Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Single Shots #1 Hornet or Bee?

Which is better, more desirable, faster, flatter, easier......or what have you?

Any opinions on a relatively idle topic?

The Bee is a bit better, but brass is much more expensive and probably harder to come by.
The Hornet gets a lot of criticism due to it's old design, but in a good falling block like my Browning, it's as accurate as I could want. LiL Gun is the hot powder right now, but I get excellent accuracy with H110, 40gr. Vmaxes, and F100M primers. There are other powders that look good in the manuals, but I'm happy with what I use.
If you need more power or range, you should probably get something in the .222 family.

Fireball! Oops no FB's in #1's

Sorry,


DMc

Punch the Hornet K, and you're in good.

The Bee would be a lot of fun, but brass is a PITA.

Just get both.

The Bee gets another 100 fps or so, but as several people have already pointed out brass is hard to find. Back in the 1990's I shot a friend's No. 1B .218 Bee and decided I had to have one, but then started looking at the price and availability of brass and got a 1B Hornet instead.

While a lot of "traditional" Hornet powders are just as accurate as Li'l Gun, the pressures developed by Li'l Gun produce as much or more velocity at MUCH lower pressures, which results in much longer brass life in the thin Hornet cases.

In my experience, whether the K-Hornet is worth it depends on the rifle. Many Hornet repeaters have magazines so short they can't use longer plastic-tipped bullets, like the 40-grain Ballistic Tip and V-Max and 39-grain Blitzking. All three will shoot noticeably flatter and hit harder than any soft-point or hollow-point, and work great in my No. 1B, which more than balanced the extra velocity obtainable from a CZ K-Hornet I had for a whole. And brass life is plenty long, thanks to using Li'l Gun and neck-sizing.

However, if somebody rechambered a 1B (or Browning Low Wall) to K-Hornet it would probably be the best of all. Unfortunately, both rifles are rising in price as collector's items, and rechambering would probably bring resale price down.

I have owned a couple of Ruger #3's and a #1-B in .22 Hornet. I found the #1 to be especially fussy. I also have a Browning Lo-Wall in .22 K-Hornet (rechamber) and it is VERY accurate, and a special favorite.

I purchased a #1 in .218 Bee on closeout when Ruger discontinued them. I immeadiately had the barrel cut to 23 5/8". Other than that it remains unfired. (An oversight I intend to rectify shortly...) I almost believe if I had to do it over, I'd get a .222 or .223 and merely load reduced loads.

I have another Lo-Wall that is NIB, and it awaits being sent to the "Wizard of Turtle Rd" to be rebored to .25/20 W.C.F.

GH

Interesting about your 1B Hornet. Mine has always been one of my least fussy rifles ever since I took it out of the box, brand-new! Also had a Ruger No. 3 Hornet for a while that shot the same way, with the same loads.

The pressure thing was my thought too, but so far I've not gotten the accuracy with it I do with H110. Still working on that.
The Low Wall was one of the really good deals I've made in a gun-trading "career" noted for dumb moves. Really nice wood, fine accuracy, and just a really nice package overall. When I go, my sons will probably have a shoot-out over it.
I paid $695 for it it 2000, and the Gunbroker price for a new one is about $1500. I not tempted even a little bit to sell.

What charges, bullets, primers have you been using with Li'l Gun?

I have owned four or five Hornets over the years, two at the moment. H110 was the best until Lil'Gun hit the Market. I never realized the potential the Hornet had until i starting using Hornady 40 gr V-Max with 13 gr's of Lil'Gun, this combination turned the Hornet into a real killing Machine with Vel running close on the heels of the 222 Rem. The Hornet is the answer to the rimfire shortage of ammo.

40gr. VMax over 13gr. LiLGun w/Rem. 7 1/2s. I didn't even record the groups as they weren't up to snuff compared to the ones with H110.

11.1 gr H110, the same VMaxes seated out to 1.922 WW brass and F100Ms went .324 .342 and .548 for three shots.

I have to admit, the LiLGun loads were done in a regular Lee loader vs. the Lee Collet dies used with the H110 loads. I have done redone the LG loads in the collet dies, but am waiting for a good day to try them out. I want the LilGun to work, for the reason you mentioned and also to simplify my supply situation.

I'm also looking to try the 30gr. Barnes VGs and need a nice turkey load using Speer 46gr. FPs. Also want to try MP300 as the data I've seen looks good. I haven't found any of that yet.

Actually, the smallest groups I've shot with my 1B were loaded with a Lee Loader. The LL usually results in very straight ammo, since they're essentially the same kind of hand-die often used by benchrest shooters, if not quite so precisely made. But maybe yours doesn't seat the V-Max very straightly. That can happen with some bullets, whether in the LL or standard seating dies.

