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

Aw, geez! Everything was feeling all peachy and you had to bring that up! Now I'm really back to square one again. I shot the donor (218) which I bought to convert to a 225 Winchester (since I have many boxes of factory ammo). Shooting the donor was a bad idea 'cause then I needed another 22 CF I could have rechambered. And that's how I came into possession of the Hornet as well (with a better trigger even). And now I have to think about straight(er) bullets and short bearing lengths. It is almost more than a loony should have to bear. (Never mind the fact that rabbits which stop too long at 100 yards - give or take- are liable to lose whatever occupies the space between their ears with rather boring regularity). I rather like the 45 Sierra spitzer Varminter for that duty - just in case of neck-ranging stray shots; less explosive.[/quote]

Look for the more common .223 chambered #1 to rechamber to .225.

I have 1 currently under going surgery. Hope to be able to try it soon.

Flyer

I did exactly that about a yr ago. (Tho' I've not fired it as yet...) I purchased a Winchester (Japanese) 1885 in .223 Rem. Had it rechambered to .225 Win.

IIRC, the twist on the 1885 is 1~12" which I think would be more forgiving than the 1~16" twist of the Hornet. I don't know what the twist is on the .218, as I can't find any reference in all my reference material. Not even in old Ruger catalogs. But I believe standard twist for the Bee is 1~14". For my money, I'd think that the .225 Win would shine with 55-69 gr. bullets. If I want to shoot 75 gr. or heavier, I have several rifles in .243 Win and 6mm Rem...

GH

bigwhoop,

Of course, yet another factor is that some older .22 Hornets simply don't shoot, whether due to smaller bores, extra-large throats, or whatever. And some rifles may also be defective, for whatever reason.

I've only had four Hornets, a T/C Contender Carbine barrel, No. 1B and No. 3 Rugers, and a CZ 527 rechambered to K-Hornet. It was easy in all four to develop loads that grouped into 3/4" or less for 5 shots (not 3) at 100 yards.

In fact I didn't even develop a load for the No. 3, just shot the same handloads I use in the No. 1, and they grouped the same way. If Ruger changed the chamber dimensions between 1986 (when the No. 3 was discontinued) and 2001, when I got my new 1B, there was no indication of it in the way the No. 3 shot.

However, a friend just purchased a Sako .22 Hornet, and he couldn't get it to group into less than 2" at 100 yards. His other Hornet is a pre-'64 Model 70 and it shoots like all my Hornets have. So darned if I know!

I had an early Low Wall Winchester Hornet, where someone had rechambered a .22 LR barrel. It did nothing worthwhile, and I finally dumped it. A Ruger 77 stainless was better, but still not great, and also was sold. I finally bought a Browning/miroku Low Wall, and despite lawyer-proof trigger, it did shoot very well, especially with the 13gr of Lil'Gun load. IIRC the 40 gr Ballistic Tip shot fine in it.

Some of the old manuals pointed out that early Hornets had .223 bores, and may not shoot well with .224 bullets. I suspect my old Low Wall had that issue.

Some companies still make slightly smaller bullets for use in older Hornets, but unfortunately nobody makes plastic-tips for smaller bores.

Those Browning Low Wall Hornets usually shoot pretty darn well! Well, all the Low Walls so. I had a .243 for a while that shot like crazy--but then somebody wanted it more than I did.

Pretty wood too. Much nicer than what's coming in under the Winchester name, at least the ones I've seen online.
When I bought mine, I had the pick of the three left after the guy behind the counter picked his. I'd like to see that one, 'cause mine's pretty nice.

The buttstock on my .243 was pure fiddleback, from the action to the buttplate!

I read someplace that it's Claro. Some of the Low Wall Traditional Hunters and Browning 53s I see on line are pretty enough to make me fall off the " no more guns" wagon.

Like I was ever on it!

Gary

The wood on my Win. Hornet LW is crap, so is the finish, checkering, metal fit and the Schnabel is so big (or the sling stud is too far forward) that a bipod won't fit. The wood, fit and finish on the browning models is light years ahead. I looked into new factory wood and it was way more than I paid new for the rifle a year ago.-Muddy

In the interest of creating lower cost rimfire load substitutes..........and yeah I know we're already 4� in by the time the primer is seated...... but any load ideas on light loads that work readily and somewhat universally? (I really hope there is never a better time than now to fire up the Lyman 22 cal mold I bought a couple of years ago in case that is part of a solution- and maybe I need to dig out a Ken Waters publication.)

There will be an article in the upcoming HANDLOADER on that very subject. The on-line version should be out any day now.

You need to buy some cheaper primers. I got 5000 Tula small-rifle primers for about 3 cents apiece from Midway a month or two ago, and that included shipping!

I have an old Speer manual #10, and they do show reduced loads for SR4759 in the .222 and .222 magnum (strangely enough, not for the .223). My copies of Ken Waters Pet Loads are packed away somewhere, but IIRC he described some as well.

Ken Howell's book Designing and Forming Custom Cartridges describes a wildcat named the ".22 Flea" which is a .32 ACP necked to .22 Caliber Holds 13 grains of water, versus a .22 Hornet's 21.

I guess one could neck a .25 ACP to .22, as well