Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Is the 22 Mag DEAD and Replaced with the 17 HMR?

i get kind of a kick out of these .22mag threads. I own a few but got turned off when the price per box went north of 5bucks.

I hunted grey squirrels with a Marlin bolt action 22 magnum when i was a teenager in PENN. Used solid bullets and took head shots.
Wouldnt mind having another Marlin with a bull barrel...

I have never thought about loading down a 223. Have never owned a 223 and assumed the bullets would be similarly priced to big game bullets. Just looked and they run 15-20 cents each. Are accuracy nodes easy to find with the mild loads? Need faster twist? I am guessing that case stretch is nonexistent with these loads, therefore simpler to reload. These forums are bad for me. I do not need a 223 but now interested. Very similar to when I wanted a 35 Whelen. I have 0 need for a 35 Whelen. Thought a Pre -64 custom model 70 in 35 Whelen would be way cool. I came to my senses that this would be a monumental waste of time and money.

I have never owned a 22mag. Love the 17hmr and 22lr. I am not sure that I would take a shot at a coyote with the vmax or tnt hmr bullets. They appear to fragment explosively on a blackbird. Cannot imagine that they would consistently penetrate a coyote in fragments large enough for a sure kill. I would shoot one with a 22mag.

John, bring the best shooting one with you to Quemado as I understand that the .22 rimfire target will be set up at 150 yds. I don't think a .22 LR would do much good at that distance. I have a box or two of ammo but no rifle for many years.

Where are you guys finding it online? this is what I typically see on the various web based suppliers...

https://www.midwayusa.com/s?targetLocation=%2F_%2FN-10019%3FNo%3D0%26Np%3D2%26Nr%3DAND%2528p_visible%253A1%252Ccustomertypeid%253A1%2529%26Nrpp%3D48%26Ns%3Dp_metric_sales_velocity%257C1%26Ntpc%3D1%26Ntpr%3D1

Not a single manufacturer in stock.

I scratched my head when the 17 came out wondering how no one had ever thought of a rerelease of the 5mm. Its more better by far than the 17 or 22 mag. "Much more better"

Back in the day, for each box of 22LR I would shoot thru my single6 ; I would also shoot a box 0f 22MAG. Not any more. Now I shoot 100 rounds of 22LR for every one shot of 22MAG.

Graf's has bricks of 22 Magnum Hornady 30 grain V-max in stock

http://www.grafs.com/catalog/produc...mpaign=gblast042816&utm_medium=email

closer to a 22 mag sound than anywhere close to a 223.

even tho I am the OP, I shoot plenty of 223 rounds loaded from the 22 mag velocity to 22 Hornet, 218 Bee etc...

currently working on developing the same loads using Alliant "Steel" Shot, as its available and temp insensitive, is accurate and Blue Dot is non existent on the shelves, and has been for a few years....

We had a CZ .17HMR until very recently when we sold it. The animals we were using it on were big european hares, and they would go about 8lb-9lbs I would say, about the same weight as a .303 Lee Enfield rifle...if you carry it by the legs, his head drags on the ground. And hares are hardy too, you need more gun than a .22LR to stop a charging hare...
Anyway the .17 was good, but for a dedicated hare gun on open mountain river flats and often in wind, I would prefer a 22 Magnum.
(I dont want to blow or tear anything up too much either - I eat them.)

I have a Trailboss load with my .222 which mimics the .22 Magnum - 55 grain SP at around 1800 - 2000fps I am guessing, I am dying to chronograph it.

So we tried the .17 HMR, but for hares in open country, often windy, I would rather the .22 Magnum and have sold that rifle a couple of weeks ago.

Local gun store here has more .22 WRF ammo then .22 LR and has no .22 wmr ammo..... World seems backwards these days.

I remember reading when the .17s first came out a Hornady person stated , the more accurate, flatter trajectory line , but also he mentioned cheaper to make and more friendly for the environment , because each bullet only contained a few grains of lead.....

Plus Hornady is helping sell it's own calibers by not making mags......

Mule Deer wrote an article for Handloader 290, June 2014, on loading CFs to duplicate RF velocities. It's one of his best, most useful, ever I think. Doesn't cover the .222 specifically, but has formulas for Trail Boss and IMR 4895.

