Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles 22 hornet advice

I just got my dies for my 22 hornet. Does anyone have any advice for me. I really only ever dealt with 30-06 and 300 mag. Is there anything I need to know. It is my favorite gun to shoot. But I hate buying factory ammo at near a buck a bang.

It is a wonderful cartridge as many are from that era. It works quite well with 40 grain bullets of either the V-Max or Blitz King bullets. 13 grains of Lil Gun powder makes it really shine. It is an easy 150 yard gun and will still blow up a gopher at that range. They tend to be quite accurate, you should enjoy it without all the blast from the 223 sized cartridges.

Pre-War Model 70 Hornet...

Beautiful rifle, mine however is an old savage from back in the 60s or early 70s. No scope, but still good for minute of pop can at 100.

I don't full length size mine, just adjust the die so that about 1/2 of the neck is sized; or use a Lee Collet Die. Necks are easily damaged when seating the bullet, especially if it is flat-based. At the suggestion of some here, I bought a Lyman M Die which fixes that problem.

If your having accuracy issues with reloads don't be afraid to try small pistol primers

A big plus for the 22 Hornet is that the recoil is so negligible that you can see your hits and misses. And I would not limit it to being a 150 yd rifle. I've killed prairie dogs at pretty close to 300 yds without too much difficulty.

I've found the JB load of 13.0 Lil Gun, a 40gr NBT and a CCI 450 primer to be excellent. The primer is a magnum one, and it gets the Lil Gun burning at the correct rate.

My bet is that you will like it a lot.

Steve

Savage Model 40
Winchester brass
Sierra 40's (for the hornet)
12.5 lil gun
CCI 400

deadly on beer cans and critters.

I use regular RCBS FL sizing and seating die. It requires a little care, but no problem if you take it easy.

P.S., Lil' gun will eat up some plastic if you leave it in your powder hopper too long. fascinating stuff

n8, Have YOU experienced this? Muddy

My Winchester 1885 Hornet


It has a 16" twist that didn't like a lot of bullets. Been using some 35 grain Hornet bullets and it is shooting really well.

My Savage is even older and has an oversize chamber which I understand is not uncommon. You can see the difference between a fired and full length resized cartridge without trying hard. So neck sizing makes a big difference with that one. Be careful when aligning the case/bullet before pulling the lever. If you're used to heavy cases it's easy to crush those thin lil darlins before you realize it.

ww296 is great in that case. i have pre-war mod 70 also. using cci bench rest primer really helped my load. i horded a bunch of nosler 45g hornet. hard to find now but worth the hunt. enjoy!

Another vote for lil gun in the 12.5 to 13 grain range (40 grain bullet). I only size the case neck about the length that the bullet will be seated into the case.
I have had good results with CCI sr primers, not so good with Wolf.

Ernie

Another vote for Li'l Gun,neck sizing, and bevel base bullets. AA1680 also works quite well.

Classy and appropriate rifle/cartridge match up