rimfire

[soldierboy]

what is the legal defintion of the term rimfire
reason why i ask was wondering what would be the obstacles in designing a larger caliber rimfire round? seems like with the rimfire exception in ca law someone would come out with a large caliber rimfire
discuss

[plumbum]

It's not a legality so much, as an expense. The .22's rimfires started it all in 1845, so by now we have manufacturing processes dialed in.

I would imagine that as long as it is an actual rimfire ignition, caliber isn't relevant.

By the way, they do manufacture .25 and .27 caliber rimfire blanks for commercial impact drivers/nailguns so you could always start there - hint hint...

[Izzy43]

There used to be a .35 caliber rimfire made long ago. Rifles still exist but ammo is probably hard to come by. In the old west there were many large caliber rimfire firearms but reliability of centerfire made them obsolete.

[sephy]

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_rifle

Rimfire goes way back. Legally it is a round that is fired by crushing the rim of the round rather than using a centered primer.

[CSACANNONEER]

There have been rimfire rounds manufactured in many different calibers up to at least .50 cal. The problem with rimfire cartridges is that they are not ment to stand up to high pressure. If you want to design a low pressure round that's not a problem but, you'll find out that the rimfire design is not suitable for loads that come close to today's high pressure rounds.

[bohoki]

isnt the henry a .44 rimfire

[Dutch3]

I dug up some old rimfire brass in my yard that looks to be about .38 caliber.