Originally published at VolkStudio Blog. You can comment here or there.
You might recall the photo I posted last year of a 6″ Czechpoint revolver in 22Magnum. This year, I finally got around to firing it. At the birthday party, we had clays set up from about 25 yards out to nearly 70. Shooting this gun single action, I could hit 100% of the clays at 25 yards and better than 50% at 40. For me, especially not knowing how the gun was zeroed, that’s pretty good. The narrow front sight blade and crisp trigger make it an easy gun to shoot well. The factory target shot at 16 yards indicated dispersion of two inches. I suspect that the revolver is actually a bit more accurate than that, as I was hitting clays just over four inches in diameter regularly at more than twice that range. The ammo was soft point BVAC 40gr delivered instead of CCI Maximag I ordered. Its performance seems very good.
Being an alloy framed revolver, Model 361 weights only 34 ounces and holds 9 rounds, while the comparable Taurus Tracker weighs in at 44oz. MSRP is $300 vs. $555.
At this point in time, the price premium of 22WMR over 22LR isn’t great and the availability is much better. The advantages are several: 70% more kinetic energy at the muzzle for more reliable expansion of semi-jacketed bullets, slightly less drop (2.8″ vs. 4.5″ at 50 yards, 12″ vs. 18″ at 100 yards), less wind drift. From a 6″ barrel, 40gr .22LR gets 1050 to 1080fps, and 40gr 22WMR 1380-1400fps. For shooting at point targets, that’s a useful increase and allows tackling larger varmints like coyotes from a farm tractor cab without having to wrangle a full-length rifle required to get even close to such a velocity from 22LR.
