Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles 22 Hornet powder choice

H Lil Gun for me as well. I have tried W296, 110 and 4227 neither compared. Sounds like I need to try 300MP.

Gunner what depth were you seating the tsx to? I could not get them to shoot crimped into the shortest channel in my CZ 527.

Good luck and shoot straight all

Bob

Rodell, my hornet is a M-70 Winchester with IIRC a 16 twist barrel, all the lil gun I can get in a case and the small rifle mag primer will shoot into a half inch with no winds.

scottishkat, the coal on my hornet load is 1.770", I seat below the crimp grooves to get proper feeding in the M-70 magazine, I use a drop tube to get as close to 14 grs of lil gun in a partially neck sized W-W case.

Seating the bullets in two slow stages with a light crimp against the sides of the bullet, with my 16 twist I need all the speed I can get to keep stable, have shot nice round holes in paper out to 200 yards and shot a coyote in the chest at near 90 yards, bullet exited 2"s off dead center tailpipe, he folded.

That tells me the little bullet is at least spun up tight enough to buzzsaw a coyote lengthwise, and for all the load trouble, it's worth it too me.

Gunner's 16 twist may be a fast 16, just enough margin to stabilize the 45 TSX. Those old Winchesters have cut rifling and his could be a hair faster. My otherwise very accurate 16 twist CZ won't stabilize this bullet.

The 45 TSX should work in a 14 twist.

DF

You must be right on the faster twist DF, I may have been blessed with an oversized chamber as well, never been able to swell a case with all the powder compression to the point of not being able to chamber a round either.

Yeah, those old cut rifled barrels may show some twist variation; hammer forged CZ barrels will all be exactly the same.

You can get more powder in a case than anyone I know...

DF

Sharps Rifle drop tube, really silly, but it works.

I have owned to hornets, a 14 barrelled contender and a CZ 527. Great groups out of both with AA 1680. If you want faster then Lil'gun a few minutes with a reamer and you will have a K-hornet. I believe the K-hornet is the best way to go and I still use AA 1680.

I rented a reamer, cut .22 Hornet CZ and T/C Contender Hornet barrels to K-Hornets. Fired brass from one chambers easily is the other. It was my first chambering effort, seemed to work well.

DF

ScottF,

I've tried several powders in K-Hornets, including my present one, a Brno ZKW, and 1680 was a distant also-ran to 300 MP in velocity. I may have a slow lot of 1680, but could not get enough into the case to come anywhere near 300 MP--and my 1680 produces velocities right around Hornady's results in the .17 Hornet.

Have a supply of CFE BLK just in, and while it looks to be a little slow for the standard Hornet, it may work very well in the K-Hornet, especially with 45-50 grain bullets--which may or may not be worth it.

Never thought about seating shorter than channels and crimping to the sides going to have to try a shorter COAL.

With all the effort I put into making accurate ammo for the hornet sounds like a great idea. With all the powder compression not much worry of COAL shortening. I have been shooting 13 gr and 14 must be quite full.

Good luck and shoot straight all.

Bob

I'm running 35 v-max and H-110 in my ruger at 3120 11.7grains.

I never had great luck with the 40 gr vmax in the hornet...seems like you can't get them going fast enough... The 35s shot way better for me...
Or 32 gr Speer...

rainierrifleco,

That's exactly the opposite of my experience. With modern powders like Li'l Gun and 300-MP it's easy to get 3000 fps or close to it with 40's, with excellent accuracy. Since they have much higher BC's than 30-35 grain bullets, downrange performance is so much better it's obvious to anybody who uses tries both light bullets and 40-grain plastic tips.

Of course, some 40 plastic-tips don't fit very well in the standard Hornet magazine length, but there are at least three solutions for that. Both the Nosler Varmageddon and Sierra 40-grain hollow-points still have much higher BC's than either 35-grain plastic-tips, the Varmageddon and Hornady V-Max.

Another is to lengthen the magazine of the rifle. This can be done with some magazines pretty easily, and doesn't have to be much. The magazine on my Brno .22 K-Hornet is only about 1/16th inch longer than the standard, but allows me to use 40-grain Tipped Varmageddons.

Yet another is to bypass the magazine problem completely. I've used both a T/C Contender 21" carbine barrel and a 26" barreled Ruger No. 1, both resulting in excellent accuracy with 40-grain plastic-tips at around 3000 fps, including the V-Max.

My ruger 3 k hornet did shoot them better than the standard hornet but still liked the lighter bullets better...lil gun and h 110 as I remember....
I did abandon the 40 pretty quick as I only use the hornet for 150 yards
The best I could get out of the 77 was 3 inches....with the 40s...3/4 with the 35 s...
About 1 1/2 with 40 with three No 3

here's some new stuff from Hodgdon.......CFE BLK......

burn rate next door to AA1680.....ordered some from PV

soon to try in my 300 BLK's......

I got four pounds of CFE BLK in to try. It looks like it might be ideal for both the .17 Hornet and .22 K-Hornet, but might be a little slow for the .22 Hornet itself. But dunno until we try!

After too much of trying to turn my Brno K-Hornet into a .221, this week found 13.5 grains of 300-MP gets right around 3150 with 40-grain Tipped Varmageddons, with 10-shot groups going into around 3/4" at 100 yards.

PV shipped my CFE BLK....will have it 4/3........

good guys at PV.......Ruger will get first test loads.....

I like what Lil'Gun does with jacketed 40s in terms of speed and accuracy.

But it also makes a fine lower speed (and cost) powder for cast Hornet loads.



This is with the Lyman 225415 gas check bullet cast from an unknown alloy (gill-net leadlines) at medium hardness. The group by the quarter is typical at 50 yards from my #1. The charge weight is listed wrong on that target, but the Little Dandy #5 rotor is how the charges were thrown. 'Soft' primers don't work as well; CCI 450s seem to be the trick to getting the right ignition.

Thanks all.

Finally got around to trying 300MP with the 45gr TSX and Hornady SP. Started at 10.5 gr. What have been your velocities with the 45 gr tsx and 300MP? Accuracy with 11.5 gr has been as good as my original 12.6 gr lil gun loads were. The 45 gr HSP was stellar with 8 in about .7 at 100 and 2 flyers about 1.2. Have you gone farther than 11.5 gr? I am wondering what kind of pressure I know lil gun is quite low.

Good luck and shoot straight all

Bob

That 300 MP sounds like good powder!

I will have to find some.