Description
A-Zoom 22 LR Dummy Rounds are twelve inert 22 Long Rifle cartridges machined from solid aluminium and hard anodised blue, sized and weighted to match live ammunition closely enough to run through a magazine and an action exactly the way the real thing does. Part number 12206. A-Zoom 22 LR Dummy Rounds are one of those unglamorous items that quietly improves how well you handle a rifle.
What These Are For, and What They Are Not
Start with the honest part, because A-Zoom prints it on the package: these are not snap caps. A centrefire snap cap has a sprung or polymer primer face that cushions the firing pin. A rimfire cartridge has no primer pocket at all, so there is nothing to cushion. These aluminium dummy rounds will not protect a firing pin during repeated dry firing, and no rimfire dummy on the market does.
That matters because dry firing is genuinely bad for some rimfires. On many older 22s the firing pin travels past the rim and peens the edge of the chamber, and enough repetitions will put the rifle out of headspace or crack the pin. Some modern designs are rated for dry fire and some are not. Your owner manual is the authority, not the internet, and A-Zoom 22 LR Dummy Rounds do not change that answer either way.
What they are excellent at is everything that happens before the trigger breaks. Loading and unloading drills, magazine seating, feed ramp and extractor function checks, teaching a new shooter to run a bolt or a lever without live ammunition anywhere in the room, and safely demonstrating a firearm to a buyer. For hunter education and youth instruction they are close to ideal, because the manual of arms is identical and the risk is zero.
A-Zoom 22 LR Dummy Rounds Specifications
Made by A-Zoom, part of Lyman Products, and CNC machined in the United States. The blue anodising is the point as much as the finish: a blue round is obviously not live ammunition at arm length, in a range bag, or on a bench under poor light.
Twelve A-Zoom 22 LR Dummy Rounds to a pack is a practical number for a rimfire. It fills most rimfire rifle magazines and leaves a few over, which is what you want for feeding tests, and it is enough to load a tube magazine on a lever gun or a pump.
The aluminium used in A-Zoom 22 LR Dummy Rounds is durable but not indestructible. Expect the rims to mark over time if a firing pin lands on them, and expect the finish to wear where an extractor grips. When a dummy stops looking like a dummy, replace it. They are inexpensive, and a worn round that gets mistaken for something else is not worth the saving.
- Calibre: 22 Long Rifle
- Quantity: 12 rounds per pack
- Construction: CNC machined solid aluminium
- Finish: hard anodised blue
- Primer: none, these are not cushioned snap caps
- Use: action proving, function testing, loading drills, training
- Manufacturer part number: 12206
- UPC: 666692122064
- Made in the USA
Choosing Between the 6 Pack and the 12 Pack
If you only need to prove an action or check extraction, six is plenty and cheaper. Our A-Zoom 22 LR training rounds in the 6 pack cover exactly that job. The twelve pack earns its price when you are filling magazines, running a class, or working with a tube fed rifle where six rounds will not even fill the magazine.
Keep A-Zoom 22 LR Dummy Rounds separated from live ammunition. This sounds obvious and it is still the mistake people make. Blue anodising helps, but the only reliable method is physical: dummies live in their own tin or pouch, never loose in the same pocket or ammo can as live rounds. Count them in and count them out at the end of a session.
A-Zoom 22 LR Dummy Rounds are calibre specific. A 22 Long Rifle dummy will not serve for 22 WMR, which is a longer and fatter case. If you also run a magnum rifle, the 22 WMR action proving rounds are the matching item. Forcing the wrong dummy into a chamber teaches you nothing useful and can damage an extractor.
One quiet benefit worth mentioning: these make load and unload practice possible at home, in a room with no backstop, without any of the risk that makes that idea a bad one with live ammunition. Most defensive and hunting mistakes happen during administrative handling rather than shooting, and that is precisely the part almost nobody practises.
For anyone teaching a new shooter, checking out a used 22, or building good habits on a rifle they already own, a pack of A-Zoom 22 LR Dummy Rounds is one of the cheapest useful things in the shop. Buy them with clear eyes about what they do: they prove the action, they do not protect the firing pin. Ships from our licensed inventory in Collegeville, Pennsylvania.
A note on the photograph and the packaging. These ship in a clear blister card rather than a tin, and the card itself carries the manufacturer warning about dry firing, so it is worth keeping until you have read it. Once opened, a small screw top tin or a zip pouch in the range bag keeps the dozen together and stops them migrating into places they should not be.
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