.22 CB
rimfire ammunition
The .22 CB Cap (Conical Bullet Cap), also known as the 6mm Flobert, is a more powerful version of the .22 BB Cap rimfire metallic cartridge, which was invented by Louis-Nicolas Flobert in 1845. The .22 BB Cap and .22 CB Cap are interchangeable and are relatively quiet, low velocity cartridges, designed for indoor target shooting.
History
Designed to be a cross between the .22 BB and .22 Short, and first cataloged in 1888, it "managed to combine about all the disadvantages...[of both] into one generally useless cartridge", being no more accurate than either while being noisier than the .22 BB Cap, and penetrating much deeper, requiring a backstop as strong as for the .22 Short, thereby negating the CB Cap's advantages for shooting indoors. American ammunition manufacturers dropped the .22 CB Cap in the 1940s.
In Europe, the .22 BB Cap and .22 CB Cap are both called "6mm Flobert" and are considered the same cartridge. In Europe, the cartridge is still used in cheap rifles meant for short-range pest control. Although RWS in Germany, Eley-Kynoch in Britain, and Alcan stopped making the 6mm Flobert in the 1970s, it is still manufactured and sold in some European countries. For example, in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, Flobert guns fall within the same weapon category as air rifles, which are usually unaffected by gun laws. 6mm Flobert ammunition is also used in antique firearms chambered for the .22 Short and the .22 Long, as most modern ammunition has much higher pressure than the old black powder cartridges these guns were chambered for.
Description
The .22 CB Cap has a very small propellant charge (usually no gunpowder, just the primer), resulting in a low muzzle velocities of between 350 and 853 feet per second (107 and 260 m/s).
“.22 CB” enters the record as rimfire ammunition. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what rimfire and ammunition can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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