[ENGLANDER]

hello from Scotland~

There seems to be plenty of cheap second hand Hornets kicking about in our gun shops at present, .223 being the "in-thing" at present.

I have always regreted selling saleing my old .22 Hornet it killed fox well out to 200 yards good fun on bunnies.

Now im a reloader it seems very attractive little round powder goes a long, long way best of all there great fun !

Been wondering about getting one converted to K-Hornet, since i have never reloaded for the Hornet im wondering about case life ? Ive heard that Hornet brass can thun very quickly and as a result cases dont last long ??

Would a K-Hornets brass last longer ?? How many reloads should i expect from good quaility brass ?? Also whats the BEST brass i could buy for the Hornet/K-Hornet ???

Whilst on the subject of best, is there an "IDEAL" barrel length for the .22 Hornet or is longer better ?

Was even thinking of a .17 /hornet (cant remember the name) but obviously i would have extra cost re-barrel. Worth the expense ??

Regards Englander

 

[snake river rufus]

well sir, I have crushed more hornet brass than I've worn out so from that respect the K-hornet is clearly an advantage. I truly believe that headspacing off of the shoulder of a 'k' will improve accuracy greatly. I think that the K-hornet is one of the few truly useful wildcats.

 

[MikeG]

I'm not a Hornet reloader, so can't offer specifics, but it occurs to me that you might want to go ahead and buy a standard Hornet to start with. If it works well, great, if not, then have someone rechamber to K-Hornet. Then you're not out much more than the cost of the dies & the chamber job.

 

[Lasre]

Hi I would go for the k every time. I have two k hornets a Brno ZKW 465 (1949) that shoots 40gn win magnum bullets at 3000fps, eventually the necks split due to the 6 thou of neck clearance, before rechambering it used to give case head separations and require frequent case trimming as the brass tended to flow forward due to the slow taper of the case. The other hornet is a Ruger 77/22hornet rechambered to what I call a V hornet (much greater improvement than the k a 17% increase in case capacity) it is achieving 3280 fps with 40 gn v-max's this is not a max load. DO NOT attempt to achieve this pace in a normal k hornet!

 

[Paul Nichols]

22 Hornet/Case Life

Pretty much go along with Snake River Rufus. The
sholder on the K seems t make it much easier to handle than the bottle neck standard. Lyman M-Die helps even that much more in seating, but is of course one extra step. Was at Edenborough Tattoo, two years ago. Hope to get back again in a couple of years. Fantastic event! Good Luck!
Paul

 

[rider]

[been reloading my 22 hornet for 10 years and never had a split and been shooting it sometimes one a week its a great little gun zkw 465 as the brass is same thickness as 223 but with so much less powder its almost impossible to crack necks...well never cracked one as i said before

 

[ribbonstone2]

hello from Scotland~

There seems to be plenty of cheap second hand Hornets kicking about in our gun shops at present, .223 being the "in-thing" at present.

I have always regreted selling saleing my old .22 Hornet it killed fox well out to 200 yards good fun on bunnies.

Now im a reloader it seems very attractive little round powder goes a long, long way best of all there great fun !

Been wondering about getting one converted to K-Hornet, since i have never reloaded for the Hornet im wondering about case life ? Ive heard that Hornet brass can thun very quickly and as a result cases dont last long ??

Would a K-Hornets brass last longer ?? How many reloads should i expect from good quaility brass ?? Also whats the BEST brass i could buy for the Hornet/K-Hornet ???

Whilst on the subject of best, is there an "IDEAL" barrel length for the .22 Hornet or is longer better ?

Was even thinking of a .17 /hornet (cant remember the name) but obviously i would have extra cost re-barrel. Worth the expense ??

Regards Englander

As you suspect, barrel length isn't all that critical in the .22hornet...still get vel. gains from longer barrels, but not all that much per inch (just isn't the powder volume to suport high muzzle pressures).

A good .22hornet chamber is hard to find...most are a bit long, so the shoulder tends to be blown forward a measurable amount (not unlike many military .303 chambers). Some control with reloading dies, but the shallow angled shoulder still lets them grow in length pretty fast...and that brass you trim off got there by migrating from more important areas of the case.

