The .22 TCM is the latest wildcat round to begin to gain popularity in shooting circles. It joins a crowded list of other wildcat rounds that are picking up commercial producers. The 6.5 Grendel by Alexander Arms and the .300 Blackout by Advanced Armament Corp and the 5.7MM by Fabrique Nationale are a few of the more popular rounds to make the transition from concept to reality. Rock Island Armory is hoping that the .22 TCM is the next round to make the leap into common use.
The .22 TCM is the brain child of Fred Craig and Rock Island Armory and made its debut a few years ago and has slowly been picking up steam since. The TCM in .22 TCM stands for Tuason Craig Micromagnum and the end part of the name sums it all up. A .22 on steroids is one way to describe the .22 TCM. The ballistics on this round are pretty eye opening when you compare it to other pistol calibers like the 9x19mm. The most popular load for the .22 TCM chronographs at around 2100 feet per second, that is slowed down from the nearly 2900 Feet per second that it was originally designed to go. The .22 TCM was designed around the popular 5.56 x 45mm NATO rifle cartridge, one look at it and its obvious that it is the parent round.
There are some out there that will scoff at the idea of another caliber like this when there are so many other choices out there, and to be honest I wasn’t sure where I sat in the debate until I got some first hand trigger time on the .22 TCM from Rock Island Armory. What I found was both eye opening and a shear joy. This particular test and evaluation was conducted by both myself and Mr. Don Adams, a new writer on the site who sports his own You Tube page and many years of firearms use and instruction.
Mr Adams and I were fortunate enough to be sent a Rock Island Armory full sized 1911 full of all the bells and whistles that Rock Island Armory could pack on a pistol. They also made sure to send us a “covetable” model with a 9mm barrel since the .22 TCM is the same length as the 9x19mm round. To complete the package of fun they also sent us copious amounts of .22 TCM and 9 x19mm from Armscor. We made sure to shoot every last round of it too.
My impression of the .22 TCM is almost the same as Mr Adams posted in his recent article and evaluation. I wanted to add that I am not a “trained” shooter, I love to shoot but could always stand to be better at it. The combination of the weight of a full sized race ready gun with a low recoiling .22 TCM made follow up shots with this pistol a breeze, and even after we switched it to 9 x19 mm it still was a really fun gun to run threw its paces. It’s all the fun a .22 LR should be if you can actually ever find any .22LR ammo anymore.
The trigger and controls on the pistol were top notch and the sight configuration was instantly noticeable. I’ve never shot with a pistol that had a fiber optic front sight and white rear sights before. This was another case of something I never tried or thought much about, but after a few drills I began to notice how much easier the front sight it to pick up when its a different color from the rears.
I won’t steal all the thunder here but I wanted to show you some video shot from my Nikon D7000, its shows the dragons breath that comes off this little cartridge when you start to run it. I’ll leave you with this little clip. Be sure to check out the links below to Mr Adams and his You Tube page in the future it will be linked to many many articles.
Links
Mr Don Adams & Do It Right – Facebook
Featured Image Courtesy : Wikipedia.com
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