Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Canada What small fry cartridges do you shoot?

Nothing fancy here. I do have a 12" barreled contender with K Hornet chambering. I was shooting a plastic tipped fragile (varmint) 35 gr bullet as a pretty good clip for such a small case. I may get a 22 K long gun if I can snag one. Nice setup Steve. Be Well, RZ.

Thanks. I wish we could hunt up here with handguns. Your Contender sounds like a useful, fun thing!

32ACP 351 and 401 Winchester

.221 Fireball in a CZ that is spooky accurate not much muzzle blast and 40 grain slugs just bang flop groundhogs. Just started load work up in a .222 10" Contender. Got a 4 X Leopold mounted last week and initial load work up seems promising. I'm looking forward to figuring out the drop at 200 yards which is the longest I'm likely to have where I hunt.

218 Bee, 22 Mag, 222 Rem 204...

Since I got my CZ in 22 Mag the 218Bee(Marlin 1894CL) has a new home and I gave my 22H (Savage 219) to my niece for her first varmint rifle. So just a couple left.

22 Mag
222 Rem
20 Practical
22-204
6mm-204
25-204
22-250

Nice. Do you have a favourite from the list?

TCR 87 .22 Hornet reamed out to .22 K Hornet. Just getting started and fire forming cases. Learned the hard way that Sellier and Belloit .22 Hornet cases have smaller flash holes than US brass.

Prvi brass is good. I bought 200 cases, pictured up top, and have had no failures.

PP and Winchester brass are the only two brands I have ever fireformed into the K. I've been lucky.

The smallest center-fire cartridge that I shoot is .357 magnum.

While I have a 1978 Blackhawk revolver as well, I most like my newer Marlin 1894C in .357 Magnum.

- It's light, handy, short (18 1/2" bbl.) and traditional with two barrel bands.
- You can shoot cast bullet .38 special equivalent hand loads in it for fun and small game.
- You can shoot 1800 FPS / 158 grain JSP hand loads in it for whitetail deer.

A very versatile cartridge in a carbine.

They are very handy. I have a Model 92 357 lever that I use it for pests. I got a sale on 125 gr jacketed HP bullets many years ago. They aren't particularly accurate, but do quite well at short range.

A cartridge that I think might have been really useful is a wildcat that I probably re-invented while messing around at the reloading bench one day.

I took a nickeled once-fired .38 Special case and reformed it in a 7.63 Mauser pistol resizing die, using a .38 special shell holder.
Then, using the other dies I loaded a 100 grain Speer Plinker round nose with a half jacket.
I used a light 7.63 Mauser load of Unique in it.
It Looked like it would have made a really good cartridge for a small frame Remington Rolling Block, as well as a snappy Blackhawk revolver cartridge.
A .357 magnum case would have been even better.

Anyway, having no firearm to use my new creation in, I was off to the weekend gun show, with it tucked in my watch pocket. I ran into my good friend, Tim Falconer (now deceased) who was a collector of local note in his day.

Since he had a Cartridge Collector display this time, I sat with him at his table. When he wasn't looking I placed my wildcat at the end of a row of cartridges that were standing on the table.

Later, I asked him about those cartridges and he rattled off their history until he came to mine, whereupon he said something like "What the fork?"
He liked it so I gave it to him.
Fun times.

saddlegun;
Good evening to you sir, I hope the day was decent for you folks on the east side of the big hills and all who you care about are well.

The cartridge you describe was made by a member here Digital Dan - I want to say he called it the .30 Wheezer or Sneezer?

It was at the same time he was showing us his work with a .22 rimfire reloadable center fire as I recall.

If I can find the thread I'll put it up - it looks really, really useful to me as one could load lead bullets or buckshot for an overgrown BB gun sort of load.

Thanks for sharing your experiment and twigging my memory.

All the best.

Dwayne

saddlegun;
Top of the morning to you sir, I hope the day's breaking bright and clear for you folks.

