Stevens Arms Invented The .22 Long Rifle Cartridge:

Stevens Arms & Tool Company was an American firearms manufacturer founded by Joshua Stevens in 1864 in Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts.

Image Of Success: 5.6x15mmR - The Superb .22" Long Rifle Cartridge.

When In 1887, Stevens developed the little .22 LR round - by combining the casing of the .22 Long with the 40-grain (2.6 g) bullet of the .22 Extra Long. - They really started something BIG.

It's likely that around 14 Billion rounds of ammo are made in US every year .. so what percentage of that is .22 Long Rifle? - Nobody seems to know ..

This light recoiling & superbly useful round is made by the BILLIONS ** every year (2.5 plus Billion? .. seems LOW to me). - From punching holes in paper targets, - shooting possums or rabbits - to killing a "beef" for the freezer - it does the job.

Sub-sonic - standard velocity - high velocity to Hyper Velocity with speeds of up to 1,800 feet per second.

- The weak point of the design is said to be it's HEELED bullets as shown here and it's required EXTERNAL lubrication:

An engraved, gold-plated Stevens-Gould No. 37 pistol in .22 LR was given to sharpshooter Annie Oakley in the 1890s by her husband Frank Butler. The pistol had finely engraved dog and horse head motifs on both sides of the frame. The Stevens-Gould No. 37 was one of three embellished guns cased for Oakley as a presentation group.

In 1915 Stevens was purchased by New England Westinghouse, a division of Westinghouse Electric. New England Westinghouse was created specifically to fulfill a contract to produce 1.8 million Mosin-Nagant rifles for Czar Nicholas II of Russia for use in World War I. They needed a firearms manufacturing facility in order to accomplish this and chose Stevens. After the purchase they sold off the tool making division, halted production of Stevens-Duryea automobiles, and, on July 1, 1916, renamed the firearms division the J. Stevens Arms Company. When the Czar was deposed by the communists in 1917, New England Westinghouse was never paid and they fell into financial distress. They managed to sell most of the rifles to the U.S. Government and keep the Stevens firearms facility operational .

Stevens was then purchased by the Savage Arms Company on April 1, 1920 with Stevens operating as a subsidiary of Savage.

It's a "dog-eat-dog' corporate world.

I have just come across a British Web site with very good content about "Miniature Cartridges" (.22"s)
LINK:

 http://rifleman.org.uk/Miniature_Calibre_Cartridges_Main.htm

The 'parent site' is VERY extensive and informative of British shooting & guns .. well worth the time to wander and read.

Marty K.

** That would be a "short scale" Billion of 1,000,000,000 - as opposed to a 'long scale' or 'British' Billion that until 1974 was 1,000,000,000,000.(a million million) - Blame the change on then Prime Minister Harold Wilson.

SUBSONIC: Did you know that the speed of sound in air at 68 °F (20 °C) is approximately 1,126 ft/s?
 - However, I read that under cold air conditions at 32 °F (0 °C), the speed of sound drops to 1,088 ft/s (332 m/s), approximately muzzle velocity. Hence, a "subsonic" round used in these temperatures could be supersonic, and during the transition from supersonic to subsonic velocity, it may become unstable, reducing accuracy. To counteract this, some cartridge manufacturers have lowered the speed of their subsonic ammunition to 1,030 ft/s.

- I make my subsonic 9 mm 157 grain rounds for my fully silenced Just-Right Carbine even slower .. and they are very quiet at around .45 acp speeds - of around 800 foot per second.

MK.