Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Current .22 Hornet brass

Anyone have a notion of how current Nosler and/or Hornady .22 Hornet brass compares to vintage (circa 2000+-) Winchester.

Anyone try current Winchester?

Thanks.

There is less of it

But I do wish I had a little more to compare them

I've had a lot of trouble with Remington brass. It's almost throwaway. Really disappointing, as that's the only kind of ammo I was able to find for my Springfield 1922 custom.

Actually saw some Winchester for sale online a day or two ago. Their reputation has declined it seems, but if I was in a pinch I’d risk it. The Hornady and Nosler brass I bought for other cartridges has been excellent, so I was mostly wondering how they compared, especially as to capacity, with the old Winny.

There are bright spots in this mess. Just this morning I saw Norma .223 brass in stock for $99.95 per 250. Have plenty of that, and if I run out, the spray and pray guys at my range leave plenty on the ground, though maybe less than formerly.

My Winchester brass (which is all probably at least a decade old) averages about 51.5 grains in weight. My Nosler brass (from when they first offered it a few years ago) averages about 56.5 grains--and five grains is a sizeable difference in this small a case.

I had some Hornady brass around, but could not find any. Might have given it to a friend, as I didn't have much.

These are the weights I have for the 22 hornet with factory new brass.
Hornady 50.9 grains
PPU 54.0 grains
Nosler 56.1 grains
W W Super 53.5 grains

I have some Remington somewhere but could not find it right now.

Hope this Helps

Thanks, John. That helps. Nosler seems to pop up now and again at SPS, but that is a big difference. No wonder their 40gr LilGun data stops at 11.0gr.

Might pop for some Hornady if I see it.

Thanks again, all.

I'm a 22 hornet loony. Brass everywhere. I like winchester as MD says mine is 50-51grains as well. PPU is very heavy at about 54 grains. Remington is lightest at 44-45. The Hornady is about 47 for the most part but has the greatest differences in weight. Don't have any nosler. I have some new winchester and some that's over 10 years old not a major difference in weight. I don't see my winchester supply going away any time soon. I don't shoot em as much as MD though. Pretty much 9 grains in the difference between brands can really play around with hornet handloads.

Good luck and shoot straight y'all

Interesting thread here...... I have no idea about the current crop of 22 Hornet brass but I'm well aware of the idiosyncrasies of minor weight variations of brass or powder with such a small case. Was always too concerned with powder charge weight and not so much on case weight. So for the sake of knowledge I weighed up some real old Remington brass I had here; so old it's headstamp reads " REM - UMC" and got an average of 43.4 gr.. Then I took some new, unfired Winchester & Remington brass that were both purchased circa 1997-98. The Winchester averaged 50.8 gr. & the Remington 44.5 gr.. All based on a 5 case average. Don't shoot much 22 Hornet anymore but was glad to see I still have a lot of components to do so. Lots of once fired brass and plenty of bullets, primers & powder here, also. Might get the old Hornet out come spring.

My experience with Hornet brass is older Win and Rem brass that's fireformed to K-hornet, so can't speak to any of the newer stuff. A few years back, I fireformed a bunch of PPU brass and as mentioned, it is noticeably heavier than Win and Rem. The other observation I've made, is that the Win and Rem brass leaves a pretty noticeable bulge in the case head whereas I get no bulge with PPU brass. The PPU brass does appear to be noticeably harder (stronger?) as well...

Any thoughts on PPU 22 Hornet brass?

To me it definitely seems thicker and possibly harder than the Winchester or Remington brass, it also seems to have less case capacity.

I was loading some neck sized 1x fired PPU brass 22 Hornets up yesterday and I was only able to get 12.5 grains of Lil Gun into these cases as the 13 grain charge I usually use overfilled the cases and was spilling out into the loading block?

41

I like it. I don't believe that Prvi brass was popular in the US until a few years ago. I would like to tour their bullet and brass plants.

These pictures don't really show anything, but when I used to re-form new Hornet brass into K-Hornet stuff, I always had a few losses when using the Hornady cases. I have no experience with Nosler. Touch wood, that has not happened with any Prvi brass. I bought 500 cases, and reformed 300, a few years ago. They were $32 CDN ($23USD) a bag of 100. Truly, a bargain basement price. That only made things sweeter. I have 100 cases on their fourth firing. No issues so far.

I have some and it seems to be a good deal.

Only loaded some of them about 4 times so far.

Steve,

The last K-Hornet I owned (a rechambered Brno) came with dies and some ammo and brass, some fire-formed and some not. Some of the brass was PPU, which worked just fine. Have also had excellent luck with PPU brass (and ammo) in other cartridges, including the 7x57R and 8x57JS.

I think I have said this before, but back in the dim times, Canada imported a lot more European firearms, ammunition and components. Once upon a time, Norma, Lapua and other brass was almost as cheap as Rem and Win. Times changed. I don't remember when I started using PPU brass, but when I tried it, I preferred it to the US made cases. I'm not picking a fight, just recalling what myself and others thought. I swapped out all my Remington 303 and other brass for PPU. I believe that it was more consistent. Of course, like other companies/components, quality issues crop up from time to time. So far, that hasn't been the case with these.

The Prvi plant has a long history of ammunition production, and have learned a few things over the years. Occasionally, I try other brass, but the past two years it's been use what you can get. I have a stockpile of brass from three manufacturers in particular, purchased over several years. One of them is Prvi.

I know this thread is about the Hornet, but I couldn't help this shameless plug for their stuff.



I will continue to buy it until they give me a reason not to. Cheers.

The only other thing I can add regarding my K-Hornet is PRVI brass holds 1/2 gr less Lil Gun loaded to the same level (just below the case mouth) as WW or Rem brass.

Steve R-thanks for the post. I've 200 Hornet cases that'll be changed to K-Hornet this spring. As an aside, I tried and preferred PPU to US brass in my 303s too.

You're welcome. I was happy to throw in my two cents worth.