So... Had to 'fire for effect'. (Infantrymen will recognize that phrase.) I got some Hornady factory ammo at Cabelas ($19.99/25):


Since j0e_bl0ggs is sending me some skookum bases, I decided to just go with a cheap .22 rf scope I had mounted on a Romanian Model 69 Trainer for this 'test firing'. Pretty funky 'scope even by my standards. I think I'll put the Zeiss Conquest on this rifle. Anyway, bore-sighted in basement at 30 feet and shot this at 30m:



Point of Aim is the word "Sighter" in center of center bullseye.

I got 0.0002" of 'growth' on the average value of each case after firing. (I had to average, because I forgot to measure them immediately after firing, so I don't know which "after" value goes with which "before" value.

I was a little surprised by the report and the recoil. I was expecting something more along the lines of a rimfire. Obviously unrealistic on my part to expect so little recoil and report from a 35-grain bullet doing what the bullet manufacturer says is 3100 f/s. I forgot to strap on MagnetoSpeed. But I will the next time I shoot it.

No problems feeding from magazine, but I didn't expect any.

I'm pretty happy with this.

More when I get better 'scope on it.

Paul

PS - According to my "group calculator" this group is 1.74 MoA. 'Eyeballin' it I would have said about 1.5 MoA.

Paul

I'm sure you will appreciate the 'skookum'  EAW Apel mount n rings.

So was thinking about a hornet for myself... (thanks Paul).
Anyroad, get an eagle view contender stub, a .224 barrel, chamber reamer and some rifle furniture, hey presto 22 hornet fer messing around with.

I tripped up over some .225ø cast bullets, Lyman #225415, in my 'stock' and started to mess around. I hollow-pointed the flat nose bullet then reformed the nose with my Herters 22 swage die.



I'm liking this, I guess 'my hornet' will feed solely on this stuff!

Ooh, I like those too! With your 'squib' load, those could be just the ticket.  AND, those are gas-check boolits.

Paul

Actually gas checked bullets, don't much care for that affectation.
('boolits' to be clear)

I wish I could get my Sako to shoot tiny groups like that! With factory loads no less.

Remember, Rick, that's 30 meters, not 100 yards.

I assure you that gas checks are hardly 'affectation'.
affectation = behavior, speech, or writing that is artificial and designed to impress.
I don't think anyone has spent more honest effort trying to get lead bullets to shoot through their barrels WITHOUT leading than I have, and the difference in the amount of lead left in a barrel from a gas-checked bullet and a non-gas-checked bullet is 'night and day'. That difference is trivially quantified. There are few 'gadgets' in the shooting world that are as effective for their designed purposes - in this case reduced leading - as gas-checks are.

Paul

boolits - affectation

I'm a great believer in using the gas check.

Ah.

I always waffle when I use the "oolits" spelling. The reason I am inclined to use it is because the mis-spelling usually lets the reader know one is talking about cast bullets without having to write out "cast lead bullets". Otherwise one almost has to write at least "cast" bullets. I don't think the term "lead"  bullets achieves the same result and, is also inaccurate, as most people use some kind of alloy. Pure lead bullets are rare these days.

I'll try not to 'affect' you with its use in the future.:)

Paul

So I decided to see what I could do for a squib load in this cartridge. j0e_bl0ggs has a squib load he uses and it sounded good for my back yard, and I was looking for something to do with reloading, so I deprimed, resized, reprimed, and charged 5 cases with a squib load of 3 grains of Bullseye. I was going to use Unique as there are lots of folks on the internet that make squib loads using Unique, but QuickLOAD said that I could just barely burn 3 grains of unique in 24" of barrel. Three grains of Bullseye burns in 16" of barrel (according to QL). Since the closer to the breech the powder is burned the less pressure there is at the muzzle, and the lower the pressure at the muzzle the lower the muzzle blast (noise), I opted for the Bullseye.

