Where do .22 and .177 come from? ...and Why?

[chieffool]

Hi guys...

I've been debating a 'chicken and egg' question on the 'GENERAL' section:
http://www.airgunbbs.com/showthread....is-the-history

Feel free to shed any light on the origination of .22 as a starting point as per the original thread above.
That's the 'Chicken' part, but the 'egg' part below is for the assembled throng in 'COLLECTABLES'

Basically:

I know .22 was originally a rimfire caliber, and that 'Flobert' developed the first examples of rimfire by placing a ball into a percussion cap.
According to Wiki:
His cartridge consisted of a percussion cap with a bullet attached to the top and the idea was to improve the safety of indoor shooting. Usually derived in the 6 mm and 9 mm calibres

.22 is 5.6mm. The thread was to try and find out how/when the first .22 appeared....
...and when/how we ended up with .22 and .177 as the two main air gun calibres?

SO, my questions to the assembled gurus are:

1. who makes the first recognisable .22 pellet - and when?
2. who makes the first recognisable .177 pellet - and when?

NOTE: I believe the Sheridan/Crosman air rifle was the reason for the .20 after 1947. I'm presuming .25 is relatively new.

[bighit]

Hi guys...

I've been debating a 'chicken and egg' question on the 'GENERAL' section:
http://www.airgunbbs.com/showthread....is-the-history

Feel free to shed any light on the origination of .22 as a starting point as per the original thread above.
That's the 'Chicken' part, but the 'egg' part below is for the assembled throng in 'COLLECTABLES'

Basically:

I know .22 was originally a rimfire caliber, and that 'Flobert' developed the first examples of rimfire by placing a ball into a percussion cap.
According to Wiki:
His cartridge consisted of a percussion cap with a bullet attached to the top and the idea was to improve the safety of indoor shooting. Usually derived in the 6 mm and 9 mm calibres

.22 is 5.6mm. The thread was to try and find out how/when the first .22 appeared....
...and when/how we ended up with .22 and .177 as the two main air gun calibres?

SO, my questions to the assembled gurus are:

1. who makes the first recognisable .22 pellet - and when?
2. who makes the first recognisable .177 pellet - and when?

NOTE: I believe the Sheridan/Crosman air rifle was the reason for the .20 after 1947. I'm presuming .25 is relatively new.

History
The .25 cal. pellet is as old as the .177 and .22. Perhaps, the .22 is a little older than the others, but you have to get into esoteric shapes, such as cat slugs (solid lead bullets with felt bottoms), before that even takes effect. So, for all intents and purposes, the .25 is just as old. But, it was only as popular as the other two in the early 1900s. After about 1914, .22 and .177 calibers took off, leaving the .25 cal. in the dust…until now.


https://www.pyramydair.com/blog/2010...pellet-part-1/

plus this

LEN AND ARTHUR JEFFRIES CONTINUED TO PRODUCE AIR RIFLE PELLETS IN CALIBRES .177, .22 AND .25 FROM THEIR PREMISES IN WHITTALL STREET AND STEELHOUSE LANE, LOCATED IN THE HEART OF BIRMINGHAM UNTIL 1960, WHERE DUE TO THE REDEVELOPMENT OF THE CITY WERE FORCED TO RELOCATE TO A NEW FACTORY IN SUMMER LANE.
http://marksmanpellets.com/history/


another quote here

“In November 1900 the company obtained a number of air gun pellet making machines and the 1901 catalogue indicates these being made in sizes 1, 2 and 3, later to be defined as .177”, .22" and .25". The pellets made by the company were to be named the ‘Match’ weighing 10 grains and the ‘Witton’ weighing 8 grains. These were subsequently added to with the ‘Lion’, ‘Swift’ and ‘Mitre’ pellets."

https://forum.cartridgecollectors.or...istory/11867/4


slugs V pellets

A) At the beginning of the last century most, if not all, ammunition for air-powered firearms was in the form of cup-shaped lead slugs. These were made by a number of manufacturers in various sizes – No. 1 bore (.177in), No. 2 bore (.22in) and No. 3 bore (.25in). Slugs were marketed for use in smoothbore airguns, and pellets were introduced for rifled airguns. They were not fully interchangeable, but pellets dominated the market despite being twice as expensive as slugs.

The cheaper slugs were the most popular pellet until serious target shooting with air rifles
became popular in the early 1900s. When air rifles became more sophisticated, better precision-made pellets took over the market. The cheaper form of the waisted pellet has replaced the old slug and they seem to work fairly well in smoothbore barrels.

http://www.shootinguk.co.uk/answers/...rsus-slugs-525


So you see , .25 is not a newish idea

I would think that there would be some one in the section that can give a better idea

[chieffool]

"...IN 1888, HE RELOCATED TO A LARGE PREMISES, AT 48 WHITTALL STREET AND LINCOLN JEFFRIES BEGAN DESIGNING AND MANUFACTURING AIR RIFLES..."