Groups with 40-grain Ballistic Tips, 13.0 Li'l Gun and CCI BR-4's averaged under 1/2", and they were 5-shot groups, not 3-shot.
10-shot groups with the CCI 450 small-rifle magnum primer and the same bullet and powder go around 3/4". In fact the 450 gets the best accuracy with Li'l Gun of any primer tried. Have had similar results in 2 other Hornets and one K-Hornet.

Can't get enough Li'l Gun in the Hornet case to work consistently with the 30 VG in my rifle. Around 12.5-13.0 grains of H110 gets the best accuracy in the 1B at 3200-3300 fps.

10.0 grains of IMR4227 gets right around 2000 fps with 45-46 grain bullets, usually with excellent accuracy. You can even drop the charge some for even less meat damage.

This has all been interesting. I was hoping there might be plenty of random, unsolicited ideas thrown out. One of the things I've wondered about - I have both rifles- is whether the Hornet might be a little bit less fussy in a hand fed rifle like the #1s. The long taper of the Hornet seems a bit less fussy than the Bee when it comes to needing a bit of help chambering. It could be the dies, or it might be my use of them, but I seem to get more Bee rounds which need help chambering than Hornet rounds.

I forgot to mention that I also have acquired a 1-A in .22 Hornet. When I got that, the "B" was sacrificed to buy the 1-B in .218 Bee. (I already had a T/C Contender in .218 Bee)

I always wanted a .22 Hornet with a 1~14" twist rather than the 1~16". Seems to me to be a better mousetrap.

GH

Klik,

Logically, I would think that the Bee would be less fussy and more accurate, only because you can adjust your dies to headspace on the shoulder. And I'm not sure you can do that with the Hornet.

GH

Just so happens I've got an unopened can of Dupont IMR 4227 on hand. What primers do you use for that load? (and the H110 Varmint Grenade load).

I think I have a couple hundred BR4s somewhere for the LiLGun loads. Hope so, as the selection in stores is a little thin lately.

I started using the pistol primers for most loads after reading Ross Seyfried's pair of Hornet pieces about 2001 and, as I generally don't dink around too much after finding something that works, stayed with them. Most Hornet data I see uses the SR primers for everything, which may explain why the results often aren't as good as they might be.

Thanks for the suggestions, John. Even if I don't get a whack at a turkey this fall, there's always fox squirrels.

While the Bee is a might faster (100 fps or so), I doubt that the woodchucks, crows or other small varmints ever realize the "difference".

The Hornet is also a lot more popular which results in lower priced and much more available brass for reloading.

The Hornet is claimed to be fairly "quiet", too... a big "+" in the more populated areas.


Strength & Honor...

Ron T.

That was my thought as well when I originally bought the rifle years ago (when brass was relatively plentiful.) I suspect it's mostly me, but I seem to have the dies set just where I want them when the brass has not been loaded yet, but once the bullets are seated they sometimes need a bit of persuasion to load. While it isn't all that hard to get them to drop right in, I've been a bit reluctant to give those cases too much room for fear of them getting away from me and splitting their breeches prematurely. The line is a fine one it seems, at least with the RCBS dies I have. I suppose I might spring for a set of Reddings at some point just to see if they match my chamber a bit better. (Or I can just play with the Hornet for now. )

I'd lean toward a #1 in the Bee as well, since the case is already "improved" as compared to the K hornet, and you can shoot away and still leave the rifle original. The brass indeed won't be easy, but you can make it from .25-20 cases.

OR

the current #1A is a .222, and that caliber was chambered in the early #1's as well.

But .223's are common in both #1V and B, and .223 brass is going to be easier to find than any of them.

But a #1V in the Fireball would be the cat's meow

Pappy,

Speer did some research with the Hornet a few years ago and concluded the best use of small pistol primers was with relatively small amounts of fast-burning powders. Their theory was rifle primers tended to dislodge the bullet in the case neck slightly before the powder charge expanded enough to do the job. With a case full of powder (say 12+ grains) the rifle primers larger flame didn't have the same effect. Or at least that's what I recall reading.

I used CCI 500 small pistol primers for the IMR4227 loads. Started with 8.5 grains with the 45-grain Remington round-nose bullet, figuring that qualified as a relatively small amount of fast-burning powder. Don't know if the primer had a major effect, but accuracy was very good and velocity around 1700 fps. Essentially I was trying to duplicate .22 Magnum ballistics.

Have used the 13.0 Li'l Gun load with CCI BR4's in three Hornets and one K-Hornet, and the worst accuracy was still under an inch for 5-shot groups at 100.

Ran a test a couple years ago with 4 different primers and 13.0 Li'l Gun and 40-grain V-Max's. The best accuracy was with CCI 450's, next-best with BR4's, 3rd-best with CCI 500 pistol primers, and the worst with Federal 205 Match small-rifle primers. All, however, shot well enough to kill ground squirrels at 150 yards with every shot.

Probably the real answer is that it doesn't pay to get too dogmatic about primers in the Hornet, either way!