I went through this at the peak of the rimfire "shortage," and ended up with a Lyman mold that casts wheelweight bullets that weigh 43.5 grains. Supposedly they're gas-checks, but I tried various alternatives and found they shot best from my Ruger 1B .22 Hornet unsized without gas-checks. I just cast them and rolled them around in Lee Alox, then loaded them the next day. Also found I didn't have to resize even the necks of cases, as the "oversize" bullets (around .225") seated just right in unsized brass. The best accuracy turned out to be with 5.0 grains of Accurate 5744, for 1080 fps and sub-inch 5-shot groups at 50 yards. All my wheelweight metal came free (and still does, when I pick 'em up off the street), so the total cost per round is about a nickel. One of the best parts is that when the 3-9x Burris Fullfield II on the rifle is sighted-in 1" high at 100 yards with full-house varmint loads using 40-grain plastic tips at around 3000 fps, the cast load shoots right at the tip of the bottom post at 50 yards, with the scope set on 6x.
Also worked up a .22 magnum equivalent load with 8.5 grains of IMR4227 and some 45-grain Remington round-noses I got really cheap somewhere years ago. This load shoots even better at around 1750 fps.
