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Posted: 3/9/2025 12:00:33 AM EDT
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I'm an NRA life member, have been for decades before certain events were exposed, so I get the American Rifleman magazine. They had an article about the Winchester .21 Sharp. I kinda skimmed it, and I didn't see anything mentioned about what would happen if you fired this round from a .22 LR rifle. Any opinions on that? Seems from what I read it would function, but what would accuracy be like? Reliability? Will this thing even catch on as a viable alternative to .22 LR? |
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Originally Posted By TargetTime: From the article you skimmed: “While the .21 Sharp will chamber in a .22 LR rifle barrel, due to its sub-caliber projectile, it cannot be fired with any degree of accuracy or precision.” Accuracy will be not as as good as .22 projectiles so why bother? There was no data with that assertion. It seems to me that if you were going to make that assessment, you might try it and post some data. That's just me though. Maybe no one else considers the same question. |
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I thought it was a good answer. The bullet diameter is smaller than the bore of the barrel. It would be unexpected for the accuracy to be very good. We'll see where Winchester .21 Sharp goes. I can see the appeal. But it would be nice if the resources were spent on things like expanding gunpowder manufacturing, primer fabrication, and cost-reductions to return to nominal 2019+inflation pricing. But no. |
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“Data” isn’t needed if the developer defines the accuracy as poor. I don’t know, I thought all knowledgeable shooters were aware that bullet fit is essential for accuracy. The Sharp caliber is a solution looking for a problem, made on purpose to not fit existing .22 firearms. That means more gun sales, which is of value to the designer. Is it a value to the consumer? New ideas like this are, more often than not, failures. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be tried, but shooters are a conservative lot and new ideas need to be perceived to have value to be successful. Shooters haven’t seen the value in the Sharp. . |
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Originally Posted By ForwardResist: “Data” isn’t needed if the developer defines the accuracy as poor. I don’t know, I thought all knowledgeable shooters were aware that bullet fit is essential for accuracy. The Sharp caliber is a solution looking for a problem, made on purpose to not fit existing .22 firearms. That means more gun sales, which is of value to the designer. Is it a value to the consumer? New ideas like this are, more often than not, failures. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be tried, but shooters are a conservative lot and new ideas need to be perceived to have value to be successful. Shooters haven’t seen the value in the Sharp. . Oh this will absolutely fail. The only way it doesn't fail is if they make a massive large oversupply of 5 cent ammo, and stick with it. Yet, the whole point is the premium bullet for premium performance. Which is a more expensive bullet, and so now we're at premium price. For a smaller economy of scale market, meaning yet more premium price. And so bye bye 5 cent ammo. And bye bye market. This is going to go nowhere. But sure, this actually is a great idea - if they did this in 1900. This is .17 HMR all over again, which is a 40 cent a shot round. Why on Earth would anyone do that for a rimfire when you can do 5.56 for that price? The answer: Almost nobody does. |
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| I like the idea but it’s 125 years to late. It will have to be less in cost per unit than the cheapest bulk Federal at Walmart. Otherwise, another failed idea. The majority of rimfire shooters are cheap asses and will not pay a premium when all they want to do is shoot road signs and glass bottles. |
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Originally Posted By TargetTime: From the article you skimmed: “While the .21 Sharp will chamber in a .22 LR rifle barrel, due to its sub-caliber projectile, it cannot be fired with any degree of accuracy or precision.” Accuracy will be not as as good as .22 projectiles so why bother? No worries. Winchester rarely makes accurate rimfire anyhow. I think buying a brick of that ammo is smart. Put it away for 15 years and sell it at auction to the 35 guys that bought a gun in the caliber. About the only way I’d try it out is 1. if the ammo came down in price and 2. It came as one of multiple barrels in a switch barrel gun. The one I kind of thought may be cool was the .17 mach 4. It was dead as a door nail in short order BUT iirc it was available in Sako and CZ switch barrel packages….so at least your gun was still usable. |
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Originally Posted By lazyengineer: Oh this will absolutely fail. The only way it doesn't fail is if they make a massive large oversupply of 5 cent ammo, and stick with it. Yet, the whole point is the premium bullet for premium performance. Which is a more expensive bullet, and so now we're at premium price. For a smaller economy of scale market, meaning yet more premium price. And so bye bye 5 cent ammo. And bye bye market. This is going to go nowhere. But sure, this actually is a great idea - if they did this in 1900. This is .17 HMR all over again, which is a 40 cent a shot round. Why on Earth would anyone do that for a rimfire when you can do 5.56 for that price? The answer: Almost nobody does. Originally Posted By lazyengineer: Originally Posted By ForwardResist: “Data” isn’t needed if the developer defines the accuracy as poor. I don’t know, I thought all knowledgeable shooters were aware that bullet fit is essential for accuracy. The Sharp caliber is a solution looking for a problem, made on purpose to not fit existing .22 firearms. That means more gun sales, which is of value to the designer. Is it a value to the consumer? New ideas like this are, more often than not, failures. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be tried, but shooters are a conservative lot and new ideas need to be perceived to have value to be successful. Shooters haven’t seen the value in the Sharp. Oh this will absolutely fail. The only way it doesn't fail is if they make a massive large oversupply of 5 cent ammo, and stick with it. Yet, the whole point is the premium bullet for premium performance. Which is a more expensive bullet, and so now we're at premium price. For a smaller economy of scale market, meaning yet more premium price. And so bye bye 5 cent ammo. And bye bye market. This is going to go nowhere. But sure, this actually is a great idea - if they did this in 1900. This is .17 HMR all over again, which is a 40 cent a shot round. Why on Earth would anyone do that for a rimfire when you can do 5.56 for that price? The answer: Almost nobody does. My thought has been this is for the Californian hunting market where they can't use lead. .17 HMR has caught on rather well. It brings centerfire rifle performance to rimfire only WMAs. Savage designed an entirely new action for it in the A17, a lever delayed blowback which they also ported to .22 WMR. |
