What's the story behind Vintage .22 being 5.6mm ?

Indeed, but it doesn't actually explain why they chose 5.5mm for airguns and 5.6mm for rimfire. Unless .................. to prevent airguns being adapted to fire rimfire ammo?
 
bill57 said:
More to the point, why did the OP ask exactly the same question almost exactly two years ago?
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I knew I had asked this before and forgotten the answer but I hadn't realized it was on here !!:(:(

So what your saying is although we now call 5.5mm .22 in reality that sizing is wrong and they are really two different things ! Next question who makes true .22 pellets ? Is it just Marksmen or are they others ? and are Marksman 5,6mm/.22 any better quality than the 5.5mm ones ?
 
I dont really rate the 5.6 marksman pellets. I have a mk1 meteor and some are too tight and some fit ok. Same as a mk2 airsporter i owned for a while, some too tight. Accuracy isnt amazing with them either but they do give good energy.

I think some of the old eley wasps are larger head size? @ChrisHobbs has them for an airsporter, i just cant remember the details. Probably a little hard to find.. Ive had good accuracy with 5.55mm H&N FTT, worth a go and easily available 👍
 
KILLERPARSNIP said:
I knew I had asked this before and forgotten the answer but I hadn't realized it was on here !!:(:(

So what your saying is although we now call 5.5mm .22 in reality that sizing is wrong and they are really two different things ! Next question who makes true .22 pellets ? Is it just Marksmen or are they others ? and are Marksman 5,6mm/.22 any better quality than the 5.5mm ones ?
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No they're both cheap budget pellets you'd be better off using h& n FTT in 5.55 head size. The closest pellet to the original high quality wasps there is today.
 
Backgardenplinker said:
I dont really rate the 5.6 marksman pellets. I have a mk1 meteor and some are too tight and some fit ok. Same as a mk2 airsporter i owned for a while, some too tight. Accuracy isnt amazing with them either but they do give good energy.

I think some of the old eley wasps are larger head size? @ChrisHobbs has them for an airsporter, i just cant remember the details. Probably a little hard to find.. Ive had good accuracy with 5.55mm H&N FTT, worth a go and easily available 👍
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Original, Birmingham Eley Wasps in 5.6mm (proper .22 size) are understandably hard to get hold of nowadays. And can command a very high price. Up to £40 for a genuine tin of 500.
They are a completely different breed to the modern offerings.
Marksman 5.6 are great if you’re using them in a catapult or just throwing them down the garden by the handful.
 
I brought some 5.5mm Marksman as I was keen to buy British they were absolutely rubbish so much so that I left them for a few years, I then ran out of pellets so used the now crushty pellets they were absolutely brilliant so I'm guessing they are like a fine Wine and need a few years to age ( not that I like Wine) I'm guessing the added corrosion increased pellet size and made them work better, this was in a modern rifle a Hatsan 60s this in it's self was a heap of excrement !
 
FWIW This was a pellet test I did with my Mk4 .22 Airsporter (proper .22 British barrel) at 20 yards, front rested. With every type of .22 pellet I had to hand.
IMG_6072.webp

The gun was zeroed using old wasps 25 years ago, and the Niko Sterling silver crown has never been adjusted since.
From this I’d say the FTT 5.55 are the best modern pellet for a 5.6mm “old” barrel.
Probably because they are pretty darn close to size, with a skirt thin enough that it expands to make up the difference.
But obviously that’s just in my gun 😉
 
ChrisHobbs said:
Original, Birmingham Eley Wasps in 5.6mm (proper .22 size) are understandably hard to get hold of nowadays. And can command a very high price. Up to £40 for a genuine tin of 500.
They are a completely different breed to the modern offerings.
Marksman 5.6 are great if you’re using them in a catapult or just throwing them down the garden by the handful.
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Must confess to using the .177's in my son's cp88 for tin bashing at close range.
 
ChrisHobbs said:
Original, Birmingham Eley Wasps in 5.6mm (proper .22 size) are understandably hard to get hold of nowadays. And can command a very high price. Up to £40 for a genuine tin of 500.
They are a completely different breed to the modern offerings.
Marksman 5.6 are great if you’re using them in a catapult or just throwing them down the garden by the handful.
Click to expand...
Oh!! £40a tin for original wasps. I will find mine out,,,, Pronto!
 
bill57 said:
Indeed, but it doesn't actually explain why they chose 5.5mm for airguns and 5.6mm for rimfire. Unless .................. to prevent airguns being adapted to fire rimfire ammo?
Click to expand...
They didn't, old British air rifles were 5.6mm too
 
In 1965 the UK government decided it was time to go metric and phase out the use of the old imperial measurements. The great variations in accuracy with using different brands of pellets is still a mystery. Waisted lead pellets are made with wider skirts than heads. Lead is soft, which is one of the reasons its used usually mixed with a little antimony to stiffen it up a bit and pellets are difficult to accurately measure accurately because of this. Checking a lead pellet for a .01mm difference is difficult if not impossible The calibre .22" is a nominal size and covers pellets described as 5.5mm, 5.6mm and in days gone by No2 Bore just as in the powder burning world .44" is actually .429" and .38" is .356"-.358". One of the reasons the waisted pellet took over from cup slugs etc in air rifles around 125 years ago was to accommodate different barrel manufacturers tolerances. It's all really down to finding the right pellet to suit your rifle/pistol. Some air rifles work better with tight fitting pellets, others dont. The BSA Airsporter adds another factor to pellet fussiness in the form of the loading tap. The pellet skirt must be a good tight fit in the loading tap to give soft recoil and highest power. BSA used to sell a pellet skirt expanding kit when the Airsporter S came out as they found that unless the skirt was a certain fit in the tap the much advertised power claims for the new model fell short of the mark. :)
 
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