Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles Tell me about the .222Rem....

I've had this lovely little 222 for a long time. It will always have a place in the safe. It began life as a Zastava barrel and action, but came with a stock that could only be described as ugly as a hat full of assho.., The stock was tossed and replaced by and American Black walnut one. IT shoots 40gn Varmageddons at 3,600 and kills foxes and feral dogs deader than charity

Well the Howa .222Rem described in the OP now resides in my safe. A call to Midway this morning and I have 200 Starline Brass cases and 500 Speer 50gr TNT HP's on the way. Hopefully by next weekend I'll be able to run a few rounds through it.

wonderful cartridge.
I have 3 also a 222 mag, 223 (3) 220 Swift (2) and a 22 HP.
accurate w/no recoil.

The 6mm-222 and 25-222 are fun 222 progeny. I have both on lefty mini Mausers.

Currently running two

222 mag.......20-222

Both run real well on H322

you can down size 223 to 222 real easily. I've necked 223 down to 222 for some friends over the years, and loaded it for them, and it worked just fine.. only need the 222 Die set.

Good choice on the TNTs. I pick those up in the thousand round cannister, 3 or 4 of them at a time. Same with the 52 HP Speer, and the 55 SP. Pretty cheap when you get the birthday notification from Midway.

I have sized down a few .223's to .222 but have not got them loaded yet. Will try to get out this weekend for a little shooting. Mostly don't want to confuse the head stamps and possibly shoot one in my .223 - so ordering some Starline was an easy decision.

So how does the brass turn out when making .222 from .223 as I haven't done it yet? Do the resulting cases last a lot of firings without the necks splitting, and is the neck thickness right etc?

You are correct.....Starline ready to go brass at $.040 each is a bargain

Correct headstamp so the newbee or rookie shooter has no confusion

Free fast shipping & no tax (shhhh)

https://www.starlinebrass.com/222-remington

Its called Annealing it...

If your rifle won't chamber them, due to neck thickness, then neck turn them.

Rifles I've done it in, have chambered in the rifles my buddies had.

or build 'no turn neck' barrels

P/dogs don't care

I owned a BSA CF2 with a heavy barrel many years ago in .222 and it was and still is the most accurate rifle I have ever shot. My load was 52gr Sierra over BL-C (2).

The Deuce is the shizz.

Wouldn't a 223 be the same, just loaded with 222 load data?

John, it would indeed.


But its like loading down a 7mm Mag to 7x57 specs.

It will NEVER be a 7x57...theres a definite 'panache' factor involved.

More than once a younger member of our hunting club has come up to me which I’m testing some loads with one of my 222s and asked what I was shooting. When I answered “222 Remington” they asked, “what is THAT?”

Then when I explained that their AR in 5.56 evolved from it, it was a lightbulb moment. 😁

In a similar situation I get quizzical looks when asked about a short action Rem 700 I'm shooting and I say it's a 250 or 300 Savage.

I had a 222 back when I was 14. Massacred the prairie dogs in Montana, utterly amazing compared to my other Pdog rifle a 22. It and the 30-30 were the first rifles I loaded for. In fact I still use the same dies to load 223 shells today. They came from Herters.

I’m preparing for a PD shoot. My 222 is a 722 Remington that’s been converted to 700 BDL configuration. I was looking over old notes and saw that my favorite load shoots ~ .3 MOA. I saw on other notes that same load shot almost 1.75 MOA. The difference:
The accurate groups were shot in new Nosler brass. The large groups were shot with 1950’s vintage Remington brass that looked liked they had been shot many times. I suspect the old brass necks were quite brittle, they had never been annealed.
I’ll be annealing brass before I load.

Well I'm in the Panache school of thought...

I refer to my several 7x57s... as 7mm Mauser...

I refer to my 7mm Rem Mag as a 7mm Mauser wannabe...wishin don't make it so.