I've reached out to Dan and he's graciously found a link for you or anyone interested in the path he took.

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/10716355/1

More discussion on it.

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/16035324/anyone#Post16035324

A public thanks for the links to Dan and good luck to anyone embarking on a worthy project.

All the best.

Dwayne

Thanks Dwayne. There aren't many Canadians who reload though. Of those who do, I hope saddlegun finds this information useful. Dan often posts his results in the Ask the Gunwriters forum.

My thanks to BC30cal for his efforts.
However, the aforementioned wildcat cartridge that I made up was a long time ago, and was just for fun. I have no interest in revisiting it at this point in my life, or creating a firearm to fire it.

Steve Redgwell, I think that you are very much mistaken when you state that there are not many Canadians who reload. There must be many or else there would not be so many Canadian sources to acquire reloading supplies and tools from.

Practically every decent gun shop in every Canadian city sells tools and accessories, powder, primers, and bullets, and there are several on-line retailers that specialize in it as well. Cabelas and Bass Pro stock reloading supplies and tools as well.

Hunters and occasional shooters don't reload for the most part, but there are many other shooters who do.

I hope you're right, saddlegun. I have posted a new article at my site, 303british.com - for reloaders of jacketed, flat base bullets who don't like the resistance they feel when seating jacketed bullets in cases.

saddlegun;
Good afternoon sir, I hope the day's still bright and sunny on your side of the hills and that all things remotely in your control are going according to plan.

Thanks for the reply and further clarification. For sure while we're perhaps at a point where this or that arm is not in our "want" list anymore, I like to read and learn about what other folks are doing.

Then too, one never knows what drops in one's lap these days as there's sometimes folks getting out of shooting or just safe cleaning to afford the next shooting venture.

For instance I didn't think I needed a .357 Mag carbine... until I did, so I got one and can't figure out why it took so long for me to get one. Ditto a .223 too somehow - but yet another case of too soon old and too late smart in my case!

On the topic of reloading, perhaps it is somewhat of a regional thing too? I'm not sure really, but here in the south Okanagan it's not easy to find a sporting goods store that stocks "odd cartridges" so most of the shooters I know reload. Now not all are certifiable rifle loonies like I apparently am, but then some are way, WAY more into it than I am too so I don't feel that bad, you know?

All the best once again sir.

Dwayne

BC30cal, I load .44-40, not so much because I like reloading this cartridge, or because I like to stuff them full of black powder, but because it's the only way that I can shoot my rifle.

I got a good deal on a plain round-barrelled Winchester Miroku short rifle so I grabbed it.
It would have been easier if it had been in .45 Colt but .44-40 was the original cartridge and that's what it was in. I could take it or leave it. I took it and I'm glad I did.

In this Covid world, the old "odd" cartridges like 44-40, 38-40, 32-20, 25-20, 38-55, which had previously had limited availability if you looked around for them, have disappeared everywhere. Just before this prices soared to $100.00 CAD a box for .44-40 !

However, Starline brass remains available from several sources, and I bought a Lee 200 grain bullet mold for my .44-40.

Also, even brass for a .25-20 rifle has become pure unobtanium, but Starline .32-20 brass, which is available, can easily be formed into .25-20.

So reloading may be your only option if you want to shoot the "odd" cartridges, as I am sure you already know.

Well, I have my Browning Low Wall Hornet, which doesn’t get out enough because I keep messing with other stuff, and a couple of .223s, which probably shouldn’t count. Also have a Low Wall .44 mag that’s a pleasure to shoot at full throttle or idled back with Trail Boss. Have been looking at .357 rifles, and am pretty close to getting a Henry SS and sending the barrel to Mike Bellm for “improving”.

The latest is below. Not a cartridge, but definitely a small fry, using between 15 and 30gr of powder with a .36 RB. Unfired as yet, as I’m concentrating on turkeys right now, but I have all the goodies ready.

Pedersoli Cook Pistol, an authentic reproduction of one from days of yore.....