22 Hornet, Unique, and 225348

[dale2242]

With shortages these days I decided I need to work up a load for my Ruger #3 Hornet.

I burn a lot of ammo shooting sage rats each summer and I am not sure I have enough jacketed to last the season.

This rifle has never been a tack driver but is a blast to shoot sage rats.

I loaded 5 each of the 225348 with Unique. The powder was an old can that was gifted from a friend.

I started at 4.2 gr and went up to 4.6gr. in .1 gr increments.

The cases were WW Super and the primers were WSP small pistol primers. This is the primer I use for my jacketed loads.

The bullets were cast from 50/50 lino/WW, sized .225 and lubed with 50/50.

All groups were shot at 50 yds. This is the groups sizes as best I can measure them.

4.2gr 1/2"

4.3gr. 3/8"

4.4gr. 1 1/2"

4.5 gr 1 1/4"

4.6 gr 3/4"with four in 1/4" Not sure why the flyer.

What is going on here?

At the lower velocities it shot good opened up in the middle then went back down at the upper end.

These loads were no chronographed.

I will chrony the better loads.

[Larry Gibson]

dale2242

I killed a bajillion sage rats with my #3 Ruger 22 Hornet when I lived in NE Oregon. I've shot so many the barrel is actually shot out now. A lot of them were with cast bullets. I mostly used the 225248 also over Unique with CCI 500 primers. I found 4.5 gr Unique to be a very good and accurate load. Velocity ran 1975 fps and accuracy ran 1 1/2 moa at 100 yards. I did bed the forend to the hanger and free float the barrel. Note my #3 is sans the barrel band.

Picture was in the high Wallowa's just south of Eagle Cap Wilderness up by East Eagle Creek not far from the "China Ditch". . We were hunting "red diggers", a large ground squirrel that lives in the mountains.

279525

279528

[dtknowles]

I did mine like Larry (independently) but mine does not shoot cast as well as his. I will stay under 1 MOA with Hornady V-Max factory ammo but my cast bullet loads shoot more like 2 MOA. They are plain base 45 gr. and I have not tried Unique, just Red Dot and Green Dot. I think you need to shoot more groups. One group is hard to judge.

[dale2242]

I definitely need to shoot more groups.
I was pleasantly surprised that this series of tests showed so much promise.
It will be interesting to see how these loads will group at 100 yds.

[Rick B]

The Lyman Mold number 225348 mentioned above. Does it exist. Cast a lot of 225438's over the years. Shoots phenomenal in most 22 Hornets.
Rick

[Gewehr-Guy]

Wish I would have kept my #3 hornet. It was the first rifle I ever cast for, but used the 225415 bullet and probably 2400 powder. It did not shoot very well, so I traded it off for an H Farmall ! If I had it now, I would have many more bullet and powder options, and it probably would have become a favorite.

[dale2242]

Rick B, good catch.
I had a senior moment when I wrote the title.
It should read 225438.

[Larry Gibson]

We both had a "biden" moment......:groner:

[dale2242]

Larry, Sleepy Joe moments seem to come more often at 79.
We took the barrel band off and put a small screw under where the band was to apply some upward pressure to the barrel to see if we could get better accuracy.
More testing will tell.

[elk hunter]

While you're trying loads try switching primers. Both my Hornets prefer Federal SR primers and the difference in some cases was dramatic. Yours may prefer a different brand. Loading with Unique I also found that I had to weigh each charge as one tenth of a grain made a difference in group size. The smaller the case and the faster the powder the more sensitive the round will be to slight changes. In smaller, lighter weight, bullets a difference in weight of one grain is much more significant than a difference of one grain in say a 500 grain bullet. Weight sorting may improve your groups. Follow through is very important, more so at lower velocities, as even the heart beat can influence group size.


Just my $0.02 worth.

[HATCH]

which you would of chrono the rounds.
I would love a subsonic hornet load with unique that had a decent group

[marshall623]

I don't have the Lyman mold , but I run the Lee boolit over 4.5 gr of Unique and WSP primer my 10" T/C for Hunters Pistol. Dosen't give up anything to the jacketed shooter if I can do my part .

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[dale2242]

I also have a 10" Contender barrel.
I need to shoot some groups with these loads with it.

[richhodg66]

I love my Hornets for squirrel hunting with cast. I never have tried for anything close to 100 yards, didn't interest me, but they are great for realistic woods distances on small game.

[leadman]

I have a 21" Contender 22lr barrel rechambered to 22 K-Hornet. Unique also works good for me for light loads with the aforementioned Lyman bullet. I found casting them out of straight Linotype produced more consistent weight and filled out bullets for me. It also allows me to shoot them up to about 2,800 fps with no issues and good accuracy. At that speed rabbits just about disappear when hit!

[HamGunner]

Segregating these little pills by weight into groups is necessary to avoid a random flyer, I would think. I played around a bit with Unique and the 225438 cast a bit in my Ruger 10/22 K-Hornet, but I was running up near the max loads. I was not getting decent enough accuracy to continue with Unique, so I went to slower powders. But for a slower small game plinker Unique might very well be about the right choice. Like others have mentioned, comparing various pistol primers would likely be the best way to approach, but perhaps even playing around with small rifle primers as well. Certainly segregate the bullets by weight for best consistent groupings. I found the Lyman single cavity 225438 mold a bit tricky at first to get complete fill out, so at first I had lots of rejects. Once I figured out what that mold liked to fill out well, I done much better and when segregating by weight I got much more consistent results, no matter the powder or speed. Using a digital scale, I segregated into five weigh groups. I normally do not segregate that intensively for larger bullets, but with these tiny pills, I think it can make a difference. I make my own gas checks out of .008 aluminum metal, but found that normal flashing metal needed to be annealed to work correctly with this small diameter. Using printers copy plate, however, worked perfectly without the need to anneal for the gas checks.
Edit: I too was considering a return to working up a light weight load to replace .22 LR back when the price of rimfire was going through the roof. I never did as I had a decent collection of bricks of .22 LR already stored up and the price started coming back down before I got around to load work up on a light load. Of course, now with the second run on ammo supplies, the price of primers would be the deal breaker these days. Back when a primer could be had for closer to Three Cents, a reduced center fire load to replace the rimfire made sense.

[richhodg66]

I need to get back to experimenting with cast in the Hornet. I bought my first one specifically to duplicate rimfire performance, Played long enough to accomplish that and then stopped trying anything else. I did try the 225438 without gas checks and 2 grains of bullseye and it works OK, accurate enough for squirrel hunting.

I want to try cast in the .218 Bee at some point, too many projects going on it seems.

[mainiac]

2 things important imo..
Small pistol primers,and 4227 powder.
This made my hornet shoot cast spendid.

[sukivel]

At what velocities are you guys pushing these?


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[beltfed]

FWIW,
I use Fed 100 primers in my #3hornet. This is a "magnum pistol/small rifle" primer.
So far for jacketed loads...
beltfed/arnie

[NorthMoccasin]

which you would of chrono the rounds.
I would love a subsonic hornet load with unique that had a decent group

Try 2.5 to 3.0 Red Dot with any 40 to 50 gr cast bullet. I use NOE's 46 gr Plain base with great results and no pesky GC's to fiddle with!