.221 Fireball with the Bator

[waco]

Finally got around to loading up some of the new Bator boolits in the .221
Cast of pure Lino, sized to .225", and lubed with CR and Hornady GC
Rem. 6 1/2 primers and 6gr. Unique
95002

Old school primers, and old school powder for this test.
95004
95005

6gr. Of Unique is the load. 1.700" COL
All boolits weighed between 49.2 and 49.5gr.
95006

The mold is a 6 cav. And works like a champ.


Oh yeah. CCI LRP trays work great for boolit holders.
95007
95008

Hope to get out in the next couple weeks to test these and some. .308 rounds I have been working on.
95010
.223 next to the Fireball for comparison.
Oh yeah. Big shout out to Grumpa for the brass. Killer product at an awesome price!
Thanks again Matt.

[cummins05]

Way cool did I understand your post right they are pure lino if so I guess you could shoot them prettyfast

[waco]

Yeah, pure lino. These should be around 1750fps

[quilbilly]

If you don't think you need them to be that frangible, I shoot the Bators in my Hornet at 1950 fps. with an alloy that is approximately 50 pure, 50 lino with a little tin added. No problems.

[Dale53]

I have both a Ruger #3 in .221 (re-chambered .22 Hornet) and a .221 Fireball TC Contender barrel. A really nice squirrel load is the Lyman 225415 sized at .225" (you could also use the Bator bullet) ahead of 4.0 grs of Unique. They will both group in ½" at fifty yards. I have linotype in some quantity and don't mind using it with these bullets at all (they take so little:mrgreen:). I prefer Hornady crimp on gas checks.

FWIW
Dale53

[GabbyM]

221 Fireball is a sweet round.

While shopping around on the CZ site previous to buying a 222 Rem. I notices they list the 527 American available again in 221 Fireball starting in 2015. Odd thing is it list with a 1:12" twist. Which would make the 222 with 1:14" twist a better cast boolit shooter. Or perhaps not. the 1:12" like I have in my 223 is fine up to 2,200 fps. CZ is changing there 223's over to an 8 or 9" twist soon. Which will crimp there style with cast. Perhaps that's why they are bringing the Fireball back? But so what as long as they keep offering the 222 Rem. Which they will due to the large number of customer nations that can't have military rounds. Zastava offers both 222 Rem and 222 Rem Magnum to straddle the 223 size. Along with the Hornet and 22-250. It's a wonderful world for us shooters.

[Bullshop]

The 221 FB is what the 22 Hornet should have been. It has good stout brass free from the brass issues the Hornet is plagued with. Its slight case volume makes it very flexible between low end and high end loads giving very good results with a wide range of powder burn rates ranging from very fast shotgun/pistol type powders to the fast rifle/slow magnum pistol type powders.
My 221 is on a Stevens 200 (Savage 110) with a 17" Bull E.R. Shaw barrel with 1/14" twist. It has an extreme fondness for the 55gn NOE copy of the RCBS boolit of the same weight, though with improved COWW alloy lubed and checked they run 62gn.
With the NOE copy of the Lyman 225107 at 38gn I have run it to max pressure with a stiff dose of WW-680 at a blistering 3650 fps but at best was only rewarded with a disappointing 3MOA.
To touch on another point made here I don't see the faster twist 223 as being a problem for boolit shooters. I also have a Stevens 200 with its factory 223 barrel with 1/9" twist. It does extremely good shooting with the slightly longer 73gn RNGC from NOE. It shoots this boolit very well at light moderate to near full tilt loads.
Back to the 221, it has ended my 30 year search for " the accurate 22 Hornet" Investing in case forming tools to form brass from "FREE" 223 was a good investment and something I will suggest to anyone that shoots there's as much as I do mine.
Well I seem to have gotten off to a rambling and BS Mom is getting after me so will cut of with saying I don't know how I got along for so long without my 221 FB and don't know how I could ever get along without it.

