Henry Rifle Forums

Anyone here hunt with shorts? I'm not even sure where I would find shorts locally. But if some of you have used them and had good results I might try some

22 shorts usually cost more and have not really good accuracy in some rifles with the 29 gr. bullet. They can also make a carbon ring in the chamber if shooting a lot of them that will make a 22 long rifle harder to chamber and sometimes stick in the chamber and fail to extract. I have never had any use for them except for old rifles chambered for shorts only. If your rifle is accurate at squirrel distances you will be shooting at I recommend you go with the hollow point ammo when using shorts. I would go with sub sonic LR hollow point ammo any day over the shorts. Standard velocity is accurate ammo but the 40 gr. solid doesn't kill as consistent as a hollow point unless you make good clean head shots. I am an opportunist type squirrel hunter. If I see a squirrel and it is a good safe shot to take I take the shot off hand or a rest if available and try to stay any where from the front shoulder to the the front of the eye area. I may damage a front leg now and then but if behind the shoulder it ruins nothing because I don't can the rib section any way. I don't sit for squirrels and I walk and stop and keep on the move and cover a lot of area.

I shoot shorts a lot. My main reason is you can get more in a tube fed rifle like a Henry. Or should I say pistol because it is my main ammo for my Mare’s Leg where the tube is also shorter.

I prefer HV shorts but only shoot them out to 25 yards.

Shorts will certainly work for squirrels, but you need to mindful of the range. As a youngster, we'd sometimes use HV Shorts to good effect on squirrels, at close ranges. At these distances, the Shorts killed just as cleanly as the LRs and were quieter, to boot.

X2 on the subsonic LR