.22 Hornet

[Marlin Junky]

What's the best boolit for a 16" twist Hornet? I've got an opportunity to buy a CZ-527. If I get this thing, I want to push the boolits into hyperdrive; i.e., at least 2500 fps and I'm kinda concerned about the hammer forged barrel not having deep enough grooves.

Thanks,
MJ

[HORNET]

I like the Lyman 225438 but the Bator works well if you get one that's dimensioned correctly. BRP had a superb version of the '438 but that's gone.The older 47-50 grain 225415 was good but hard to find anymore and the 55 grain version is a bit too much for best results. Start about 10 grains of H4227 and start working up in SMALL steps. My old #3 Ruger likes loads that are well past anything currently recommended and at the top of some of the older manuals. BTW, Phil Sharpe's book has some loads that I find scary and explain how they were breaking Krag and Ballard actions...

[quack1]

I second the vote for 225438. I shoot it out of a 16" twist Bee with decent accuracy up to 2200 fps. I tried the 225462 and found it was too long and heavy for the twist and was starting to destabilize.

[uscra112]

I've done an intense study of my favorite wildcat, the little R-2 Lovell, which is only a bit bigger than the Hornet. From that I know that it was also loaded to insane pressures in the bad old days, to get the 3000+ fps that was the holy grail back then. I've run some of the Fred Ness' old Lovell loads through Quickload, and gotten 70,000 psi. I don't know about those characters blowing up actions, but I do know that they admitted to case life of 3-4 loadings, and frequent blown primers. But they didn't have the .222, so what else could they do?

If you get to 2500 with cast in a Hornet, my hat will be off to you. I don't even do that with metal patch projectiles. My case life went to pot when I did. Did I mention that near-zero headspace is a necessity with the Hornet?

[beagle]

Get the 225438 and beg a couple of babbitt bearings off Ben. Use one per pot of WWs and you'll come up with an allow that will give you 2600 FPS with no leading.

The copper in the babbitt alloys it and makes the bullet "tougher" and allows extra velocity. I'm shooting a 225438HP in my Ruger and it literally blows blackbirds and starlings and ruins the day of feral cats.

At 2600 FPS as has been put forth, expect to lose brass.

With WW alloy, don't expect to exceed 2400 FPS by very much or groups open to about 4" at 100 yards./beagle

[NoZombies]

I found the 225450 gave me the best high velocity performance, but I was using an alloy very similar to what beagle mentions above. My top end was about 2500, but that was just where I stopped, not where accuracy fell off.

I also discovered that I had no need for that kind of velocity in the places I shoot, and backed off to about 1900 FPS and brass lasts almost forever in comparison.

Everyone has different goals. I didn't need the speed, but some people do.

[BABore]

1. Cast exceptional boolits as Beagle recommends. I'm getting by with water dropped 50/50 WW-Pb, but a touch of nickel babbit is nice. Weight all your boolits. +/- 0.1 grain will get you by ok but ones with less variance from the heaviest lots will be better. Make sure boolits are well aged.

2. Fire form the brass and then neck size only after that. This will get you long case life.

3. Use standard small pistol primers like CCI 500's. The case neck tension on the Hornet is very low. Regular rifle primers will overcome neck tension and any crimp resulting in a variable sized combustion chamber.

4. Use whatever powder you wish, but Lil Gun is at home here. It will exceed all other powders in velocity and do it with 6-9 kpsi lower pressure. I had no problem taking it up to almost max jacketed data of 13.0 grains. I couldn't fit more than 12.9 grains in the case with a drop tube. Any more would push the boolit out of the case.

5. Pay attention to what your expander and crimp die are doing. You need to get the expander ball size right for your boolit to get good neck tension. I tried a M-die and wasn't too happy with it. The neck tension wasn't good because of the step it puts in the end of the case. Same goes for the Lee FCD. It may or maynot work for you.

[Marlin Junky]

I had pretty good luck with a Lee Collet Die in 30-30 so I thought I'd try one out in .22 Hornet.

I've got some alloy that's wicked hard (think it's off the Lee scale) that was purchased at a plumber's estate sale and I'll see if I can melt it with my old Lyman furnace. If so, I'll add a bit of it to my general purpose alloy and see what I get... assuming I get the rifle.

MJ

[leadman]

I recommend rechambering the 22 Hornet to 22 K-hornet. Brass life is increased dramatically.

Also WC680, which is close to AA1680, is a great powder for cast and somewhat slower jacketed loads.

Just to see if I could do it I loaded 296 and the 44gr Lyman boolit to almost 3,000 fps. Brass life was not good but accuracy with linotype boolits was still good, but not as good as 680 and 2,600 fps.

[303Guy]

When I started out shooting my hornet I had some RCBS 55gr boolits I had cast years before but gave up on for my 1-in-10 twist Mini-14 in 223. I just had to try them but they were no better in the hornet. There was no sign of boolit yaw. That was using AR2205/H4227. Mind you, j-words were no better with that powder. Where I ended up was with a 'super-hornet' load of 13.6grs Lil'Gun under 55gr j-words at around 2700fps (going by trajectory). I was using R-P cases (thinner walls and more capacity), no sizing whatever and a paper hand towel seating cup all glued in with molten 'waxy-lube'. To keep the powder from pushing the bullets out i pre-compressed it with a ram I made for the press. That compacted the powder, preventing it from expanding out again. Now these bullets were .224 in .223 groove diameter bore! Accuracy was superb and pressure was consistant but getting near the top for the hornet. Case life was indefinate. But there was a trick - I headspaced on the unsized case mouth and I lubed the loaded cases well using STP Smoke-Stopper. I did trim the case mouths for squareness as they reached full chamber length but after that no trimming at all. The only case losses were to the long grass until I learned how to extract a fired case without dropping it.

I would quite happily load and shoot plain cast grooveless boolits up to 60gr if they weren't so small! The gun did shoot 60gr spire-point j-words with superb accuracy too. 55 grainers were cheaper and had a slightly flatter trajectory. It was accurate to well beyond 200m but bullet drop made it not so good for small critters like magpies. It was deadly and flat shooting out to 160m. It took feral goats very effectively too. It has a 1-in-16 twist. I used Federal Small Rifle primers.

I've posted these picks many times before.




Cast and swaged 55gr boolits. (Both 55gr RCBS).

Also seated in the paper cup.

Paper patching a 55gr RCBS.
No paper cup needed as the diameter was now bigger.

After firing.

[shooting on a shoestring]

I've got a #3 in .22 Hornet. 225415 did not stabilize. 225438 worked great. Fastest I ran it was a tad over 2700 fps. AA1680 is my favorite powder and I run a case full and get about 2400 fps and 1.5" sometimes less at 100 yds. Case life is no problem, unless I use 6 grains of Unique, then it stretches quickly, but usually gets very close to 1" at 100 yds. I would prefer a 14" twist to my 16" twist.

[303Guy]

Case life is no problem, unless I use 6 grains of Unique, then it stretches quickly,

I unexpectedly discovered that fast powders deliver what seems to be a severe shock to the case even at what appears to be low chamber pressure.