend.

Thanks Scott. We will get together again one of these days. I will be down in your neck of the woods sooner or later .. at my daughter's place in Leon Valley.

[Pat C]

Alright I spent all morning with a worn .357 bronze brush and hoppes made sure all traces of lead and copper gone. Then using a tight fitting jag I JB Bore paste lapped it probably 100 times . Then pushed a target lead projectile back and forth .
Detail scrubbed and cleaned again .

The bore is slick as eel snot , good sharp rifling throughout.
Few light pitted patches but mostly a shiney bore.

Went down to range and fired 18 rounds of Winchester vintage yellow box lubaloy offhand at 20 yards standing.

Success and fine tuning will come later I'll fire lap it some
But at least for now I'll call this project a success story .
From a pile of parts to a vintage shooter back in action.

It will take me some time to get used to the revolver and heavy mainspring.

[marlinman93]

I think I'd consider trying some standard velocity lead bullets, but also pull a bullet on whatever you buy to see if they're hollow base bullets too. A lot of them are hollow base and if so have a better chance of expanding when fired and filling the grooves.

[Pat C]

I think I'd consider trying some standard velocity lead bullets, but also pull a bullet on whatever you buy to see if they're hollow base bullets too. A lot of them are hollow base and if so have a better chance of expanding when fired and filling the grooves.

Unfortunately there are no standard velocity lead bullets in 22 WRF available. The only ones available are Remington high speed from 50's -60's

Winchester lubaloy copper coated is all you can fire in these unless your lucky and have one of the later bores that's larger.

I suppose I could pull CCI bullets and use Lyman mold and cast my own and reload the cases with soft cast bullets.

[Pat C]

Plugged bore at .2245" grooves and .2175" lands little tight for .WRF.

[44shooter]

Am I understanding that you are firing LR ammo with a WRF case sleeved around it? If so, how do you extract the sleeve from the cylinder? Do the two cases just stick together? I’m wondering if you can somehow make fixed (but removable) chamber inserts to allow chambering LR or the shorter cartridges. Maybe some steel tubing anchored in the chambers somehow. Or a 22 lr cylinder would be a wonderful solution if available. This is very interesting. I like to see people getting old stuff working.