the hornet and the bator

[mainiac]

Shot this new mold this morning. The front driving band must be sharp, because this boolit cuts perfect, wad-cutter holes in the paper. This boolit didnt shoot as well as my 225438, but it shot better than the 225415. Shot the same load behind all 3 boolits, 9.0-h4227_cci 500_ win case, boolit sized .225 and lubed with felix. The bator weighs 50.5 grs. lubed and checked. If it wasnt for the 3 fliers,(out of a 10 shot group) it would have shot under an inch. Will have to work with this boolit some more. B.T.W., mold casts really well, boolits come out of the mold pretty easy,(dont have to pound on the hinge pin).

[DLCTEX]

Thanks mainiac, I have my Bator mold finally in hand and my Raging Hornet pistol is scheduled to arrive Wed., with the Ruger rifle scheduled to arrive Fri. Brass arrived yesterday but I blew it on the dies I was bidding on and missed them by .50. Haven't been any more I wanted on Ebay since. Am chafing to get on with it, but I'll have to shoot some facory rounds at first. Let us know further results. DALE

[compass will]

I got a bunch cast from my Bator waiting for my H&R. I had to send the receiver and the new 22-250 barrel back. the new barrel was installed so loose rattled when you carried it. I think you could move the end of the barrel 1/2" when the stock was in a vice.

Guess this happens when the smiths that installed the new barrel knew they were about to loose there jobs as the factory was moving to NY after Remington just bought them. Now it's been in the new factory for around 3 weeks... waiting......

[Larry Gibson]

Mainiac

My apologies if you said before but what rifle is your Hornet?

BTW; I have RCBS dies along with Lyman 310 dies. But I really like the Redding bushing die to just neck size the Hornet cases to the base of the seated bullet. The size of bushing is varied so I get .002" neck tension on the bullets without having to use an expander. The Lyman .310 expander (in adaptor for regular press) is used to bell case mouth and the expander portion doesn't touch the inside of the case mouth. A Lee Universal expander works as well.

My current Hornets are a Ruger #3, a Savage M40 and 2 TC Contender barrels; 10" pistol and 21" carbine.

Larry Gibson

[PatMarlin]

What's your favorite hornet shooter out of the group Larry?

[mainiac]

Mainiac

My apologies if you said before but what rifle is your Hornet?

BTW; I have RCBS dies along with Lyman 310 dies. But I really like the Redding bushing die to just neck size the Hornet cases to the base of the seated bullet. The size of bushing is varied so I get .002" neck tension on the bullets without having to use an expander. The Lyman .310 expander (in adaptor for regular press) is used to bell case mouth and the expander portion doesn't touch the inside of the case mouth. A Lee Universal expander works as well.

My current Hornets are a Ruger #3, a Savage M40 and 2 TC Contender barrels; 10" pistol and 21" carbine.

Larry Gibson

My hornet is a 322 stevens. With the frigged up bedding system, and the fact that O.A.L. has to be short anuff for the clip, its a wonder this thing will shoot at all! Guess thats why i like playing with it so much. Only got less than a hundred bucks in the thing,including 10 buck chinaman scope!

[Larry Gibson]

PatMarlin

The #3 shoots 225438s the best but doesn't handle 225415 or the RCBs 55 gr well because of the 16" twist. They shoot quite nicely at 50 yards but not well at all at 100 yards. The 10" Contender has a 14" twist and shoots very good with 225415 at 1850 fps. I pull it out of the back pack and use it for squirrels out to 100 or so yards when long range rock chuck shooting with my 6.5-280. The 21" Contender carbine barrel has a 1-12" twist and also shoots 225415 very well up through 2200 fps. Makes it a reloadable .22 Magnum and is a good walk about squirrel rifle. Although not if you want to eat them unless you only take head shots. We don't eat the ground squirrels anyways. I've just recently got the Savage M40 anly tried one load with 225415 in it (the carbine load) and it shot quite well. I've not had time for any load development with it yet.

Maniac

Rifle like that can many times be the most fun to shoot because of the challenges. Lots of self satisfaction if you get them shooting well. Keep at it.

Larry Gibson