[JeffinNZ]

Lino sure makes pretty boolits. I still have a stash and have to cast up some 225462 HPs.

[captaint]

You guys are peaking my interest in the Fireball. I bought an XP-100 years ago, with the idea of re-barreling it to 6BR, which I did. Got one of those cool stocks from Herret's and it's a ball to shoot, and very accurate.
Now I have the original stock and the Fireball barrel, never shot, just laying around. Might have to put it back together and shoot the Fireball just for kicks. Sounds like an interesting "project". Mike

[Bullshop]

I milled of the gas check shank on my 22 Bator mold. Now I have a PB Bator design of about 45gn. I like it and so does my Ruger single six in 22 Cooper.

[DLCTEX]

I find the Bator cast with WW and 20% isotope lead added and WD lets me push the velocity with no problem. I don't know what hardness they are, but they are harder than a woodpeckers beak.

[Leadmelter]

I got a Bator 6 cavity mold ready to go as soon as the weather breaks. I plan to use it in my TC Contender in 221 FB and 22 Hornet.
Leadmelter
MI

[Bullshop]

I just discovered something I find very interesting. Today I spent some time with my 221. I had a surplus of 55gn boolits from over run on an order. The mold is from CBE in Australia and is a design I like a lot.
Anyway I was just shooting up some extra boolits that were lying around with some powder I have in bulk WC-680.
At the end of the day after tweaking the load to its best performance it ended up at 15.7gn WC-680.

That's not outstanding in itself but when I went to log the load I glanced at a couple other load I had worked up at different times. The first one I noticed was a load using the NOE 62gn flgc. It used 15.7 gn VV # 133. The next load I looked at used the same CBE 55gn boolit I used today with a load of 15.7 gn of M-9. M9 was a surplus powder that had roughly the burn rate of 30/31.
Anyway I thought it quite interesting that for three different loads worked up independently of each other at different times using three different powders and two different boolits each load was refined to the same weight of powder, 15.7gn.
That is interesting to me.

[DLCTEX]

The magic load?? LOL

[GabbyM]

In post #6 I stated CZ will be beck into 221 Fireball production next year. Well I ran into one in a catalog online. Must me old stock or perhaps they are in production. Someone here probably has seven hundred bucks just ready to burn.
http://www.impactguns.com/cz-527-american-cal-221-fireball-5-round-detachable-magazine-scope-rings-incl-03023.aspx

[AlaskanGuy]

I have a ton of them little bators weight sorted to 48.5gr and a whole lot of Grunpa's 22 Jet brass ready to go... I am pretty sure that the jet is gunna love them bators just as much as everything else I shoot them out of.... I also have the Noe 45gr read to rock and roll as well... Soon as the weather breaks again, it will be time for a "22 cal" day at the range.....

AG

[GabbyM]

In post #6 I stated CZ will be beck into 221 Fireball production next year. Well I ran into one in a catalog online. Must me old stock or perhaps they are in production. Someone here probably has seven hundred bucks just ready to burn.
http://www.impactguns.com/cz-527-american-cal-221-fireball-5-round-detachable-magazine-scope-rings-incl-03023.aspx

That didn't take long. Posted the link at 8:22. Now at under four hours later it's already gone. Bet they had more than one too as it wasn't listed as low stock this morning.

[cbashooter]

how did they group?

[waco]

how did they group?

My wife is recovering from orbital decompression surgery on both of her eyes. (Graves Disease)

I have not had a chance to go shooting in a few weeks, plus it's well below freezing here again, and snowing. :(

[cbashooter]

My wife is recovering from orbital decompression surgery on both of her eyes. (Graves Disease)

I have not had a chance to go shooting in a few weeks, plus it's well below freezing here again, and snowing. :(

same up north of you at my place.Do you shoot at Emerald Empire?

[waco]

same up north of you at my place.Do you shoot at Emerald Empire?

Sometimes. I don't like paying $10 to shoot though!

I usually just head up in the woods near Shotgun. We have a spot we can shoot steel at 500 yards.