S&W .22 Invertonator
Like most of you, not a days go by that I don’t find myself feeling the void left by the departure of the .22 RemingtonJet. Those slumping shoulders, and that near .22 rim fire performance, held the potential for a true classic cartridge. The 22 Jet was unbeatable on crows and woodchucks, up to a pound and a half and out to 35 yards. It was disheartening to see a minor problem like cylinder lockup bring both the 22 Jet and the S&W Model 53 to their collective knees.
Good news is on the horizon! For the past 20 years S&W, a company, always at the cusp of firearm and lawn mower development, has been working on a new approach to resole the 22 Jet’s tapered case set back dilemma. By inverting the traditional case neck and shoulder orientation, turning them back inside the cartridge case, there is still a thingy to hold the bullet, yet there are no tapered shoulders in contact with chamber walls to cause setback under pressure. We understand the cartridge is manufactured by cutting the neck and shoulders off of 22-250 brass and TIG welding them to an apparently large and excess inventory of 500 S&W cases.
Remington One Eight-Eight
This unauthorized and overexposed photo on the left was taken at Remington’s covert development lab in Feckless, NV. Rumor has it the cartridge will be dubbed the “One Eighty-Eight Remington”. Designed to fill the void between the 200 or so existing .172″ and .224″ cartridges, when asked if the 204 Ruger didn’t already accomplish this objective, a Feckless spokesperson said, “What 204? Damn! Crap! No? Really?”
The One Eight-Eight does have some unique attributes; bullets are offered in half grain increments for precise handloading, the case exhibits a dramatic shift away from the tedium of a 28° shoulder with a full and peppy 29° shoulder, and the primer pocket is threaded for an optional accessory filler kit that permits reloading with butane fuel from virtually any barbeque gas tank.
Real Guns finds this developing genre of cartridges, well…compelling, and the One Eighty-Eight fits in well with other marketing rational; the 480 Ruger for people who like the 475 Linebaugh but not the annoying power, the 204 Ruger for people whose desperate cries for attention overwhelm most Internet message boards, Glock’s chopped 45 GAP for those who are easily hypnotized by ad copy, and Remington’s original trend starters – the Ultra and Short Magnum line which can be summed up as never has so much brass had so little useful and innovative purpose.
Sponsors and Holiday Greetings
And what does this picture have to do with firearms? Well, actually nothing; just a picture of a pretty lady wearing our primary sponsor’s T-Shirt. I hope their continued support of Real Guns, and firearms in general, hasn’t carried too much of a commercial penalty and that some of the folks who visit Real Guns might try NewsGuy.Com Usenet and associated services.
This has been a tough year from the standpoint of available time. I hope the coming year will provide greater opportunity for exploration, and continued health of the industry and the notion of firearm ownership. I hope bringing in select work from outside sources will help expand the information that appears on the site, and bring in different perspectives to complement the more typical.
For all Real Guns visitors, I wish you all the health, wealth and happiness of the season, and the continuation of the same into the coming year. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year !
Joe
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