Thread: 22 Magnum 1885 barrel re line and modern ammunition

In 2020 I brought a vintage rifle that I had been looking long and hard for in NZ
A very rough Winchester 1885 takedown .25 Rimfire
Somewhere in the "Classics Corner" Post there are some images of its shocking exterior state that I had cleaned up to confirm that it was a great candidate for a full restoration
So being a .25 rimfire the bore was in a very poor state and of course ammunition is now all a collectors item
I did get given a whole box of Canadian .25 RF ammunition to try out in the rifle and at least proved that it was fully functional and that the bore was indeed no good at all ( i gave the ballance of the box of ammo back due to its value )
So changing the breech block to center fire and re chambering to 25-20 was not an option

I decided a 22 WRFM aka 22 Magnum would be a really nice caliber to have in an original 1885 Takedown rimfire
And recently I did bore and live a Stevens 044 1/2 from .32 RF to .22 LR very successfully and that required a 1.6mm offset at the breech face to bring the cartridge rim down on to the firing pin correctly

So I bored out the 1885 barrel to 12mm last week and I have the brand new donor 22 center fire barrel on hand to do the long tedious job of offsetting the breech 1.2mm and turning the entire barrel down to being a 12mm liner
I have borrowed a chamber reamer and go / no go gauges

[B]My question is[B] to those of you that are in the know about modern 22 WMRF ammunition
My barrel is 1:14" and the standard twist is generally listed at 1:16"
I'm leaning towards the reasonably conventional 40 Grain loadings but of course will do the smart thing and test a few different flavours to see what this set up likes the most
Will my slightly faster twist 1:14 barrel do the job ?
Going on the idea that you can't over spin a bullet but you can under spin it

But never owned a 22 Mag
And until I re lined the 044 1/2 recently had never really done any gunsmithing on vintage rimfires !
But these are both man sized rimfires and certainly worth the effort