The round count on the Ruger .22 Hornet was relatively low for two reasons:
First, I normally take 4-5 rifles on any PD shoot, both to rotate when the barrels get hot, and to try different stuff. Didn't use it all that much on "gophers" (what most people call Rchardson's and Columbian ground squirrels in Montana) because they're easily handled by rimfires--from the .22 Long Rifle up through the .17 HMR--and I bought my first HMR not long after acquiring the Hornet.
While plastic-tipped 40-grain spitzers and new powders like Li'l Gun extended the effective range of the .22 Hornet considerably, due to wind-drift and trajectory it's still basically at most a 250-yard prairie dog round, and 200 is really more practical. Since PD's are generally far spookier than gophers (especially if theyve been shot at before) the .22 Hornet was primarily used when starting on a town. After dogs got spookier with the initial shooting, I generally switched to a longer-range cartridge.
The .223 is most common these days, but eventually I worked my way through a bunch of others. My first real favorite was the .17 Fireball, since it had enough zip to be relatively easy to consistently hit PD's at 300 or a little more--and by consistently hit I mean hitting more than missing. Have yet to shoot PD's with anybody who does that beyond 300-350 under typical wind conditions.
Loved the .17 Fireball because, like the .22 Hornet, it recoiled so little I could watch the bullets hit through even when using a sporter-weight rifle. (I like sporters as my PD rifles because I also tend to do a lot of walking as well as shooting off benches or pickup hoods. Only time I use heavies anymore is for shooting beyond 500 yards, and don't do that as much as I used to.)
Then I tried the .17 Hornet, and could not see any practical difference between it and the .17 Fireball, plus the Hornet used about 2/3 the powder and the cases were cheaper and far more available. Plus, my particular Hornet is a CZ 527 which turned out to be a little more accurate than my Remington 700 .17 Fireball.
These days I use the .17 for shooting PD's out to around 300 yards, which means it does most of my PD shooting. From 300-350 use a .204 Ruger, and beyond 500 use whatever rifles chambered for bigger rounds made the trip, from a fast-twist .223 to various 6mm's, and once in a whole something considerably larger. But those are often used simply for testing new bullets, scopes, etc. at longer ranges, not for reducing PD numbers. And that is still the main point for the ranchers whose land I shoot on.
