Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles .22 cal 55 Hornady

Which 55 Hornady is it that everyone has good luck with?

My Tikka SL doesn’t like the 75s and 77s near as much as it does the light stuff, looking for something available that’s a little tougher than the Vmaxes.

Thanks

I’ve had good luck with the bevel base with cannulure, flat base with cannulure, and flat base without cannulure. They are all accurate and perform reliably on deer, pigs, and coyotes at 223 speeds. The HP version is very accurate put terrible in the terminal performance category.

I'm betting that you're thinking of the 22 caliber, 55 grain Spire Point bullet which Hornady makes with and without a cannelure ring.
Here are the Hornady links to those two bullets:
.224/55 SP w/ cannelure
.224/55gr Spire Point no cannelure

Thank you. I was thinking those were the ones but wasn’t sure.

That's a great bullet for anything from varmints to deer

Or elk if you're Scenarshooter.

I’ve never used them, but remembered reading stuff on here for years about them. Wanted to make sure I was getting the right ones.

Rifle has shot about everything .5-.75” from the 65 Gameking on down. Can’t seem to make it shoot any of them bad. 55 Vmaxes have shot scary good with about any powder you can think of, looking for something a little more robust though, while still being easy to come by.

75 ELDs and 77 TMKs have done decent, but it’s very picky with the heavier bullets. I’ve struggled to keep 5 shot groups under 1”, while the lighter stuff will do 10 under that regularly when I’m having a good day.

The Kid has it right again. And Scenarshooter isn't the only one to have killed elk with that 55 grainer...hint.

Pics or it never happened!!😉

It happens from time to time. Just remember to shoot them through the front half. 😁

I like the 55 grain Spire Point. Some of my reloading is trying to get inexpensive accuracy. I’m not a total cheap ass, and still get quality like Berger and Sierra, but it’s nice to have 13¢ bullets to shoot over 32¢ when you shoot a lot. Cheap FMJ bullets have never been accurate enough to my standards but the 55 grain SP Hornady are not too bad.

Hey off season stuff... Since the end of deer season, I've been keeping myself entertained and in the swing, shooting bulk Speer 55 gr SPs ( the thousand bullet package for $100) along with the 52 grain HP and the 50 grain TNT both in bulk, and the 55 grain Hornady.

Been shooting them out to 300 and 400 yds, at Steel Targets, using both small pistol and small rifle primers...

for powder and loads, I've been using 8 to 9.5 grains of Unique, 10 to 12 grains of Alliant Steel, 12.5 of Blue Dot.. recently for just a change, I've switched that over to 14 grains of Alliant 2400, and also both 4198s... from 14 to 15.5 grains of powder....Since Late November, that has been almost 2000 rounds down range, in 4 different 223s....all bolt actions...

Keeps me entertained, yet is not burning thru powder, & keeping barrels from wearing out....keeping that trigger finger and that shooting eye tuned up, and is a great stress releaver.....

all of those bullets were 10 cents per shot....powder and primers were bought under Trump's Administration...

under 10 grs of Unique, I'm averaging 750 to 800+ rounds for a pound of powder... and I'm sitting of 15 pounds of so, of it.. alone...

What's not to like...

Those are my yardage limits for me too when shooting my 223 bolt. I recently changed my shooting to no less than 200 yards. Before, I would spend plenty of time at 100 to zero, test loads, and practice. 200 yard groups show me what I’m doing wrong. I find that shooting too much paper is boring and might even screw me up. That’s when I take it to 300-400 yards, sometimes farther, and pick off small rocks on the range berms or the steel gongs there. Sometimes I take a dozen or so rocks out there and set them up. The sound of a good hit on a golf ball or baseball sized rock is just as satisfying as a hit on steel. It can leave a cloud of dust a different color than when it hits the dirt and that’s just as cool. Much better practice than paper targets and since it’s so much fun for me, I have to try to be cheap about or it will finish me financially. I go through a few thousand rounds a year doing that a few times a week in just the 223. Like you said, great stress reliever. Maybe the best reliever out there for me. Better than drugs or drinking could ever be.

My dad left me a lot of Unique he used in the pistols. I have at least 10 pounds of it. I haven’t tried it yet, but hear more and more about people using it so I’m planning on it soon.

Good timing...

our local range is a large one.. but not the traffic I've seen down in metro Phoenix when I've been down in AZ..
our backstop is a mountain side.. out to 600 yds on the longest range.. steel from 300 to 600...

They won't let people post stuff beyond 300 yds...and get kind of pissy when folks are shooting at rocks etc out there...

Sadly, its usually California types, who get out there and are shooting past 300 yds and using tracer ammo, and they'll start a brush fire in the summer heat.. freak out and take off without telling anyone, so they don't get in trouble...

hence the rules against shooting at rocks etc, or anything else...

I don't know how many times I've heard these clowns from CA, come up with their AKs etc, and start blasting every thing, to include target stands into tooth picks... and some one says something and the response is "who cares? its Oregon!".. Not ALL Californians are that way, but the few that are, kind of gives the rest a bad reputation...

More than once I've said something to them and they are ready to get into a fist fight real quick...always when it will be 4 against one...
I don't back down, but I point out that there is a Police range, that usually has some level of LEOs on it a lot of the time...
so if they want to start something and spend the week in jail... then feel free to start something...

the military and a dad who was a Marine.. " once a Marine always a Marine" kind of guy.. taught me not to piss my pants when threatened by some dickheads... other military guys are going to come back and be a dickhead on a range...

sadly California yoyos, give other good CA people bad reps up here...

I’ve shot a BUNCH of stuff with the plain old flat base hornady SP. It is definitely tougher than any polymer tipped bullet I’ve shot. It blows up small critters pretty well, but will generally be found under the hide on the far side of a deer. I’ve got a few thousand of the “boat tails” with cannelure but haven’t started shooting them yet. I have to admit I have lost a coyote or two through the years with the 55 SP’s…poor shooting on my part, obviously. I always felt like if I’d been using a ballistic tip I might have gotten those coyotes. I feel like the BT’s are more lethal when you “hit around the edges”. But that’s just my opinion.

55 horn sp is a good standard bullet in 223 rem. Both cannilure and non cannilure... Just plain reliable performance at 3200-3300 fps

I have used them accurately dispatch all vermin from ground squirrels, skunk to yotes. Different buddies of mine did some deer and one also did in a black bear with his 22-250.

We shoot a bolt gun load with the 55g Hornady sp with the cannalure at 3450 fps, Hot load of benchmark and the cci 450 puts the bullets in a tiny ragged hole, bullet seated very very near the lands, Rem 700's in 12T love this load.

I use the Hornady 55 Sp. H335/ Win748