K-Hornet will control the brass streching better (still grows, but at a slower pace). Being a custom chamber, they are usually chambered quite nicely.
-----
Current hornet was built on a Martini Cadet action by an old friend grown too ill to hunt (much older than myself..he built the rifle in the middle 1950's)...he sent me his rifle. He did a good job building, the chambering is close, and neither of us had any trouble with accuracy....until recently. He didn't keep records of the years he shot it, but guesstimates 7-8,000 rounds. In the years I've had it, know I've put another 5,000 though it. 12-13,000 rounds is a lot of shooting, took two of us 60 years to do it.

So somehere about 12,000 rounds the throat at last eroded long enough that seated bullets can no longer get close to clean rifling...that pebble/cracked look of burned steel is visiable under magnification. Would still shoot well with longer bullets, but being a 1:16 twist, am at the end of the long-bullet fix as anything loner won't stabilize in the barrel.

It's on my list for rebarreling...debated a lot of calibers, but it's going to become a .22Hornet again.

 

[kdub]

Have both a T/C Contender 10 bbl (the old octagon one) and a Ruger 77/22 with a thin whippy bbl in .22 Hornet. The thought of rechambering to 22-K has often crossed my mind, but they both shoot so well I hate to mess with them.

Brass is kept separate and is neck sized only, just enough to seat the bullets correctly. So far, reloads have been many and trims very minimual.

Stil like the idea of the K chamber, though.

 

[Reddman]

22 Hornet

Anyone thinking of buying a rifle chambered for the 22 Hornet should bypass the Ruger 77/22. I have one and a friend of mine has one and we are both sich of them. The accuracy is terrible and when I talked to the Ruger service person she told me that Ruger only guaranteed the rifle to shoot 1.5" groups at 50 yards. I told her that I had a Red Ryder BB gun that would shoot better than that.
Another friend has a 22 Hornet made by CZ and it shoots circles around our Rugers. I really like the looks of my Ruger 77/22 but it just won't shoot with any accuracy...

 

[Dr. A]

I guess I got lucky with my Hornet. I shoot the 77/22 and will get a great accuracy level with different ragged holes in the target only coming when I shoot different loads. The gun has gotten boring because there is nothing to actually work up anymore. I have a 3-9X Leupold and it is my primary when going to get the prairie dog population. I can shoot and shoot and never heat that barrel up too much. I just pick a bullet and load the rim to the top with Lil Gun and use the Lee collet die. I have gotten 9 reloads with mine so far. I think out of 500 cases I have wasted around 8 of them. I did tighten up the bolt after I got it, but it has been an exceptionally accurate and effective round the way it was originally made. I also thought about having it changed to the K but worried why ruin a good thing? It does as it is supposed to do. I use my .223 and 22-250's for the longer stuff. There is an advantage with it in the non-heating up issue.

 

[Varmint Shooter]

Hi I would go for the k every time. I have two k hornets a Brno ZKW 465 (1949) that shoots 40gn win magnum bullets at 3000fps, eventually the necks split due to the 6 thou of neck clearance, before rechambering it used to give case head separations and require frequent case trimming as the brass tended to flow forward due to the slow taper of the case. The other hornet is a Ruger 77/22hornet rechambered to what I call a V hornet (much greater improvement than the k a 17% increase in case capacity) it is achieving 3280 fps with 40 gn v-max's this is not a max load. DO NOT attempt to achieve this pace in a normal k hornet!

Lasre,
I shoot a old 340 Savage in a K Hornet and like it real well. I was wondering about your "V Hornet". How do you achive the greater case capacity? What is the shoulder angle like? If you would be kind enough, please tell me more as it sounds like a interesting "Wild Cat" round.
Thanks,
Steve / Varmint Shooter

 

[kdub]

Yup - would like to hear about that one, myself.

