Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles Need help with load data for my 22 K Hornet

Does anyone else here play with a 22 K Hornet? I just aquired a Brno ZKW 465 mini mauser so chambered and now have on hand some fireformed cases, some 35gr plastic tipped bullets and the following suitable (I think) powders: H110, Lil Gun, AA#9, and Unique.

Thanks in advance for the help and intel!

MARK

Just have a regular 22 Hornet, so you have a little more case capacity for powder then me. Of your powders, I use 12.3 gr of Lil Gun, 35 gr bullets and small pistol primers with good success. Gent who gave me the Lil Gun powder had used it for 22 hornet reloading. He claimed the best charge of Lil Gun was around 12.8 gr for him.

Mark: Hodgdons website lists 3 powders for the K-hornet

Heres the Min and Max for 35 grainers.

Min. Max.
4227 11.0 12.3
H110 11.5 12.8
Lilgun 12.5 13.5

Hope this helps...

That helps a LOT! Thanks tons my freind! I had no idea that any of the major players would have data for this old (maybe the oldest, as alluded to in PO Ackley's book) improved cartridges. Exciting and imensley helpful.

MARK

And if we safely get to max loads, the little buzzbomb will run a cool 3100fps + ! Me likey....

Mark my 22K likes Hornady VMAX and Lilgun. It was the most accruate between Lilgun, H110 and IMR 4227. Fastest too.

Despite my screen name, I shoot a standard Hornet. Lilgun powder is the place to start, along with small pistol primers. Hodgdon shows much lower pressures, 32k for Lilgun vs. 42k for other powders, and higher velocity to boot. At these lower pressures, brass lasts a long time.

My rifle is a Ruger M77 sporter (20" barrel) and with 13.0grs of Lilgun under a 45gr Barnes XLC, I get right at 2,900fps and MOA accuracy.

Terrific! Thanks for the replies. I just last night loaded a few each with 13.0,13.3 and 13.5gr of Lil Gun and 35gr Vmax's. I will go shoot them and report back.

I've been fiddling with a Ruger No. 3 K-Hornet (re-barreled and re-stocked) for a few years now. When I first started loading for it I was going back and forth with H110, W296, H4227 and Lil Gun. I got okay results, but was least impressed with Lil Gun. I seemed to always get a flier or two (with all powders tried) that would drive me nuts. At the time, I settled on the 40 Vmax and W296 which seemed the most consistent of the powders I tried.

Last year I decided to give Lil Gun another try after surfing the web at length trying to work out the issues with these fliers. I had read that you can't put enough Lil Gun in the case to cause pressure issues and better results are achieved near the top end. After carefully working up, I ended up at 14.5 grains of Lil Gun which fills the case to 1/16" from the top and seat the bullets long so it's just sitting on the powder.

I know that 13 grains of Lil Gun with 40's is a popular load for the regular Hornet, and according to what was posted above, I may be over max, but it cured the fliers and shoots outstanding. I've only chrono'd this load once but was seeing just over 3400 which seems optimistic, so I probalby should re-verify. 5-10 shot groups are ragged holes at 100 yards with no pressure signs. I'm not one to lean on my loads, and was very hesitant to go there, but in this case it really brought this rifle/cartridge to life.

10 shot 100 yd. group on left and 5 shot group on right:

I use 14.0gr of Lil'Gun and 40gr V-Max getting around 3150 fps out of a 20" bbl. I found problems with the 35 gr and Lil'Gun aside from the fact the thing has a bc of a golf ball. More powder near the top produced less velocity. Weird.

Mark,

I ran a K-Hornet for a while and in general found an extra grain of Li'l Gun over "standard Hornet" charges worked with 35-40 grain bullets.

I've also done some primer testing and found small rifle magnum primers tend to work best with Li'l Gun, rather than the small pistol primers that often work better with other Hornet-suitable powders.

John,

Thank you for that. I neither have nor have much hope of locating in these trying times any small rifle magnum primers. Should I just try the best I have in CCI BR-4 small rifle match primers?

I've tried a variety of both rifle and pistol primers (including the BR-4) and all have worked, though I primarily use the Rem 6-1/2 small rifles. I don't believe I've tried any magnum primers - I have some so may have to do more comparisons...