Sounds like you've got it figured out, though. A 9 pound bunny must make quite a meal. The jacks out West might get as big or bigger, but not many admit to eating them.

I have owned and hunted both .17 HMR and the 22 mag a fair amount although I do not have near the experience that many of you have with both rounds. A couple years back, I swapped out the .22 mag barrel on my Ruger 77-22 mag for a Lilja 17 HMR barrel and on balance have been pleased. As it shoots flatter is is less affected by wind, I do find he .17 HMR easier to hit with than the .22 mag.

It may be my imagination but the .22 mag does seen to hit the larger critters with quite a bit more authority than the .17 HMR. One large badger took a .40 grain HP from the .22 mag under the chin and it lodged under the skin between the shoulders after passing through about 6" of badger severing the spine along the way - picture perfect expansion. I doubt any readily available .17 HMR bullets could hold together like this on larger varmints.

The .22 mag also seems to impress big jacks and marmots a bit more than the HMR.

Well I don't know if it was due to my posting this or what... but the 22 Mag Gods have smiled on me since I started this thread...

I picked up my 9th and 10th box of 30 grain V Maxes on the 22 Mag case.. just in this past week...

maybe its just coinciding with their seasonal run...

but I've found some 5 times recently, limit two boxes each time... but the price was $11.50...per box

so I'm not complaining

and I also was able to pick up two other boxes of my old Marlin 25 MN's favorite... the CCI 40 grain FMJ, they were like $13 a box...

Life is good on Planet 22 Win Mag this past week...

30-grain V-Max .22 Magnum is all over the place in this part of Montana. Saw it at four local stores last week, and yesterday went to the Great Falls gun show and saw it at half a dozen tables.

You can go pretty light with blue dot (I think 4gr will give about 1400fps) and to my ears it sounds softer than a .22 mag but you will still have a super sonic crack.

I shoot the .22 WRF out of a .22 magnum revolver. The price is close to the same and it seems to be slightly more accurate. No choice in bullets. You get 45 grain HP's and that's it. The rifles that shoot the .22 WRF are few and far between but they can be found.
kwg

I can shoot wrf through my old savage 93 and my brand spanking new henry lever small game rifle. Cycles fine.

That being said if the .22 mag ever is obsolete it will most definitely be because of ammo manufacturers. 17 would suck in a hand gun and a 22 mag is available in 25 - 45 grain commonly. I have been finding .w2 mag ammo on a regular basis lately and for 15 or 16 bucks for 50. I have been loading up on it as it has been the most rare of all rimfire in my parts.

It's easy to find on the Internet. Try ammoseek. I walked into the local Scheels this weekend. They have quite a lot available at $17 a box.



Bob

seal billy,

Actually, if the .22 Magnum becomes obsolete it won't be due to ammo manufacturers. They'll keep producing ammo as long as there's enough demand for it to be profitable. Since there are already a LOT of .22 rifles and revolvers out there, and many are still made and sold every year, the ammo manufacturers will keep making .22 Magnums.

Shooters and even some gun writers seem to be under the impression that cartridges become unpopular because not enough ammo is made--or theres not enough variety in the ammo available. One older gun writer, in particular, always used to whine when writing about relatively low-demand cartridges that if only the ammunition manufacturers hadn't dropped X load, or would introduce more loads, then demand would rise.

In reality it works the other way around. When new cartridges appear, the manufacturer often offers a relatively wide array of ammo. But if rifle sales for the cartridge slow down after the first year or two, then some loads are dropped because sales are too low to make producing them profitable. This is why Winchester eventually dropped the 250-grain load in the .358 Winchester, and Remington dropped all but a couple of basic loads in the .260 Remington: Not enough people bought the other ammo to make it profitable. And believe it or not, ammunition companies are in business to make a profit.

This is exactly why ammo companies are making more .17 HMR ammo than .22 Magnum now. The cartridges are based on the same case so come off the same production line, and since there's more demand for .17 HMR these days, the factories use that production line mostly for .17 HMR. They're not about to quit making .22 Magnums anytime soon, but they won't be making it throughout the entire year like they used to.