I’ve been working on some ideas for a shop project. Over the past six months I’ve advanced the ball, metaphorically speaking, to conclude the project will incorporate and electric motor… 48 volts, 1000 Amps… and a sprocket. Beyond that, blank space, dead air, niemand ist zu hause. It is tough to think of something you never thought of before.
I suppose I could have included the live fire information for the Ruger Mark IV 22/45 Lite in Part I, but I wanted to include some temperature information along with velocity and accuracy data. I’d guess the combination of thin barrel, 0.325″ and heat dissipating, vented aluminum receiver are very effective in keeping temperature down and minimizing cold versus hot point of impact shift.
With an ambient of 33°F, the 22/45 Lite was left on an unprotected shooting bench until it was the same temperature. Ten rounds fired put the barrel at 42°F and the receiver temperature just aft of the muzzle at 43°F. Three more strings of ten rounds, pausing to check 50′ targets between, put the temperature at the same point. So, at least with a 33°F ambient temperature, the live fire temperature rise flattened at 10°F above ambient.
With the Ruger Silent-SR installed, recorded temperatures after ten rounds were: 42°F barrel, 43°F receiver and 60°F at the silencer body. Three more strings of ten, again pausing between target checks… between ten and fifteen minutes per check, and recorded temperatures were 42°F barrel, 51°F receiver and 82°F at the silencer body. That is excellent temperature management.
How fast did they go?
Most of the ammo shot was target standard velocity or subsonic, with the exception of one high velocity load. The SAAMI reference barrel for the 22 Long Rifle, the one that serves as the basis for factory velocity ratings, is 24″ long, with a 1:16″ twist. Here were are working with a 4.4″ barrel with a 1:16″ twist.
| Ammunition | Bullet Weight Grains |
Advertised Velocity FPS |
Recorded Velocity FPS |
| Remington Thunderbolt | 40 | 1255 | 1076 |
| Remington Target | 40 | 1150 | 881 |
| Remington Subsonic | 38 | 1050 | 657 |
| Eley Subsonic | 40 | 1040 | 703 |
There is a myriad of 22 LR rimfire ammo labeled “high” or “hyper” velocity that will yield between 1,000 and 1,200 fps. In this case I was more interested in a balance between suppressed and not suppressed sound levels and accuracy. For the most part, the loudest sound was that of the pistol’s bolt cycling.
Shot from an off hand position at 100 yards. Yeah, right. Let’s make that 50′ from a machine rest. The pistol has terrific sights for a human and a fine red dot works as well, but for me and my eyesight, both are too coarse and my eyesight too… coarse to do the pistol justice. I could say that the 22/45 Lite favors subsonic ammunition, but I won’t because there was not enough ammunition sampled to arrive at that break through and brilliant deduction. For me, the accuracy was excellent in either case and enough to make all of the tree rats in the surrounding area leave voluntarily.
Epilogue…
Sorry. I have a new print thesaurus on my desk. It was either epilogue or peroration, but that sounded… goofy. The Ruger Mark IV 22/45 Lite proved to be pretty much like the rest of the Ruger Mark IV line up; accurate, reliable and good looking. The 22/45 Lite digested and spit out whatever it was fed. Gees, that was a terrible sentence. How in the world would anything spit out what it has digested, at least without really distasteful visuals? Sorry, I meant to think that and not type it. In any event, no jams, no misfeeds, no misfires, even when jumping back and forth between subsonic and high velocity ammo in the same magazine.
The pistol was shot with and without the Ruger Silent-SR in place. Generally, accuracy was about the same, velocity jumped a dozen fps, with the silencer in place. Like every other firearm I have shot suppressed, then tend to dirty quickly from the silencer blow back. Not a big deal, as the residue cleans up easily. Aesthetically, I’m not a big gold trim fan, but the Lite is available in many color combinations as presented on the Ruger site. My favorite is are those with a bare stainless barrel and black trigger and black or blue/gray receiver. Whatever version preferred, it will provide many years of reliable service.
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