 

[Bobcabin]

Ilike The 22 Hornet,imustbe Doing Somthing Wrong ,no Damaged Cases For Me ,have A Nice Day

 

[Lasre]

V hornet details

The V hornet is my take on what the K hornet could have been, the V is for Vincent, the standard hornet has 20thou of case taper, the K has 15thou but looks a lot better because of the sharper shoulder.
Std 14.00gns water case capacity
K 15.20gns
V 16.50gns I reduced the case taper to 5 thou (very similar to what Thompson Center uses on ther TCU cartridges) and had the reamer ground to match specs to suit Remington brass (I measured up about 100 cases from a batch of 1000 to decide on the reamer dimensions). The reamer is very tight I wanted a benchrest spec type chamber to extract as much accuracy as I can.
Reloading dies for the seater I used a Forster Ultra seater in 22 hornet and recut the body chamber with the chambering reamer then polished it slightly oversize with wet and dry paper. Sizing die I will send some cases to a guy in the usa, sorry I can't remember his name he advertises in PS & TAR, who can make a sizing die with my chambering reamer.
I had the leade on the reamer set to zero with a 1.5 degree throat with this setup I get the following lengths with the projectiles seated to touch the lands.
48mm 40gn Hornady V-max
43.15mm 35gn " V-max
46.40mm 45gn " 2230
48.55mm 40gn Sierra blitzking
44.10mm 40gn " 1200
44.20mm 45gn " 1210
48.30mm 40gn Nosler ballistic tip
42.30mm Winchester 40gn 22 magnum projectiles
By adjusting the mag with a chainsaw file you can stretch a 77/22 hornet to take cases of a max length of 48.1mm. If I was designing the reamer again I may have shortened the case 20-40 thou so that it is easier to get the ammo to fit in the mag and still be seated out to touch the lands. there is a fixed ejector on the magazine which cause the loaded round to hit the action when ejecting a loaded round I filed this off and the round now ejects off the ejector in the action.
I have Quickload ballistics modelling software and I tried modelling 20 plus powders and the best velocities were alway's achieved with Win 296, Quickload does not have data for Lilgun but it seems to have inconsistency problems. I will do some more shooting but I suspect 3200-3300fps with 40gn V-maxs will be easy to achieve effectively turning the V-hornet into a 222 with 50 gn softpoints as far as trajectory goes.
I have a suppressor on mine and the noise is slightly quieter than a high velocity 22Lr with no supressor.

 

[22shooter]

I have a Ruger 77 22 hornet with a heavy barrel. It easily shoot .75 inch groups at 100 yards. I used Hornady 40 gr Vmax bullets with 13.0 grains of Lil'Gun. It gives me 2986 fps average.

I also have a 22 K hornet in a Ruger No 3. It is a sweet shooting combo. My other Ruger No 3 is a .223 Rem.

My first 22 K hornet is a 10" contender barrel. I really enjoy shooting these 22 caliber firearms.

 

[Lasre]

The V hornet mentioned above had the reamer originally ground with a 60 thou radius in the neck to shoulder junction and I did not like this on the small hornet case. I am yet to get the chamber recut to remove this but as is I am getting 3300fps with the 40gn v-max with my fireform load.

 

[Kiwi Hunter]

To Help Englander

Hi Englander

If you can finda good CZ or BRNO in 22 Hornet, get one. They are beautifully made and accurate.

I own a very nice BRNO Fox Model 2 in 22 Hornet which I use for goat hunting on my farm in New Zealand. I have fitted it with a Weaver K6 and use 45gn soft point.

Now goats are quite big animals, much larger than foxes and woodchucks etc. Be that as it may, I have found my Hornet works well on all goats at ranges up to 150 metres. It's fun to shoot, relatively quite compared to the 223, and it's very accurate. The accuracy is such that head shots are easy but, if it's windy, a shoulder still shot drops them with ease.

I thought abouit changing to K Hornet, but why try to fix what aint broke! Believe me, you will never regret buying a Hornet.

Kiwi Hunter

 

[Griffiga]

Hello Scottie, my advise is to forget about the K-hornet and spend your money on either a .223 or .204 ruger. Not that the K-hornet is bad, I just wouldn't spend my time or money on something that would only add 25 or 30 yards to your effective range, not to mention poor hornet case life.