Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Ross Seyfried on the 22 Hornet

Good article played with the hornet for a time, moved on to the 222. Might try the hornet with some pistol primers....

Thanks for the article! Definitely gives me some ideas to try

In my experience with half-a-dozen Hornets, both standard and K, pistol primers tend to work best (when they work) with "traditional" Hornet powders such as H110 and IMR4227, and traditional blunt bullets.

With plastic-tipped spitzers in the 40-grain range Li'l Gun and 300 MP tend to shoot far more accurately with the CCI 450--though they also tend to work best in single-shot rifles, where the bullets can be seated closer to the lands. This includes my latest Hornet, a BSA Martini-actioned .22 rimfire target rifle converted to centerfire and rechambered. The bore is naturally slightly undersized compared to "modern" .22 Hornets made for .224 bullets--which also usually have 1-14 rifling twists. Though not always. My T/C Contender carbine barrel had a 1-12 twist.)

The BSA's bore is not only slightly undersized, but has the typical 1-16 rimfire rifling twist. Yet it shoots the same handloads worked up for more "modern" Hornets just as well, such as 40-grain Ballistic Tips/V-Maxs with Li'l Gun.

What would you suggest as a starting load with 300MP in the K and the standard Hornet?

Alliant lists 11.7 grains as maximum with the 40-grain Hornady V-Max in the standard Hornet (they don't list any data for the K-Hornet), which in my experiences serves as a starting load.

With 40-grain bullets I regularly use 13.0 grains in the standard Hornet and 13.5 in the K-Hornet, with zero problems and fine accuracy. It's a little slower-burning than Li'l Gun.

Here's the photo that gunzo mentioned. I posted it on a Seyfried thread in 2011, but that link has died. Here it is from a new photo site:


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The image is a scan from a photo in The American Handgunner of March/April 1979, page 29. American Handgunner later used the photo for its subscription ads. The original photo was made by Ray Odorica.

In the 2011 thread, Campfire member gmoats wrote that the photo showed Seyfried wearing his "lucky shirt", which he wore in competitions during the period 1978 through 1980 when we was US national IPSC champion.

--Bob

my 2 CENTS worth cci Bench rest 4 is my go to with ww296 and nosler 45gr hornet bullets .