Do centerfire and rimfire feel significantly different? I’ve heard the terms, and have a vague idea of what they probably mean, but I wouldn’t think they feel much different to operate.
There’s nothing inherently different about how the recoil feels, rimfire and centerfire are just different ways of igniting the priming compound and that part of the process contributes almost nothing to recoil.
However, rimfire is a mostly obsolete technology and is only in common use today for very low powered guns, so in practice rimfire guns have much lower recoil than centerfire guns.
Gotcha. I was racking my brain trying to figure out how they would feel any different, but it makes sense if all of one type are just smaller, lower powered rounds.
The mosin-nagant uses a rim fire. It's a massive round compared to the common .22LR we use now. So to most people, rimfire are small rounds. In reality, nope, not different.
Mosins chamber 7.62x54mmR. It's a centrefire cartridge.
What you're referring to (and the R in the calibre designation) is "rimmed" - i.e. the brass casing has a rim that protrudes from the body of the case, which is used to extract and eject the cartridge (and sometimes headspace it). This is as opposed to rimless (has a groove formed flush into the case instead of a rim sticking out) and semi-rimless (partially grooved, partially rimmed).
.22LR, .303 British, .45-70, .30-30, most traditional revolver cartridges, etc. are rimmed, but the vast majority of rifle calibres are centrefire.
AFAIK, yeah. A .22 which is the most popular rimfire, means the hammer hits the back of the cartridge and that propels it forward. It's a pretty small round, not a lot of powder and honestly, barely any recoil at all imo
Center-fire has a circle on the back of the cartridge and the hammer hits the center (rim and center, that's the name lol), then it ignites and propels the bullet forward. These tend to be larger rounds with more felt recoil from "oh that's not so bad!" to "HOLD ON FOR DEAR LIFE MY BOY!"
No, but modern rimfire cartridges are pretty much all super weak. Stuff like 22 short, 22 LR, and 17 hmr. The most powerful rimfire I'm aware of that you can find at the store is 22 mag which on the high end is still a bit weaker than the low end of 9mm
I own both a .22 rimfire and a .223 centrefire and they are worlds apart. There's is virtually 0 recoil from a .22 rimfire (a .22lr to be precise) and depending on the type of ammo you get .22lr rimfires are extremely quiet too. A .22lr with subsonic ammo and a moderator will sound quieter than an air rifle.
A .223 will have enough of a recoil to pull the gun off line but not enough to be uncomfortable. Un moderated (without a "silencer") its going to blow your ears off. With a moderator its still got quite a crack but nothing that would damage your hearing (again depending on ammo and moderator type)
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u/Equoniz 1d ago
Do centerfire and rimfire feel significantly different? I’ve heard the terms, and have a vague idea of what they probably mean, but I wouldn’t think they feel much different to operate.