Then apparently they move to "A MUCH LARGER PREMISES AT 121 STEELHOUSE LANE, FROM WHERE HE PRODUCED HIS WORLD FAMOUS ‘LINCOLN AIR RIFLE’ ".

So - somewhere between 1888, and 'whenever' Lincoln Jeffries designs the Lincoln Jeffries air rifle?

[bighit]

"...IN 1888, HE RELOCATED TO A LARGE PREMISES, AT 48 WHITTALL STREET AND LINCOLN JEFFRIES BEGAN DESIGNING AND MANUFACTURING AIR RIFLES..."

Then apparently they move to "A MUCH LARGER PREMISES AT 121 STEELHOUSE LANE, FROM WHERE HE PRODUCED HIS WORLD FAMOUS ‘LINCOLN AIR RIFLE’ ".

So - somewhere between 1888, and 'whenever' Lincoln Jeffries designs the Lincoln Jeffries air rifle?

Bsa made their first one in 1905 according to their website

1905 Manufacture 1st Lincoln Jeffries air rifle

http://bsaguns.co.uk/about/history.aspx

[ccdjg]

The following may add a bit more into the story:

The earliest airgun catalogue I have is for Hawley's Patent Target air pistol, otherwise known as the Kalamazoo, from 1870, and the pistol was advertised as available in three caibres .22, .26 and .28. [The calibres are actually expressed as 22-100, 26-100 and 28-100, in other words 22 hundredths of an inch etc.]
A later catalogue, from 1880, advertises the Haviland & Gunn air rifles (which pre-date the Gems) in calibre 22/100. Quackenbush on the other hand at that time sold his airguns in "21/100" calibre. The .177 calibre is not mentioned anywhere.

I am not suggesting that Hawley originated the .22 calibre, but it does seem that there were a lot of arbitrary calibres around by 1870, so could the .22 size have become dominant just by chance?

The first catalogue references I could find for .177 (as the metric equivalent 4.5mm) were actually German, and this calibre was evidently in common use in Germany for airguns by 1890. Possibly German manufacturers introduced the calibre around the time that mass produced airguns first came onto the market in the late 1870's, when the Germans adopted the Haviland & Gunn designs. If they wanted something substantially smaller then the American .22, then 4.5mm would have been a reasonable size to choose and is a more or less round number when expressed in mm. With the subsequent importation of Gems from Germany into the UK, the 4.5mm would then have become better known as .177 inches.

[chieffool]

The following may add a bit more into the story:

The earliest airgun catalogue I have is for Hawley's Patent Target air pistol, otherwise known as the Kalamazoo, from 1870, and the pistol was advertised as available in three caibres .22, .26 and .28. [The calibres are actually expressed as 22-100, 26-100 and 28-100, in other words 22 hundredths of an inch etc.]
A later catalogue, from 1880, advertises the Haviland & Gunn air rifles (which pre-date the Gems) in calibre 22/100. Quackenbush on the other hand at that time sold his airguns in "21/100" calibre. The .177 calibre is not mentioned anywhere.

I am not suggesting that Hawley originated the .22 calibre, but it does seem that there were a lot of arbitrary calibres around by 1870, so could the .22 size have become dominant just by chance?

The first catalogue references I could find for .177 (as the metric equivalent 4.5mm) were actually German, and this calibre was evidently in common use in Germany for airguns by 1890. Possibly German manufacturers introduced the calibre around the time that mass produced airguns first came onto the market in the late 1870's, when the Germans adopted the Haviland & Gunn designs. If they wanted something substantially smaller then the American .22, then 4.5mm would have been a reasonable size to choose and is a more or less round number when expressed in mm. With the subsequent importation of Gems from Germany into the UK, the 4.5mm would then have become better known as .177 inches.

i think the concept of .22 being adopted and developed as a main caliber for airgun could quite possibly fall into the area of "...QUITE BY CHANCE...".

ALSO:
Just to enlarge on your earlier point [lifted from an earlier post #18 from the thread mentioned at the beginning sitting in GENERAL] i didn't realise fully the following until I started poking around for this thread:

Because a CALIBER is expressed in 'decimal inches'....
Essentially, a "caliber" is one inch.
So a .45 caliber bullet is 45 1/100ths of an inch in diameter (and a .50 caliber...One half-inch)


Which means a 0.22 is actually 22 x 1/100ths of an inch

Seriously - what twisted 'genius' comes up with this stuff?

[chieffool]

Does this mean (if expressed as a caliber) that .177 is actually 17.7 x 1/100th of an inch?