Craig Boddington was the senior contributing editor of our modern gun and ammunition caliber dictionary. Craig was involved in the development and testing of many of these and writes from first hand experience. This dictionary was written exclusively for Wholesale Hunter with unique information found nowhere else.
GUN CALIBER DICTIONARY
Rifle
220 Swift
Introduced by Winchester in 1935, the 220 Swift was the first commercial cartridge to break 4000 feet per second--and it is still one of the few that reaches that speed. Oddly and uniquely, it is based on the long-forgotten semi-rimmed 6mm Lee Navy case necked down. Intended--and extremely effective as--a long-range varmint cartridge, it got a bad rap as a barrel-burner and has never been extremely popular. All cartridges that approach this velocity are hard on barrels...but it's certainly better today than with 1935 barrel steel! Loads vary, but 50-grain loads hover around 4000 fps; lighter bullets are a bit faster and heavier bullets are a bit slower, but the 220 Swift is still the fastest (and thus flattest-shooting) commercial 22 centerfire. Accuracy is generally excellent, and the 220 Swift is chambered in a good selection of factory rifles and loaded by all major ammunition manufacturers. — Craig Boddington