Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles 219 Donaldson Wasp ?

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Has anyone found a reason for shooting anything other than a 219 Donaldson Wasp at groundhogs ?

For sure the 220 Swift is fast.

And the 222 is accurate, but time will tell if the 222 is just a marketing fad or if it will last.

Think we should stick with the tried and true.


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Hammer 1:

The Wasp and the 218 Bee are great and efficient cartridges that deserve a "rebirth" much more so than the 17 HMR or 17 Hornet deserve the "lives" they have today.

If Ruger et al would bring those back the [ignorant] masses would find this out....

Yes, because I already have a 219 zipper..no need to burn out my barrel with a 219 wasp

Hammer1,
I stuck with this No.3 .219 DW for more than 6000 rounds fired at a few groundhogs but mostly S.D. prairie dogs over about 16 years.

When it came time to rebarrel, I decided to go with my .204 Wasp instead of .219 DW. I already had a No.1 .204 Wasp shooting 39gr Blitzkings at 4100fps. For shooting PD's the .204 has a few advantages, less recoil=easier to see hits in scope, better trajectory and less wind drift.

My other wildcat the .219DW PDK is the .219 Wasp with the shoulder moved .125 and changed to 35 degrees. Case length is 1.900. My No.1 with 14"twist Shilen shoots 55gr NBT's at 3650fps. Last year had a No.3 rebarreled with a 8"twist Shilen and am shooting 75gr A-Max at 3200fps. The left case is loaded with a 53gr V-Max and is ready to be fireformed, the right case is fireformed and loaded with a 75gr A-Max.

The No.3 .219 DW PDK and the No.3 .204 Wasp on the Montana prairie last June. The next day I made my longest kill ever at 709 yds. with a 75gr A-Max.

I guess my reason for not shooting a .219 Donaldson Wasp now is that I like to tinker with wildcats of my own design.
Dave