Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles The Rimfire Alternative

All this talk on the reduced load thread has me thinking....then using the reduced loads in the field the last couple days has planted the germ of an idea in my head, that I think will fester into a full blown infection.
The Trail Boss load ( 8.0 gr) behind a 55 grain bullet in my .223AI looks to be motoring at 22 mag velocities, performs like a .22 mag, and actually makes less noise than one...with a plus factor in accuracy out to 100 yards.


Whats not to like?
A) Roll your own at a comparative cost
B) Low report
C) Get to shoot your 'bigger' guns more...
D) Have plenty of salvageable small game meat left...over using a standard load.
E) And you get to mess with more gun stuff!


Before any naysayers chime in wondering what the hell you'd do this for...its mainly "E"



I like messing with gun stuff.

Buttttt...Im really liking the low report and more consistent accuracy of the reduced loads, and there are more than enough rifles in the stable that I can have one 'dedicated' to reduced loads...or maybe two....

What say the 'fire?

I say you have voiced perfectly what I have been thinking this past few months. Shooting rimfire is fun but being able to mess with my rifles, load rounds and develop a special load for each rifle I shoot is much more enjoyable to me.

The 100 yard accuracy gain is the icing on the cake.

The noise reduction I think helped in shooting bunnies yesterday I was able to get a few doubles, and two triples...as the #2 and #3 bunnies didn't run at the report of #1

And they were all pretty close...within 60 or so yards...

that had to be fun...

I had a ball. Killed 18 bunnies, head shots only, in less than two hours...and that included the time to skin, dress and ice them all.


I was in here....bunny heaven.

cut those little rascals up, roll 'em in flour and throw 'em in hot grease. Follow that up with a good gravy, some biscuits and you've got a damn fine meal.

Lyman makes a 55gr double cavity mold in .224.

Might be just the thing to save you good jacketed bullets and have something that expands at bunny velocities.

I fry them in butter...do the rest and it is absolutely one of my all time fave meals. I put 32 bunnies in the freezer this week, so Im ready for a bit...

Haven't done the butter thing...I'd be concerned about smoke but it sounds like it's something I should try.
You have enough laid by to get you to Thanksgiving...maybe.

Do butter on medium heat or it will burn.....

Thanks for that. I'll give it a go.

Likely won't shoot any bunnies down here until we get some chilly weather. Can't get away from the old sage advise of waiting until cold weather too far.

Sounds like Montana is having a great bunny year.

We haven't had our first frost yet, but I habitually check all bunnies. No warbles, no tularemia, and I saw exactly one flea so far. They were all in excellent health.


Till the 55 grain Hornady express pulled into the station....

Pretty obvious high point in the cycle, and south of us in Wyoming they are thick on the ground like Ive never seen...but they want $20 a day for Non-res small game and have a limit of 10 bunnies.

wtf!

Montana has no closed season and no bag limit.

It would be cheaper...and messing with more gun stuff....


However, Ive got to say, they don't really need to expand a bunny velocities....

Yea, when you shoot everyone in the eyeball, it's kind of a done deal.

I was thinking it would be fun to do something similar for my girls. They will probably be taking mostly body shots at this point, so the lead bullets should work well for them. Should make for some fun bunny hunts.

Tom,

A couple years ago I did an article for HANDLOADER on "Beating the Rimfire Shortage," on considerable experimentation with various rounds to duplicate rimfire performance. I did buy a Lyman mold that with typical wheelweights throws a 43.5-grain roundnose, but the most accurate load in the .223 was the 40-grain Speer Spire Point and 16.0 grains of one of your old favorites, IMR4895. (I always have a large supply of IMR4895 n hand as well.) Muzzle velocity in a 22" barrel is just under 1600. 6.0 Trail Boss with the 45 Remington RN shot very well too, at around 1800 fps.

Lee recently released a new .224 design (not the Bator) and it's available in 6 cavity molds.

Kaine Bullet Molds also makes some interesting options that are more streamlined, and are for powder coating. 100-count sample packs used to be available from them pretty reasonable, might still be?

Of course, all this is a reminder why the old 22 Hornet is still around too.

Thanks JB...I'll be writing that one down!