Hornet

[Fatman]

Santa got me a 21" .22 Hornet carbine barrel for my Contender. I am going to shoot it some and see how the brass holds to reloading. If it seems to be as hard on brass as I have heard of I will send it in to be turned into a K-Hornet. Does anyone have any experience with the Hornet, what are you loading, and how does the brass stand up to reloading?

 

[AL likes Ackleys]

I use WW296,WW brass,Sierra 45 gr bullets(#1210) w/Rem 6 1/2 primers.This is for a Ruger 77/22 Hornet w/20" barrel.I don't know if i was loading to hot(10.5grs,book shows 12.4 as max)or like Sierra suggusted,maybe old brass?but i started getting case sepperations(brass neck sized only,NOT bumping shoulder back).I bought some Remington brass to try,see what happens.I like the Sierra bullet,as it has a more rounded nose,as i'm able to seat it .018 off the lands and still fit and feed from the Rugar magazine.Hope this helps,Al

 

[danr55]

Fatman, I had a 22 Hornet in a contender. Loved it for Javelina hunting. Got stupid a while back and sold it. Big mistake. It loved 10.1 grains of H 110 and CCI SR primers in WW brass. One thing that I noticed is that I had to measure O'all case length everytime I sized the brass. I could get up to 5 loadings if I cheated a little. I would trim the brass about every other sizing. It made those little ballistic tip bullets scream at the Jacks and Pigs.

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Dan AZ www.huntandlodge.com

 

[Fatman]

danr55

How far off the lands did you seat the bullets and what grain B.T. did you use? I have a supply of 50 grainers but I thought I would drop to 45 or maybe even 40.

 

[danr55]

Fatman, I set the COL to the max SAAMI spec, as I do with all of my loads. I don't believe in setting the bullets too close to the lands. That does little for accuracy and a lot for increasing the size of the pressure spike. I found that the 40 ballisitc tips performed best in my hornet. Glen had one just like mine, and his liked the 45 Hornady(?) bullet better. He did, however, shoot the same load I did.

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Dan AZ www.huntandlodge.com

 

[Calif. Hunter]

A couple of things I found in reloading for the Hornet: neck size brass (tapered case with little shoulder gives little to center the brass in chamber...neck size only really helped accuracy.) I weighed the cases for tightest groups, as sometimes even a tenth of a grain in powder weight made a difference in accuracy with such small powder charges and so did case variation. But then I was fanatic about getting the best group possible. H110 and W296 work well, but a newer powder that works great is Hodgdon "Lil Gun." Try 13.0 to 13.5 gr with the Hornady V-MAx 40 gr. bullet. It works well for me.