.220 Swift
rifle cartridge
The .220 Swift (5.56×56mmSR) is a semi-rimmed rifle cartridge developed by Winchester and introduced in 1935 for small game and varmint hunting. It was the first factory-loaded rifle cartridge with a muzzle velocity of over 1,200 m/s (4,000 ft/s).
Description
The velocity of the cartridge ranges from 2,000 km/h (1,200 mph; 560 m/s; 1,800 ft/s) up to about 4,500 km/h (2,800 mph; 1,200 m/s; 4,100 ft/s). The Swift is a large-cased .224 caliber cartridge and bullet that was created for small game such as prairie dogs, groundhogs, marmots and other vermin (or "varmints" in the US). When introduced it was 1,400 ft/s (430 m/s) faster than its nearest varmint-hunting competitor, which was the .22 Hornet (also .224 caliber). It was found to be an extremely accurate cartridge as well.
Due to its very high velocity its bullet drop allows precise sighting to ranges out to 375 yd (343 m), and it is still considered an excellent cartridge for taking varmints by experienced Swift shooters.
The original factory load from Winchester provided a 48-grain (3.1 g) bullet launched at 1,200 metres per second (4,100 ft/s). Handloaders could marginally improve on this but only at maximum loads. The Swift can be loaded with light bullets to reach 1,300 m/s (4,400 ft/s).
“.220 Swift” enters the record as rifle cartridge. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Swift, rifle and cartridge can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2806376. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1935.
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This entry incorporates text from “.220 Swift” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.