I shot short 22’s at a Carnival in NZ in the late 70’s/early 80’s. It had a very long cylinder you shot down.
But we only got TV in 1985, bit behind the times over there.
Otara
Kennywood, and a few other major amusement parks, still had .22s during the mid 70s; most seemed gone (to the best of my memory) by about 1978. Cost of the ammo going up and problems maintaining the guns were usually the reasons cited for dropping them. Plus the light operated shooting galleries with animated targets were getting to be much more popular. Folks got a bigger kick out of popping a snake that would spray water at them or a gorilla that would play a piano than plinking off metal ducks over and over.
Kennywood had a gallery that had large machine-gun BB guns; Air Force surplus from WW II/Korea. They had been designed to train gunners for bomb crews. That was one of the things destroyed/lost when the Ghost Ship burned. And I would LOVE to have one.
Knoebels still has “Thompson” BB guns and an old-style gallery. And they actually keep their guns fairly accurate. Just remember, control your breathing and short bursts.
I can get the straight dope from real, honest-to-Pete multi-generational carnies! Might take me a while, though; they’re out on the road right now.
My parents worked for a carnival company for a few years. The company supplied the rides and games for a large community festival my Mom organized in her job as executive director of the local Chamber of Commerce. The company owners recruited my parents to take jobs with their company, and so they did. Dad was maintenance supervisor, and Mom was the office manager. They have some excellent stories of their time on the road.
Dad worked on plenty of the BB guns for their shooting gallery, as well as keeping all the rides in safe working order. Pro tip: When trying to “shoot out the star” on the little paper target, just shoot a circle all the way around the star, so the center of the target falls out, rather than trying to blast all the red ink away.
I have myself been a substitute carnie, although only for a long weekend, and I only sold ride tickets, which is admittedly the easiest job on the lot. Carnies WORK! I did spend nearly the entire time speaking Spanish; we were in the Toppenish, WA, over the July 4 weekend, and the Latino folk just love to bring the entire family to a carnival.
Oh, wait, I did run a Christmas carousel at one point! Easy-peasy, just step on a button to start, step off the button to stop.
I have never heard of a 22 Long. Whenever I was shoppping for 22 ammunition. The only choices were 22 Short or 22 LR. Can anyone tell me the comparative power difference between the 22 LR and the 22 Long?
Does anyone know the difference between a 22LR and a 22Long? I mean the reason why the two of these would exist?
I have two rifles chambered for .22 Short, .22 Long, or .22 Long Rifle: A bolt-action Sears, Roebuck & Co single shot (Marlin Model 101), and a Marlin 39A lever-action.
Thanks very much Gary. I had a look and came away with the following info about the 22 Long.
“The .22 Short is a pretty anemic round, and in 1871 a longer case of the same diameter was developed for the 29 grain Short bullet. This became the .22 Long cartridge, still occasionally seen (but obsolescent) today.
The (.22) Long survived the change to smokeless powder and is still occasionally seen today. CCI loads their .22 Long High Velocity ammo to a MV of 1215 fps and ME of 95 ft. lbs.”
Basically, this confirms my experience that the 22 Long is now obsolete.
I always enjoyed shooting 22s and never understood why the majority of people who own rifles insist on having such high powered rifles like the 30/06, 30/30, .308, .303, etc. These weapons have huge recoils and after an afternoon of target shooting with a 30/06, most anyone would come away with a shoulder that was literally black and blue. A friend once installed a rubber pad on the butt of his weapon designed to stop the bruising of shoulders. But even that didn’t help.
It seems to me that the US armed forces abandoned their rifles used in WW I and WW II - which were similar to the 30/06 and moved towards calibers that were much higher speed but lower weight. When used in combat, I would guess the 22LR has almost all the power necessary to use in combat. Most people seem to scoff at calibers like the .223 or lighter. But it’s always seemed to me this kind of caliber is much better for use in combat. Don’t you want to use a weapon with as little recoil as possible? In combat, you don’t need to kill elephants or blow a hole in a tank. Why did people ever need such high powered weapons in WWI and WWII? Surely there were lighter weight calibers available at that time?
I once heard that several governments use the 22LR in their secret agencies (like the CIA) because they are so accurate and provide such little recoil.
Oops. Sorry, Johnny L.A. I missed seeing your post with the link to Wikipedia and wanted to say thanks to you too. I didn’t want to be a clod and say thanks to Gary but not you when you posted a link just like Gary did.
Tactics changed over the years. For a long time it was considered advantageous to have a rifle that can ‘reach out and touch someone’ as far away as possible. Later it was found that most engagements took place at much nearer distances, and that long-range rounds weren’t needed. The Germans developed the StG 44 (also known by other designations), which used the 7.92 Kurz cartridge. The 7.92 Kurz was a shorter, less powerful round than the standard 7.92 Mauser round. The U.S. developed the M1 Carbine as a more powerful alternative to pistols. The M1 Carbine is much lighter than the M1 Garand and uses a 15-round magazine as opposed to the Rifle’s 8-rd. en-bloc clip. (30-round mags were also available.) After the war we got the 7.62x51 mm NATO round, which was smaller than the 7.62x63 mm .30-06 one. The Soviet Union had the 7.62x39 mm round, which is similar to the German ammunition. When ammunition is lighter, you can carry more of it. Also, the arm itself can be lighter. (Not that it always is.) Fully-automatic fire with the NATO round proved to be problematic because of the recoil that caused the aim to be shifted upwards. When firing from the shoulder only the first and maybe second rounds are on target. The .223x45 mm round such as used in the M-16 series allows more rounds to hit the target (this is also helped by the M-16’s in-line design) and allows the soldier to carry more ammunition for the same weight as before.
