Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters .22 RF alternatives

See if you can figure out swagging bismuth.

Moi?

As if I NEED another project for my retirement?

Not a bad idea however.

Will I need an engineering degree? My biological training doesn't go too far along the lines of "exotic" metal forming.

Geno

Dan,

I've used SPG to lube all my balls--well, not all, but those in shooting experiments. Dunno if it helped, however, as I didn't compare results with dry balls.

Much less friction with sweaty balls.

If they ain't sweaty you ain't doing it right.

I wonder if a felt wad under the ball would help. Sabots come to mind too.

Felt wads are good stuff for a number of applications, card wads also. I've not tried it with balls, but ...

BP and flat base bullets get a card wad if loaded via cartridge or ramrod. The muzzle loaders get a lubed felt wad and card.

Smokeless lead from a straightwall case, greaser or paper patched get a card wad. Soft lead and paper patch prospers immensely from a card wad if you drive it hard. 300 grains/1600 fps from a .44 is hard. I suggest to you able bodied and competent casters, that if you have not tried paper patch it is a worthy endeavor. Take 90% of what you know about nekkid grease groove shooting/loading and stuff it in file 13.

Bottle neck cases get a hearty Hail Mary!

Don't use card/felt with a suppressor. Not evah!

A lubed felt wad might work with a round ball but you'll need to keep the powder off the lube. Mebbe a Dacron tuft betwixt would do that.

Never tried paper patching. Been threatening to for .30-30, .30-40, etc. but...

OK, I'm going to hijack my own thread briefly.

Paper patching is caveman country. Read: Not rocket science. Careful oversight of dims and patch material is wise. Paul Matthews worked up a good book on the topic..."The Paper Jacket".





It is a hunting load.



Back on topic: I just know I can beat this with my .22....CF



Apologies to those paying attention. The target above was erroneously reported elsewhere here on the 'Fire as 10 shots and that is incorrect. 5 shots is the number, verified from the log book. 50 yards, Rem 513S, Wolf MT. The X-ring is 3/8" diameter, you can figure the group dims.

That sounds suspiciously like engine room wisdom.

-Laffin'-

Shades of the Saturday Night Live "Schweddy Balls " spoof of National Public Radio. From 1998 when they were still funny. Worth a look if you don't remember it. .

I learned LONG ago to trust your snipes.

We (the black gang) make the best coffee, too.

GTC

Hats off to the all the Black Gang guys! I got to work in the boiler room of the Forrest Sherman (DD-931) for two weeks on a Middie summer training cruise. Some good guys down there. That was decades ago but I still remember that the watch supervisor was a First Class PO Finlayson (?).

Holy $hit, the temperature in some areas of the boiler room was 140 + if I remember correctly and even got to spend some time cleaning firesides (I believe that's what the term was). I looked like I had rolled around in someones fire pit afterwards.

I tried cast bullets in the hornet and just couldn't get good accuracy at the lower vol....if your thinking a load for small game to replace the 22lr ..their is a good thread on the Marlin forum on the 25-20....I have a cast load 85 gr bullet I think 1200 fps super accurate out of my 92 and is great for small game....biggest cost is the primer..

With the Lil'gun load I posted on page one, switching primers completely ruins the groups. I didn't make note of which primers I had shot some of the first groups with - I only knew they were silver. When I made another batch, I used Federal pistol primers thinking I had used a 'milder' type with the low charges in that load. My groups became very erratic so I tried the CCI 450s, the only other silver primer I was loading Hornet with. Those brought the groups back together again, something that was kind of a surprise given the small charge of powder involved. (The charge thrown was with the #5 rotor for the RCBS Little Dandy measure; the target says 5.8, but I believe the charge is actually running 5.6 or 5.7 grains.)

I'm sure I can fiddle with those loads even more and find additional improvements.

Un-huh....primers.....

Just yesterday I finished a phase of load development for the Sneezer that after some 500 or so rounds with various powders, primers, different alloys with two bullet styles, shenanigans related to case prep, neck tension exploration, and...more....I finally settled on a number of loads that will be go to standards for the cartridge for purposes of the mass slaughter of feral swine. One of the front runners is L'il Gun. Blue Dot gets high marks as well. Once I jacked up the load density sufficiently AND used the correct primer, IMR 4227 began to hum.

Getting past the emotion and reducing myself to the simpler statistics I came to the conclusion that Hell will freeze before I purchase another lot of Winchester SPP or SRP. Praised be unto Zeus that I have an M1 Carbine which is of a non-discriminatory mind and cares not that all the holes aren't touching.

That said, I was stirring the pot yesterday, looking for my .22 RF alternative and perhaps invented a new round. It is what I'll call the .444 Marlin CB Short. It is of the same case specs as the .444 except the case length is much shorter. A fella can use .44 Mag brass, or even .44 Spec. if inclined. Velocity is within reasonable range of the infamous CCI .22 CB Short, or high 600's thru upper 700's, mebbe pinchin' 800 a little. Bullet is a 320 grain cruiser I designed and Steve Brooks worked up a mould on. Double duty Hindenburg if you pistoleros are interested. It has been a special purpose success.



So yesterday I'm out there with vast diligence working on the .22 Alternative Improved and came up with this on the 50 yard line. Just a first jab and worthy of further examination.



My estimate of costs:

14 cents/bullet based on lead/tin cost of $3.00/$20.00/pound. That can be reduced as tin is not necessary at this performance range, so lets call it 13.5 cents per bullet.
3.5 cents/round for powder (Blue Dot) and 3 cents per primer.

So, it's about 20 cents per round for cast lead home loaded mayhem. Yes, it is twice the caliber and 8 times the weight, but I'm not sure it factors to greater deadlines in linear fashion. It does meet standards for precision however.

And yeah, I screwed up transcribing the data on the lower pair.

I need another cuppa Joe,

Dan

A slingshot and small rock is even less expensive and it's effective too!

Yer a funny fella.

I got lucky on the rimfire alternative. I used a small charge of green dot (I think) to form cases for my .218 mashburn bee. Just for the heck of it I shot them and accuracy was pretty decent. Like others, I found that it is just about on target if I use the top of the bottom vertical duplex post at 50 yards. I used hornady bee bullets with the big hollow points so i can tell them apart from full power loads. I think velocity is higher than .22 lr though. getting down close to 1100 fps might be tricky with my simple methods and jacketed bullets.

The .444 big bore squirrel blaster is a cool idea!

that 444 would be great for barking squirrels. barking with a 30-06 works fine so that big ole 444 punkin should set up a shock wave to beat all.
i tried barking once with my 45-70. aimed a smidgin high. no bark blast but plenty of squirrel mush.