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| What I find stupid about the round is that they act like you have to reduce the bullet diameter and can’t use a full .22 LR caliber heeled bullet. Someone forgot to tell Cutting Edge Bullets that you can’t do that. They make a 22 solid copper rimfire heeled bullet that you can load at home in their supplied primed but empty cases along with their copper heeled .22 LR bullets and load data. They even sell the loading dies and supply loading data. You do need a powder scale that will go down to .01 gr though and the dies aren’t cheap, but it can be done. Winchester, are you trying to tell me Cutting Edge Bullets can make a full caliber solid copper heeled bullet that can be used in any .22 LR rifle or pistol but that is beyond your engineering capability? |
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| I just got a box of the 35 gr. Sharp loads (1500 fps) and couldn’t wait for going to the range. So I loaded up 5 in my GM bull barreled 10-22 with a 12x scope and went out back to shoot leaves on the hillside about 20 yards away. Function was 100% and they were definitely super sonic, and what was really surprising to me was that the bullets looked to be hitting within 3 or 4 inches from where I was aiming. How it shoots that close to aim and is supersonic is beyond my understanding with a bullet that has about .010" (total) clearance rattling down the barrel. I am now very anxious to try them on paper targets at a known and fixed range and shoot for group. They might not be as bad as many, including myself, speculated. Or maybe those five rounds were a fluke? |
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| It's been ages since I have worked with this round again, but today I did a very brief water test with 1 gallon milk jugs before things made me have to call it a day, again. Shooting out of a Ruger Super Single Six, 1970 version, I put three rounds into water jugs. From 10 feet, all bullets entered point first, but after hitting the water, all bets were off. Two went out of the second jug, missing the third and were lost, one hitting the second jug sideways. The third bullet was recovered, jacket anyway, in the second jug beautifully expanded, picture perfect. The core went high and was lost. Only the jacket remained but looking at the jacket, rifling marks were equal and deeply engraved all the way around the bullet. It seems the general thought is that they would rattle down the barrel and accuracy would be poor. I cannot comment on accuracy from shooting only at 10 feet, but all bullets hit exactly where I was aiming, and it is very clear from the depth of the rifling grooves in the bullet that the bullet was obturating to fill the bore quite nicely, not rattling down the bore as most have suggested. Accuracy testing to follow if and when I can make it to the range, but these little bullets opened a real can of whoop ass out of the Ruger .22 LR revolver with a 6 inch barrel. The first jug in all cases had the front completely ripped open from the bottom to the neck of the milk carton and each shot resulted in a slight shower. I don't think I'll volunteer to take a hit from one. |
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I have to be curious how much bore length is needed for the narrower bullet to properly expand and get a smooth rotation going. Is this a situation where the longer barrel gives enough time to expand and get to a smooth rotation? Would they be drastically less accurate in too short of a barrel? Either way, interesting tests, and neat to read some results. Thanks for the report! |
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After months of delay, I finally got out to the range to test the .21 Sharp through a 9.5 inch AR-22 in .22 LR. This "pistol" will shoot CCI Subsonics into 2-2.5 inches for 5 shots at 50 yards, so it is not a match barrel by any means, but you hit what shooting at with it. While at 10 FEET the bullets entered the water jugs point first, at 10 YARDS they did not. All shots were slightly oval looking and even at ten yards, groups, if you can call them that, were three to five inches. At 25 yards, groups were in the 8-10 inch range and all bullets were obviously tumbling with many going through sideways. At 50 yards, who the hell knows. Shooting at a 4' x 4" target, they were all over the place and bullet orientation on target would be about the same as if you threw them with your hand. So, for shooting at 10 feet or less, they would certainly make for a very bad day for whatever they hit, but beyond that, who knows. Past 25 yards you are as likely to completely miss a man sized target as hit it. Now here is the thing that really pissed me off. Out of the 100 round box, 4 in 10 bullets had some kind of plastic dripping on the bullet that would not let the bullet chamber and was so thickly globbed on that it actually interfered with getting the bullets out of the bullet tray in the box. The globs of this stuff on the bullet had to be scraped off the bullet before shooting. There is no excuse to this lack of quality control. I have no idea what it is, but it is hard so it's not wax and you cannot peel it off with your finger nail. The only way to get it off is to scrape it off with a knife and if you miss one and do get it to partially chamber, it is stuck so hard in there that you are not going to get it out unless you have a cleaning rod with you. Total fail Winchester. Go back to the drawing board and tighten up QC is you want this thing to fly. When paying $16 a box of 100 and 40% of them are not usable without scraping and cussing, you're killing this round before it even gets a chance. |
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| It's almost a year old now and any "new" videos on it have pretty much dried up. The ones I did watch earlier in the year demonstrated that even out of a 21 sharp chambered rifle, it was no more accurate than bulk 22LR ammo. Considering the price of the 21 Sharp ammo, I don't see it becoming much of anything. Since it requires a new barrel/chamber, they should have at least lengthened the case a little and gotten more velocity from it or done something to justify it's ridiculous price. |
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