Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters 45 grain bullets in the 22 Hornet

I bought a bunch of those dogtown 40 gr bullets for my first prairie dog trip.
Good luck hitting them at 200 with the wind you will often find while hunting them.

When the wind picks up I switch to a 243 and a 25 WSSM. The Hornet should be good in the mornings and a bit quieter so they don't scamper into their holes as quickly.

I just got back from town and had some Purolator and amazon parcels sitting on the front step. I guess the delivery guys work Easter Monday.

I missed the UPS guy. His parcel had items in it that needed a signature. The UPS parcel has more of these inexpensive, but potent Speer 224s in it. I hope my wife will be around, I am off to the range tomorrow morning and that's when UPS has rescheduled the delivery.

I haven't seen a Speer bullet for sale in a long time.

I usually shoot the Rem. 46 gr. hp over 11 gr. of 4227. Kills gophers very nicely. I also have the Horn. 35 gr. probably with the same load.. I like them both. My principal use for the Hornet now days is shooting gophers, p. dogs, and various pests at fairly close range.
For a few summers I shot groundhogs with the Hornet, .222 and .22-250. Depended on the size of the field which rifle I picked up.

Jealous of you guys with PD’s in your back yard.

I’ve seen them in NM on several Pronghorn hunts. I could have been talked out of chasing those goats, if diverted to a good PD hunt.

Maybe one of these days.

DF

Shot a 222 Rem years ago and as I recall there were .223" bullet's designed for the Hornet. Never tried them in 222. Seems they were either 40gr or 45 gr, maybe both.

Some of those are .223, not .224. I’m shooting up the older .223’s, fireforming Hornet to K-Hornet.

Don’t think the .223’s will be that accurate in a .224 bore. I’ll know pretty soon.

DF

That's why I referred to them as "Whiffle Bullets", not much good "at distance", however, I suspect most of the users for those bullets aren't using them for prairie dogs, but groundhogs at shorter distances, where it's not as windy all the time. I live in Kentucky, where we don't get the wind they do in South Dakota, for example. I've been on PD shoots where I had to use 68gr. Hornadys to hit prairie dogs at 200 yards, as lighter bullets couldn't buck the wind. You can't use those in a Hornet, though, which is the basis of this thread, anyway..........

I have the Kimber dialed in with factory 45 grainers. Now to try some of the Nosler's. I have Lilgun, 296, and 4227. We will see how these perform.

I find it interesting that so many .22 Hornet users don't (or won't) use the newer bullets with far higher BCs offered today for shooting small varmints like ground squirrels and prairie dogs. As I mentioned already, plastic-tips in the 40-grain range at 3000+ fps turn the old round into a genuine 250-300 yard prairie dog round--how far depending on the amount of wind.

And yes, using the Hornet to "start" on a PD town does result in them staying up out of their holes longer, due to a milder report. But after considerable experimentation (I get to shoot PDs every year) I eventually came to the conclusion that the .17 HMR worked even better as a starter round, especially with the A17 ammo designed for the Savage semi-auto. In my CZ 452 it gets right around 2800 fps, and works fine out to 200 yards--which is where the .22 Hornet doesn't even work as well with "traditional" blunt bullets in the 45-grain range at about the same muzzle velocity--because they drop more, and drift more in the wind, and produce an even milder report.

The .17 Hornady Hornet works even better than .22 Hornet with plastic-tips, one reason it's been my primary PD round for ranges out to 300+ yards for over a decade now.

Might also mention that beyond 300 I also use much milder rounds than some have mentioned here, mostly the .204 Ruger out to 500 yards, though a fast-twist .223 often gets used in windier conditions. The only time I go to a 6mm round anymore is beyond 500, where my 13-pound 6XC built by Charlie Sisk has worked very well with plastic-tipped, high-BC bullets in the 100-grain range.

Using traditional blunt 45-46 grain .22 Hornet bullets at traditional 1950s muzzle velocities seems kind of like using 160-grain round-nose bullets in the milder 6.5mms (whether the 6.x55, .260 Remington or the dreaded 6.5 Man-Bun) just because they're traditional....

Semi-related question: Is the Ruger 77/22 a good and accurate 22 Hornet rifle?

Better choices?

Despite 60+ years on this earth, I've never owned a 22 Hornet and need to fix that.

Thanks, Guy

The one I had was a "good" rifle, but it wasn't accurate.

Good to know. Thanks!

Don't know about that, but the 77/17 in .17 Hornady Hornet tends to be very accurate.

I suspect a LOT of Ruger .22 Hornets became far more accurate after Bill Ruger finally bought hammer-forging machinery in the early 1990s, and the company started making their own barrels. This is because ALL the Ruger rifles I purchased after that shot on average far better after that--including the Ruger No. 1B I got directly from the factory in 2003. Did some experimenting with "benchrest" handloading techniques with that rifle, and it ended up putting five 40-grain Ballistic Tips into less than half an inch at 100 yards.

Thanks John!

Doesn't look like Ruger is making them right now, but I can look for a used one.

Ya, the 375 H&H Tropical and the 7mm Rem Mag Number One rifles I've got are quite accurate.

Regards, Guy

I'd pass on the 22 Hornet. If you want a Ruger, take John's advise and go with the 17 Hornet. I have a CZ in 17H. The 17H pretty much makes the 22H obsolete.

I do have a #1 in 22 K Hornet, but that's another story.

Not real hard to make a K-Hornet out of a Hornet. I did it, first try.

Here's a link to my CZ 527 project. Lots of good info on loads, JB wrote some really good stuff (no surprise).

Also a good bit of B.S.; my threads tend to wander off in that direction...

This CZ has a .224" bore with 16 twist.

https://www.24hourcampfire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php/topics/11390994/1

DF

It's been awhile up here too. For whatever reason, Speer made a bit of a comeback. One online store I frequent has 30+ Speer bullets listed in stock. Prices are reasonable too, which makes a difference. I got the last two boxes of 46 gr .224 bullets they had. More are on order. The title of this thread concerns 45 gr bullets in the Hornet however.

X-Reload in Canada sells the 45 Speers (SP-1023) for $20.49/100. Midway has them on for $13.99/100, regularly $15.99/100 The attraction is the price.

The cheapest 40 gr. .224 bullet up here is the Speer that also retails for $20.49/100 or .205 apiece. Next is the Hornady 40 gr. VMax. They are almost twice as expensive at $95/250 or about .38 cents apiece. I don't hunt ground squirrels - we don't have them - but for anything else, the price difference isn't worth it for me.

It could be that Speers are hard to find because shooters are constantly buying them up. I know my main supplier goes through a ton of them.

46gr Speer FP’s are on sale at Midway right now for 33% off, $11.89/100. Just ordered 3 boxes.