.22 Hornet is a better tool, and more versatile if you load your own.
Got my first .22 magnum when I was 16, an Anschutz 141M which is the last gun I'd ever get rid of. With a cheap 4X Weaver B4 rimfire scope it far out-killed the .22lr I'd been using up to that time. Stuff the size of porcupines and coons were decisively dead with one shot. Woodchucks died from body hits out to 150 yards, the two longest measured shots I made on them being 152 and 157 yards. IME the .22 magnum is a much more decisive killer of small/medium sized stuff than the .22 LR without getting into the hassle of reloading.
Even though I reload, there have been times where it was easier or faster to grab my 22 Magnum. I have a Marlin bolt that does duty as a pest gun. We had a driving shed (now gone) that used to attract skunks. It was about 50 yards away from the back porch. I didn't want to get too close and the 22 Magnum had the reach to whack them at that distance and farther.
Yeah Steve...my aversion to reloading isn't reloading per se. Rather I like having a .22 with a bit more smack than a .22 LR, but not the intensity of a typical .22 CF, without having to mess around developing reduced loads etc. At one point in my life that stuff was fun, in fact, I had a pretty good 2000 fps load for the 63 grain Sierra semi-pointed in my .222. These days I like to keep things a bit more simple, one load per rifle. For a number of years my .25-20 pretty much worked for the same sort of things my .22 magnum always has, but my son has it right now and, when I mentioned bringing it home recently he got all down in the mouth and talked about how much he really loves that rifle.... what can I say?
