Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunting Rifles Centerfire Rifles for small game

Barm, I understand your thoughts about the RF shortage and with any luck I will get to reintroduce a CF version...when the brass arrives.

As stated previously, there be a few guns that will roll with your program but high precision is possible though perhaps a bit tedious to establish. Blue Dot is a good powder for this IMO. Little bit of luck and lots of determination can make it work out in the end. I have a wee bit of background with reduced loads in the Hornet and replicated .22 RF high velocity numbers easy enough and the precision melted a little, going from sub MOA at 100 to around 1" at 50. When I tried to slow it down a bit more I won the bullet stuck in the barrel lottery. Tenth grain increments as I progressed and I went from ~1250 fps to stuck with that change. Cast bullets are far more amenable in that realm and they do so with soft alloys well enough.

My K-Hornet @ 50 with the Lyman 225438 at 50 yards:





You saw the jacketed bullet target above and the difference is obvious. With that said, if you move up the ladder with cast bullets it gets a bit more rewarding. We are hunting in very different environments I suspect, but if I were going to pursue your goals I'd be looking at a .25-20 Winchester chamber in a T/C Contender frame, probably a 1st Generation rig. Poke around a bit and you'll find the frame easy enough and maybe even luck into the right barrel. After that you can investigate the world of casting if you choose. The .25-20 will move one of the light bullets out to 2,000 fps +/- and the heavier 85 grain bullets in the 1300-1400 fps range without a lot of grief. You can do the same with lead and have the same accuracy, or better, when you get yourself on top of the game.

Depending on alloy I can run the Ideal 257283 below at 1100-1250 fps with reasonable accuracy in the lever gun. I have no reason to think they would not do better from a good Contender barrel. The alloy I use is in the range of BHN 8-9, or the rough equivalent to US manufactured .22 RF bullets. I have used the same in other cartridges up to 1,600 fps successfully.



A slightly harder mix launched from the .30-30 will do this consistently at the 2,000 fps threshold.



The magic of using different alloys is that it lets you tailor the bullet terminal performance for the velocity spectrum they operate in. You might want to go back and look at the 77/44 target posted earlier. Pure lead, paper patched with a MV of ~1,600 fps. A few days after that target was shot I found myself in the deep woods of Mississippi and a steady drizzle of rain. Some deer wandered into view and beast that I am, one of them was murdered. It did not travel far.




And this right here is about $3 worth of cast lead for the Hornet.

Anschutz 1771 in .222 Remington
S&B 7x50 Klassik Scope (very good in low light)
Sierra 52gr.HPBT Macthking
23.2gr BL-C2 (low moderate load)
CCI BR4 Primers
Lapua Brass

Handy little (made to scale) walk around rifle. Fun to shoot

It is a Browning SA-22.

Same with mine, The guy who did the liner turned down a 25-06 barrel, so the twist is tight.The mold I use most anymore is a NOE copy of your 257283, lately powder coated. Probably because of the twist rate, this barrel likes to go fast with 4198. Slowed down to 1290 or so with 9.2gr 4198 it still has very good accuracy, just not quite like it does a bit faster. My alloy is a little harder at 12-14, wish I had more soft lead to blend with but the bunnies and backyard steel gongs don't seem to mind. One of these days I'm going to carry it when calling coyotes in a close cover area, Penetration won't be a problem, but might want to increase the velocity some.

Oh, HELL YESSSSS!!!

Thanks for the pics.

Digital Dan,

Thanks for the tips on the lead. What are the differences in Contenders? You mentioned first generation?

The Gen 2 frames have a reinforcement on the sides to reduce frame stretch, much like the Encore frames. They also have different geometry for the grip/butt stock, meaning those items are not interchangeable. My limited experience and comments on the 'net suggests.a bit higher quality in the older models, but you'll want to look for one with a serial # of around 300K+, or confirm it has had the easy open modification performed. Ballpark for those seems to hover in the $350-$425 range, pistol versions being more common. Barrels are available through the usual sources, and that would include MGM and my personal favorite, Bullberry.

https://www.tcarms.com/firearms/interchangeable-platforms/g2-contender

http://www.gunbroker.com/All/BI.aspx?Keywords=contender+frame

https://matchgrademachine.com/

https://www.bullberry.com/

If you are seriously looking for 25-20 single shots, the 70grn Sierra and 75grn Hornady are both plastic tipped varmint bullets that do nothing but help the 25-20.

I shot a deer with the 70grn Sierra Blitz out of mine, but I was loading them for a repeater, and filed off the tips. Bullet exited, deer died, estimated velocity 1750fps....which actually leaves quite a bit of running room for that shell case and bullet combo. The flat point 75 grn Speer didn't open up much during testing, so I came up with a different solution.

I tried to bark a squirrel once with my M92 .25-20, but that didn't work either. My experience has not been good using too big a cartridge for too small a critter. As a youth I'd been reading how a bullet crosses the line of sight twice and that my .30-06 should be on at a very short distance as well again at 100 yards. During a deer season when nothing much was happening a grouse presented himself at that a fore mentioned short distance. A head shot sight picture turned into center mess instead. Another time I went snowshoe hare hunting and took my .308 instead of something normal. Still one of my better shots 60 yards on the run, but there was hare hair and what ever else is normally inside a rabbit hanging on the surrounding bushes. a 180 grain Core-Lokt isn't supposed to do that. I was wrong, it did.

Thank you for the links.

Good to know there are more options for jacketed bullets. How was the accuracy with the filed off tips?

The Browning 65s I've seen for sale not only have been priced really high, but have been plain as white toast, while the 53s range from really, really nice to simply stunning. Must be a rarity thing. One of these days, opportunity and resources will come together for me like they did with my Low Wall Hunter .44!

That be one fine shooting stick.

I would be surprised if either or both of my boys don't shoot a few squirrels yet this month with a single shot 357 Mag rifle. They just really like shooting that rifle.

.22 Hornet converted to .22 K-Hornet.

DF

Let us know how it does for them.

I love CZ's. Tell me about your scope base.

Accuracy was fine with the 75grn Speer, and almost as good with the 70grn Sierra. Going by memory I was going with 10.8g H4198 for the 75, and 11.8g H4198 for the 70. Accuracy of the 75 was better, around 1/2" at 40 yards, and just a tad bigger with the 70. The 70 did hit 3/4" higher with the same hold, which is just fine for what I was doing. Those loads are in the lower end of the spectrum. The 25-20 is capable of over 2000fps with that 70grn in a firearm that isn't an antique.

My 25-20 is an 80+ year old pump Remington, and was not the strongest action even when new. As I was set up, swapping the 75 Speer for small game or the 70 Blitz for bigger game was a solid plan.

If I had to do it all over I would go with a fairly stout single shot, and stick with the tipped bullets like the 70 Sierra or 75 grn V-max for everything, or mix in a harder bullet for small game. A stout single shot would let you ramp up the speed, and not have to file off tips reach a certain COAL.

CZ sumthing...................