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Winchester 22 sub-sonic

Winchester 22 sub-sonic

As a hunter I would have to say that the most fun, if not the most excitement is to be had from rabbit and hare shooting. These days I tend to use my 17HMR more and more for both species, but sometimes and with very twitchy rabbits; it has to be 22 sub-sonics! 

Just recently I have been shooting more rabbits again with my Ruger M77/22 and had some disappointing results with a brand of subs I was using. No problem hitting them, but the terminal effect was less than swift, unless it was in the head!

Aussi-Made

As I was casting around for another brand of subs I decided to see what Winchester had to offer. Made in Australia, the first and most noticeable aspects of the ammo was its 40-grain hollow point bullet and the fact the nose looked like a bucket.

Pulling a random selection showed an average bullet weight of 39.7-grains and a powder charge of 0.95-grains. What I really liked was the long bearing surface on the projectile, the near truncated cone ogive (nose) and the wide and deep hollow point cavity.

With that done it was time for the chrono – a Tim Hannam ProChrono, the test rifle is my 20” barrel, wood-stocked Ruger M77/22. The only change is that I fitted a Rifle Basix’s trigger, which does make a difference. For a moderator I use a Wildcat Growler, this reflex-type makes the overall package just that bit shorter when compared to muzzle-mounted.

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I fired a five round string, which gave the following figures:

High – 1042
Low – 1009
Average – 1026
Extreme Spread – 33 fps

Shot at 50 yards prone/supported my Ruger as keeping it around the ½-3/4”, which is not bad for a field rifle. Speaking of that; the Winchesters did appear to hit rabbits with a rather more pleasing ‘thwack’ and chest shot rabbits rolled over and died a lot quicker with a lot less thrashing about than brand X.

Out of interest I ran the figures over my new Sierra Infinity 6, which now carries common rimfire data and includes all the calibres. Ranged out to 100 yards and in 10 yard increments I also factored in a 10 mph cross wind; here’s how it shoots:


Range | yards | Velocity fps | Energy ft/lbs | Drop " | Wind"
00 | 1026 | 93.5 | 1.67 | 00
10 | 1008.1 | 90.2 | -0.63 | 0.05

20 | 991.4 |  87.3   |  +0.07 | 0.18
30 | 975.7 |  84.5   |  +0.42 | 0.4
40 | 961.0 |  82.0   |  +0.4   | 0.71
50 zero   | 947.0 |  79.6 | 0.0 | 1.1
60 | 933.7 |  77.4   |  -0.78 | 1.57
70 | 921.1 |  75.3   |  -1.96 | 2.12
80 | 909.0 |  73.4   |  -3.56 | 2.74
90 | 897.3 |  71.5   |  -5.57 | 3.44
100 | 886.1 |  69.7   |  -8.01 | 4.22

Overall and with the occasional popper and cracker aside, which is unavoidable with 22 LRs, the Winchester SUBSONIC proved to be a good one

PRICE: £6.80 per 100

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