Description
Physical description
box and 40 cartridges
buff cardboard box printed in and overstamped in red, containing 100 .22 rimfire 'short rifle' cartridges. The latter are copper-cased, the case being of 'short' length (11.1 mm), but loaded with the 40 grain bullet designed for the .22 Long Rifle cartridge.
History note
Description: This Greener '.22 Short Rifle' box, and indeed the cartridge, are exceptionally rare, presumably because the cartridge did not catch on with smallbore rifle shooters. Greener introduced it in 1906, and it is described in his book 'Sharpshooting for War & Defence' (1914), so it was clearly still current then, although the outbreak of the war would cut Greener off from his German manufacturer. Rifles with a rate of twist optimised for the 29 grain .22 bullet used in the .22 Short and .22 Long were unlikely to perform well with a 40 grain .22 Long Rifle bullet, while there would be no obvious advantage in using the 'Short Rifle' cartridge in a .22 long rifle chamber. Greener intended this 'Short Rifle' cartridge to be used up to 50 yards. There was very little industry standardisation for civilian cartridges at this period, so optimising performance was a problem for the serious competitive miniature rifle shooter.
1) printed in green on top of box
2) overstamp in red on top of box
3) printed on three sides of box
4) printed on one side of box
5) printed on base of box
6) overstamped in purple on base of box
7) headstamp
1) W.W. GREENER'S // .22. R.F. // SHORT RIFLE // CARTRIDGES // TRADE ('G' in heart) MARK // MADE ESPECIALLY FOR // W.W. GREENER LONDON // BIRMINGHAM & HULL // BY THE BAVARIAN WORKS // OF THE RHEN. WEST. EXPLOSIVES CO. // NUREMBERG
2) F.G. SHORT FORTY
3) 100 .22 SHORT-RIFLE
4) HIGHEST ACCURACY // HIGH VELOCITY
5) Notice // W.W. Greener begs to call attention // to this cartridge as the result of pro- // longed and careful examination into the // causes of inferior shooting in .22 bore // rifles made with the object of avoiding // the objectionable features of poor velo- // city, missfires and excessive fouling of // the barrel etc. and of insuring greater // accuracy for match shooting at the target. // The balance in combination of pow- // der and bullet is according to the ex- // clusive design of W.W. Greener and // results in far greater accuracy and in // more even and regular shooting all-round.
6) H70T
7) G in heart