I had some 'wrasslin' to do as I don't have a Hornet shell holder yet, and the rim on the Hornet is very thick - too thick to use other shell holders except some made for very wide-rimmed cartridges. I made one of those work. The flash holes on the Hornady brass were too small for the primer pin on the dies I have , but some cases Sakorick sent me didn't have that issue. (I'll drill the Hornady ones out, but I have to extract the spent primers first.)

I did not forget the MagnetoSpeed! The load as I said was 3.0 grains of Bullseye, but it's a little more complicated than that. Three grains of Bullseye is only about 40% of the case capacity (~14.0 grains of water), of my cases. I don't like that in a fast powder like Bullseye, so I made a wad of 1/8th of a sheet of toilet paper, (~0.8 grains in weight), and tamped it down stiffly on top of the powder.

The bullet, a Speer #1014 33-grain "Plinker", has a bearing surface less than one caliber at ~0.180". I seated the bullet that deep for an overall length of 1.634".


Those that remember the first load workups with the .17 Predator, will recall that I had to change primers to the "heftier" CCI Small Rifle primers from the "sissy" Small Rifle Bench Rest primers. I think I got one of the BR primers in this batch of Hornet reloads. You'll see why below.

As usual nowadays, I can get only 30m in my back yard, so that's the range at which these five shots were fired. I was leaning on a table, but no other form of rest, and the rifle still has the really krappy scope on it. Those are the qualifiers. Here's the target:


The Point of Aim was the lower bullseye. Here are the muzzle velocities (f/s) in order of firing:
1) 1445
2) 1692
3) 1683
4) 1648
5) 1685

As you can see the first one was almost 250 f/s slower than the following four. I think that was the BR primer.

The average of the above 5 shots is 1630 f/s.
The Standard Deviation was 105 f/s.
Extreme spread was 247 f/s

If I remove the 1445 shot;
The average is 1677 f/s,
Standard Deviation = 17.1 f/s,
Max spread is 44 f/s.

The horizontal spread is relatively small; less than 1/2 an inch, but the vertical spread, even discounting the first (lowest) shot, is about 3/4 of an inch. Not too bad considering the bad scope, bad PoA, and no rest. I also forgot to aim at one of the 'arrow points' and tried to aim in the center of the big, black, bullseye.

SO...

I'm relatively pleased with these loads. They're .22 RF 'loud' and I suppose I could lower the charge even a bit more if I so chose. This would of course be a fine bunny load as it is about 300 f/s faster than typical .22 RF non-high-velocity loads. I'm sure this would be good for bunnies and foxes out to 100. It will be interesting to see what the trajectory for this bullet is over a 100 yd flight.

Paul

Bullseye / Unique will make a nice 22WMR equivalent I would probably push to >1900 fps with a 50 grain bullet. I do not use fillers with my reduced loads.

Was looking at some interesting back yard loads with trailboss / tin star.

Yeah, I was thinking about TrailBoss, too, but a quick glance suggested not much oomph. I'm not liking QuickLOAD's take on the Hornet. Something's 'off'. Therefore, TrailBoss might be worth actually fiddling with. Its primary value being the high bulk density so that no filler is needed.

I don't have any 'fear' of the less than 50% loads, rather I 'stuff' them with the idea that it will improve consistency of ignition. I could be wrong. Another 'benefit' of 'stuffing' them is that it eliminates the possibility of a double charge. There are other ways to prevent that though.

Paul

I have found some information (from the author) about QL's predictive weakness with "very small cases" and "large, cylindrical" cases. Making the suggested adjustments, I get estimates of muzzle velocity that are essentially right on the observed MVs from both the 13.5-grain Li'lGun and 3.0-grain BULLSEYE charges. (1677 f/s measured average for the BULLEYE load and 1680 f/s QL-predicted. 3033 f/s QL-predicted for the Li'lGun load and 3015 measured average MV from Sakorick's workup.)

Paul