I finally got out and tried a few '.22 loads' in my #1-B Hornet. When I bought the bullet mould, I don't think I had yet gotten the Hornet and the 22 RF shortage hadn't hit so I bought a 55 grain Lyman mould #225415.

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I measured everything using whatever appropriate rotors I had for the Little Dandy measure. My first groups at 50 yards were pathetic using a #5 rotor with 700-X. It was throwing about 2.9 grains and it made me wonder if the bullet was going to work at all in the rifle. I had a second batch of 700-X using a #9 rotor which was throwing about 3.7 grains. The Lyman 49th edition showed 700-X to be an accuracy load in the 218 so I thought it might work in the Hornet. I decided to skip the second batch after seeing how poorly the first ones shot. Instead I tried a batch of #5 rotor 5.4 grains (not 5.8 that is written on the target) of Lil'Gun. The first shot was about 6 inches low, not quite as low as most of the previous shots landed. The next shot landed 1/2" away. (Maybe a fluke!) I kept feeding the single loader and it kept planting more 'flukes' until I couldn't tell in the scope where the shots were landing; there was a cluster.

So I knew the bullet could shoot in the Hornet. Next I decided to try the 700-X load again in the heavier loading. That powder seemed to give it the speed it liked, getting three-shot groups around 1".

Finally I tried a Blue Dot load with the smallest rotor RCBS recommends for Blue Dot, the #9 rotor. They shot randomly. The powder might have potential, but I'm not going to fool with it right now since the Lil'Gun load looks to have good potential and is an easy powder to use.

I sized the bullets using Rooster Labs HVR lube to .225", with a Lyman gas check.

My cost is between 8 and 9 cents per round.

My speeds are unknown at this point as I didn't feel like fiddling with the Chrono on the usually busy public range.

(For some reason the pic-hosting website doesn't deal with pics the same way that it deals with ordinary camera pics....go figure.)

Last edited by Klikitarik; 05/02/16.
Sometimes, the air you 'let in'matters less than the air you 'let out'.