The contention that WW factory ammo is loaded with W296 is not true. I have it on reliable authority that WW Hornet ammo is loaded with a non-canister grade of their long-discontinued W680. The closest you can get with a canister-grade powder is either Accurate 1680 (the name is no coincidence) or LilGun, depending on the lot-lot variation of either.

It is absolutely impossible to determine powder type by visual examination - ESPECIALLY with fine-grained spherical powders.

On Hornet primers - I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that with such a small case, you must either start the bullet off very gently, or very forcibly. A mild primer allows the bullet to stay locked in place under crimp pressure until the powder charge fully ignites; a vigorous primer allows the bullet to leave the case but hesitate at the rifling start long enough to achieve the same thing. A primer in between can cause poor results because it may sometimes unseat the bullet and sometimes not - and never the same way or amount twice.

That's my evolving theory, at any rate.

I had a 22 Hornet that wouldn't shoot too well either. I ended up trading it away for another Hornet. Do you have any 2400 on your bench? If not, perhaps you know someone that shoots handgun and might have some for you to try. You don't need much to make up 15-20 cartridges. The max 45 gr. load Alliant lists is 9.0 grains - OAL 1.723 inches.

am a newbee here, but when talking bout hornets, it hard for me to not pipe in, my ruger hornet, like the others,(rugers) had a "deep throat" it would peg the winc 46 gr hp, making nice flowers,(cover with a quarter or 50 cent piece) but with the rem 45gr, would go everywhere, thats when i took an empty, pushed a bullet into it with fingers, and gently closed it in the chamber pushing the bullet into the case,(i did that 10 times to get a good average) to load with no freebore, i would not have been able to use the rotary clip, i had my smith set the chamber back, "k"ed it and he honed the rough edges off the trigger which put it about 2# , can now cover with a dime
also there is a note in the Speer #14 Manual " for this manual we used cci small pistol primers instead of rifle primers, this change allowed higher velocities at safe pressures, and greatly reduced the extreme variation of pressure that limited the number of propellents we showed in previous books. Do not use these loads with small rifle primers as excessive pressure will result. ..."
anyway, you may have to load to your rifles coal, sorry for being so long winded, but not much of a game on the tv.