.22 Long Rifle is not suitable for combat. While it can be lethal, it doesn’t pack the punch needed for fighting.
Good information. Thanks very much.
As far as the 22 LR goes, if you look again, I said that it was almost suitable for combat. I just meant that much lighter ammunition was a better choice for combat than the kind of stuff used in WW II. But you made that point very nicely in your post.
Thanks again for the good info.
I’m a shooter, and have both a .22 and a couple of .30-30s. My .30-30s are used for hunting (one is scoped, for clear days, one has iron sights for rainy/foggy days). It’s a good round for New England deer. If I was hunting moose, or game in areas where visibility is greater, I’d go to a faster round like the /06, or some of the .300 type rounds.
Sometimes you want a flat trajectory that goes forever, sometimes you don’t need that. Along with that flat trajectory, you get more power, which you may or may not need.
The .22 is great for small game, and time at the range practicing, but it wouldn’t be appropriate (or in fact, legal) for me to go out and hunt deer with. I’m actually required to use a shotgun in the Southeast NH areas I hunt, for “safety concerns” :rolleyes:, but once I get out of the shotgun areas, I pick up the .30-30, which shoots far enough (150yds or so max, but usually I can’t see that far in NH), has enough punch.
From the chart below, you can see the differences between the rounds. If I was hunting game at 300yds, even deer sized, the .30-30 wouldn’t be enough, but the .30-06 would still have plenty of punch.
Caliber 100 yards 200 yards 300 yards 400 yards bullet weight energy energy energy energy
**
**.30-30 Win
1335 945 650 460 150gr
**.30-06 Springfield**
2435 2025 1665 1360 180gr
Well, I spent my edit time trying to get that chart right at the bottom, but failed. It was intended to show the energy differences, especially at different ranges. The second set of numbers shows the “drop” of the bullet at different ranges. The .30-30 at 400 yds has dropped 49.1 inches, the .30/06, only 26.4, when both rifles are 'zeroed" at 200yds.
As for service ammo, the other posters have detailed it’s development very well. Lighter fast rounds are now preferred due to quantity being prefered in modern semi-automatic arms. Bolt action arms had different requirements, and longer between shot times. Accuracy & range were at a premium, whereas modern theory goes more towards volume, and/or short range engagements.
With the perfection of .22LR the reason for .22 Long’s existence vanished. One seldom sees them these days and the last box I saw was very old.
Elitch Gardens in Denver was using .22 shorts as late as the early 1970s. I was quite disappointed that they had gone to an electronic gallery by the time I was old enough to partake…they also ripped out the Wildcat coaster and replaced it with a log flume around the same era.
So will a .22 take out a zombie?
Several hollowpoints to the brainbox should do it; .22s were actually fairly popular for “hits” once upon a time. Just don’t bunker up with any Jodie Foster fans; the kill ratio of Jodie Foster fans isn’t that good. 
There was a firearm developed for prison guards once upon a time that was a fully automatic .22 that had a laser sight and a 500 round drum. One of those may not be a bad thing to have come the apocalypse.
My old bolt-action .22 rifle wouldn’t chamber a 22 long rifle. Worked fine on shorts and longs, though. I’m glad the long was still available when I was shooting that one regularly.
Check the barrel to see if it’s marked for .22 LR. It should have the caliber stamped on it.
What would work better than padding on the rifle butt would be some sort of rigid shield or “plastron” that you could wear across the shooting side of your chest/shoulder, that would spread the recoil over a larger area. Has anyone ever made something like this?
To expand on this, what changed was that machine guns completely took over the task of repelling mass infantry charges, which previously had been met by massed volley fire. The rifles the British carried into battle in WW1 had sights calibrated out to 2000 yards. After WW2 it was discovered that with the exception of dedicated snipers, virtually all infantry rifle kills in the war were at 300 meters or less. And as mentioned the move to automatic rifles prompted the move to smaller rounds that were more controlable in full-auto fire. Although as it turned out it was decided that rifles like the M-16 were both too light to fire in full-auto mode for any length of time, and still too uncontrollable. Current US doctrine is semi-automatic or 3-round burst mode, with a dedicated Squad Automatic Weapon if full auto is truly needed. Ironically now in Afghanistan they need a round with enough weight to engage at 800 meter distances. I wonder if the old M-14 which shot 7.62 is available in a 3-round burst mode?
There are strap-on ‘wimp pad’ devices out there. I’ve seen other people use them; most people use a jacket with padding in it.