Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles 22 Hornet

I thought about K Hornet, but I don't see low walls in Hornet very often so will leave it alone.

Saw a Browning at the local gun show last weekend, wanted $1175.-Muddy

I like your reasoning.

Mule Deer I have a no. 3 in a hornet will it have 1 -10 or the 1-16 twist? thank's Ozzie

One sure fire way to find out. Measure it!

Tagged for interest as I have a pre-war .22 Hornet built on a large Martini action by A.G. Parker:



It's a nominal .223 bore with a 1:14 twist. May have originally been a .22.

I've had it a while but not done much work with it yet, aside from replacing the original front sight with a green FO. However accuracy has been so-so. I just got a Sinclair neck-turning tool and am going to get her out to the range again when the weather improves. I have some 40 & 45 gr. .223 Sierra Hornet bullets, and H110, 2400 & Lil'Gun.

Once I find how she likes to be treated I'll try and come up with a no-gunsmithing scope mount that fits in the rear sight base (minus the actual sight), to accomodate an EER scope. I figure a piece of .22 dovetail base could be milled down to fit, using the spring screw hole and the rear sight cross-pin to secure it.

Stuart

I have the best luck with lighter bullet and back off the powder charge slightly as the brass will last longer.

I'm in the Lil'Gun camp. I have a 77/22 K Hornet and a colett die so I neck size only after fire forming.

+1, and I add a slooowwwww powder (1680) to that mix, I don't think it makes much pressure at all. Still using my original cases with my CZ, and no adverse pressure signs at all. I don't think I could get enough 1680 into the case to cause problems. I have other rifles for "going fast".

Yep, both 1680 and Li'l Gun qualify as slow powders in the Hornet, and produce less pressure than traditional powders for longer brass life.

I found a couple pounds of lil gun, 350 rounds of prvi factory loads from which to extract brass and some 40 Vmaxs so am on my way.

My youngest daughter and my business partners' daughter have discovered they really love to shoot and burned about 500 .22 LRs through my daughter's new pink 10-22 and one of my K22s at the range the other afternoon. Given my stash of .22 LR ammo cant hold up to that volume for long, Hopefully they can prove useful in "harvesting" the prvi brass by using the low wall on the 200 yard gong. The prvis shoot OK, but in every group put four in about 1.5" and throw on off a couple of inches and have a fairly rainbow trajectory.

Once I can get to the brass will start experimenting. Really fun little rifle to shoot. Don't know why I waited so long to buy one.

Does it get close to Lil' Gun velocities?

Close, but not quite. 1680 is slower-burning than Li'l Gun, so you can't get enough in the Hornet case behind a 40-grain bullet. But it does get decent velocities (around 2800 with a 40) at lower pressures than faster Hornet powders.

John, any idea how low a charge of 1680 one could/should start at, specifically for .22RF Mag performance with the Hornet? I stumbled onto a pound of the stuff and want to include it in my cast bullet experiments. I wonder if I may need to switch back to SR primers too since it is so slow burning, relatively speaking. (Thinking not, but it pays to ask sometimes.)

I haven't tried 1680 in smaller than full-case charges in the Hornet, so dunno. My guess is it would work, since probably around 10 grains would result in .22 Magnum velocities with 40's, but have no idea on primer choice. Probably the thing to do is try both rifle and pistol primers and see which shoots best!

I finally found some brass. Loaded 12.7 grains Lil Gun (prvi brass wouldn't hold 13 without some work to keep from spilling), federal 205 and 40-grain VMax. Shooting 5 in about 3/4" at 2800 fps from my Browning Low Wall. I was looking in an older Hodgdon Annual Manual and it showed the 13-grain load to be 28,000 CUP, so should be mild pressure. great round.

Mule Deer,
Ever tried Alliant Power Pro 300-MP? Heard good things about it but we don't get it.

One thing I'm trying with my Hornet is I've moved to a Wilson in-line bullet seater and treating the case like a little benchrest job.
Cheers...
Con

Con,

No, I haven't tried PP 300, and I should, because I have some on hand. But I often don't have time to try everything until some assignment comes along.

A few years ago I bought a new (not older and used) .22 Hornet Lee Loader, which is the more "affordable" version of the Wilson neck sizer and seater. Sorted a few cases to get uniform neck-thickness, then loaded them with the Lee Loader and got the smallest groups I've yet seen out of the No. 1B. They averaged under 1/2" for 5 shots (not 3) at 100 yards, and if I recall correctly the best group had 4 shots in less than .2".

Of course, among the other "tricks" I used when shooting those groups were removing every tiny bit of parallax from he scope, and putting out a couple of wind flags.