Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters What's the scoop on the new 22 ARC?

that is buying the hype. the BC of a bullet doesn't really matter much till you get to 400 ish yards. a 22-250 isn't considered a long range cartridge, its typical twist is 14, that means bullets 60 grains and less. just by twist rate alone its not a comparison to the 22 ARC. its apples and oranges. throat the 22-250 correctly and speed up the twist and its going to romp a 22 arc. The new cartridge designs, like the creed, and PRC etc. are made with heavy bullets and the rifles have barrel twists to handle it.

hornady acts like they figured something out that the rest of us don't already know. Probably pretty easy because its the seal team 6 wanna bee's who buy into this stuff. I could have predicted the valkerie would flop, for one that chopped off the 6.8 spc case and lessened its capacity. They put a throat in it a mile long to take those heavy bullets and twisted the crap out of the rifling. its ONLY going to shoot heavy bullets. at least hornady looked at this and thought lets use the PPC/grendel case that way we don't have to shorten it like the 6.8 case.

The reason for the hesitancy to go down this road and fully embrace the PPC/grendel case is because it was thought in the past there would be a problem with broken bolts. in the mean time we have lightweight AR 10's and WSSM ar 15's for those that want more power. Look I love powerful cartridges, I agree the 223 is weak and not full house, but the 22 ARC isn't anything special. ho hum.

In regards, to the 22-250 and your comments about it. Boat tail bullets have an advantage past 300 yards. The 22-250 is a long range varmint round capable of hits out past 400 yards. You are thinking cartridge first and not bullet/magazine length first. The majority of consumers don't handload or build custom rifles with special throats and twists. Think factory built rifles and uppers shooting factory ammo which are SAAMI spec.

And that is where I am. I have a 22-250, or it used to be. Then it became a 22-243AI. It is time for another resurrection. It can be anything on a .473 case head, heck it could be anything at all from a 222 to a 340 Wea mag with just a change of the bolt head. But I am not going there.

7.5 twist, 22-250, 22-250AI, 22 Creed-which is just another form of the 22-250AI. Probably going to be the Creed as, at this time brass is more available. Might have a 6mm-284 barrel built also and switch them out occasionally. I have a bunch of 6-284 rounds sitting around and dies, since I tossed that barrel and turned the rifle into a 7-08.

Varmint hunting occurs inside 400 yards for most situations.
Varmint hunting has been proven to be effective with fragmenting light jacket bullets that work with high velocity.
This is where the 22/250 220 swift cartridges came from.

If your ticket is to shoot at varmints at 500 yards plus, the cartridge will have little to do with your success imo.

It is becoming more and more target (live or not)shooting and less about hunting when it comes to cartridge design. But good for Hornady not sitting on their hands. It’s a terrific company regardless if it meets my needs or not.

The shoulder is too sloped to be a PPC. It more resembles the 220 Beggs Russian. Gene Beggs designed the 220 Russian to not need all the steps of fire forming and work that the PPC takes to load. It looks like Hornady have legitimized the Beggs version of the 220 Russian. It's a great little cartridge. I chambered one in a 12 tw. Shilen using a friend's Beggs reamer and Hornady supplied the dies.

If I was in the business of manufacturing and selling factory rifles, I'd be thanking my lucky stars for Hornady.

Yep, what it comes down to in the end is a way for manufacturers to make more money. One route would be to just use faster twist barrels on rifles in the current cartridges like the 22-250 and build factory ammo for those guns, but that's probably not going to sell as many new rifles as some hip new chambering. Plus folks who may not read so well would be back at the gun shop complaining about why the box of 88 ELDs won't hit the target straight in their 14 twist Remington 788. Instead, market the idea that a new chambering will fill some niche, whether real or imagined, and the boys at the gun shop will whip out their credit cards for a new rifle. Or at least that's the gun and ammo company's goal.

well being is the parent case of ppc is a 220 Russian....

Exactly.

Just published an article in Sports Afield about the recent "shortages" of ammo and brass. One of the major reasons is so many "niche" cartridges (many of which are basically duplicates of already existing rounds) have appeared. In fact since 2000 50+ new American factory cartridges ABOVE .22 caliber have appeared.

All are designed primarily to sell more rifles--but there's no way the ammo factories can supply enough brass (much less loaded ammo) to supply the customers who buy the rifles, especially since a lot of recent production is for military markets.

The .22 ARC is the same case as the 6mm ARC which is a improved 6mm PPC.

Basically the ARC cases are very similar to Grendel cases but have the shoulder moved back .030. Maybe because AA has tried to patent the 6.5 Grendel and Hornady choose skip any drama. Basically the same capacity.

All are based on the .220 Russian with sharper shoulder mover forward and less body taper on the 0.440 diameter case head.

I made quite a lot of a .22 Grendel, which we called the .22 WYO, and it works great in the AR-15 platform.

The G2 platform kind of made it unneeded for our customers.

For those wanting to shoe horn in a bit more "power" in the AR15 this is going to be a legit solution, much like the 6mm ARC is legit.

Right now the factory offerings are using a fast expanding VT bullet that would not be my choice for deer or antelope. For the handloader the .22 ARC with a 75/80 gr bullet is a better choice than 5.56mm for general deer/antelope hunting.

Down sides would be the limited factory loads now and no PMAGs.



Mulie @ 400yds

I've enjoyed listening to their long form podcasts. It's interesting to hear straight from the people who designed them what their thought process was and why they did what they did.

I agree. I want to hear it from the horse's mouth. I am tired of listening to a filter on information. Podcasts have really helped people tell their own story instead of someone else doing it with their prejudices.

Eh. The last thing I wanna do is listen to an engineer drone on for 45 minutes. Podcasts are primarily populated by self-centered wind bags turning oxygen into noise.

When you say this, I hear, "I don't like engineers. They think they know everything." That is your bias leaking into the conversation. Podcasts allow a message to get out which is not filtered by someone else.

I also agree not all podcasts are good ones.

Yeah Hornady had to change the 6 ARC because it was too close to the Grendel. You can make a Grendel out of a 7.62x39 brass case. It spawned the PPC and Beggs 220 R. All that family are decent cartridges.

Mule Deer could give a good account of the different variations and the history of the various cartridges spawned by the parent case. It's a longish list and they're all pretty good. My mention of the Beggs Russian was because the 22ARC isn't exactly new.

The parent case for the PPC's is the 220 Russian (220R). The Grendel cases came several decades later.

Engineers have a reputation for being linear thinking bores with poor communication skills. That's why I don't want to listen to them (or anyone, for that matter) talk for 45 minutes.

Interesting they'd bring this to market around the same time as they're working with SAAMI to bring out the 22 Creedmoor in January. I've seen boxes of factory loaded Hornady 22 Creedmoor floating around at shows and demos already.

I hear you. I think many engineers and physicians are borderline autistic. Brilliant minds with poor communication skills. You can still learn a great deal from them if you give them a chance.

I enjoy listening to engineers that are also enthusiasts much more than some promoter/user/Youtuber who simply thinks a new product is "sweet" or "badass" but has no depth of knowledge regarding what really makes it special, why it was created, or how the product went from concept to reality. Unfortunately, that side of the coin is prevalent all over the internet. The behind-the-scenes table of actual product creators is much more rare, even if it might be a bit dry at times.