A friend of mine passed away last year, and had bequeathed me and several of his other friends his firearms. My son in law ended up purchasing his house as an investment property, and while going through the house, found a Ruger .22 Magnum cylinder. He offered it to me, and I took it. I tried it out today and it slipped right into my Ruger Wrangler and indexed up just fine. So now I can use .22 Magnum, as well as .22 S/L/LR in my Wrangler depending upon what is available!
I guess it is fitting since my friend had given me the Wrangler as a gift for shuttling him to chemotherapy and other medical appointments.

Some of the guys on one of the Ruger forums had a thread on this and, IIRC, Ruger said not to do it due to flame cutting of the top strap.  

I also found this video when I was thinking about doing the same thing- dude had his gunsmith ream a spare Wrangler cylinder to .22WMR but after posting about it Ruger told him not to use it.  


ETA- I do wonder if you could add a metal shield above the forcing cone like S&W uses on their Scandium framed guns?

I think, after reading the youtube comments, I'll just put that cylinder up for sale.

I'm just some random idiot on the internet and definitely not an engineer, but I know the pressures on the two cartridges are similar.  I'm going on memory here so don't quote me but I think the bore of the  .22LR is supposedly .223 and the 22WMR is .224 (trying to recall discussions of the differences between the Single Six and the convertible Single Six) and I think there was some question about the jacket or coating on the magnum rounds causing a pressure increase in the barrel.  I also recall reading that the 22mag used a slower burning powder which, anecdotally, makes sense just based on the increased report and muzzle/cylinder gap flash as well as it leaving more residue on the gun (sample size of one, my 5.5" SS Single Six Convertible).  I doubt it would be enough of an increase to stretch the frame, especially given Ruger's tendency to rate their products conservatively, but I could definitely imagine flame cutting being an issue. Again, an insert may alleviate that but it'd be a custom mod that I'm not sure any reputable gunsmith would accept the liability on.

I have yet to buy a Wrangler but I would really like to see them introduce an eight or nine shot cylinder for the gun.  Single action .22s are a bit of pain to load in my opinion, especially while wearing gloves, and I can empty them a lot faster than I can reload them.  

Glock 19 ( not pictured).
Advantage Arms .22 conversion.
Glock 23 upper.
Glock 32 barrel.
.22, 9mm & 357/.40 magazines.

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I have done similar with Glock G-22, G-23, G-35 (40S&W) hosts and I recommend to my friends to do the same.  Starting with the 40S&W caliber gun streamlines the package a little by eliminating a slide assembly.

- Glock G-22, G-23, G-35 with stock 40S&W barrel
- Advantage Arms .22 conversion with threaded barrel
- Lone Wolf 9mm threaded conversion barrel
- Lone Wolf 357Sig conversion barrel
- .22, 9mm and 357Sig/40S&W magazines

This is an excellent SHTF package, especially when ammo availability is spotty.

YMMV
TheMULE  

Pointman, how has that AA conversion done for you?  Reliable enough for SHTF?  Tips to make it so?  Thanks!

Mine has been awesome. Even though the instructions said to use Remington Golden Bullets, mine works best with CCI Mini Mags.

Don't have any tips other than keep it wet, as in well lubed.

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I have both the G-17/22 as well as the G-19/23 models and both work very good even with the CCI Segmented Subsonic 40 Grain Hollow Points that I use.  

I make sure that the rails are well lubed, but in my experience no other special care is required.  I would think though that if you were using dirty ammo with  un-plated lead bullets that you would want to clean it more often.  

Assembling and installing the Advantage Arms .22 conversion kit is easy but some diligence to the instructions is required to get it right.  After two or three times it is a breeze for me to do without the reference photos.

YMMV
TheMULE

I think everything works better with minimags!
Glad I didn't get rid of my wrangler, but those damn sights are worthless!

I'd keep the cylinder and get rid of the wrangler.

My friend, who is now deceased, had given me the Wrangler as a gift for shuttling him to chemotherapy and other medical appointments. I think I'll keep it.