[hipirn]

I am new to this forum though I have been shooting, competing, loading and casting for 50 years. Mainly Bullseye and IHMSA and earlier Police combat. After a couple of years lay off I intend to shoot some hand gun silhouette part of which will be with a 22 Hornet. I've loaded the Hornet quite a bit but always with near full charge loads and cast 55 grain bullets using one of the 4227 powders or VV 110 or 120, all good loads BUT I hear talk of light weight jacketed bullets using a pinch of pistol powder, all with great results! When I try I get apparent unevenness and leaking primer pockets this with loads others say they are using ( I've used small pistol primers for years as they have always produced better results in this small case!)? Anyone else had any luck with "lite" hornet loads?? Thanks... hipirn
I hope this is the right forum?

 

[Davers]

About the only "lite" .22 Hornet loads I've used, in my Hornet Rifles, was with using 7.0 grains of SR-4759 powder with 40-50 grain jacketed bullets. I have used cast bullets of 43 grains gas-checked with 4.5 grains of Unique powder, but the accuracy was poor.

 

[Rocky Raab]

I've gotten great accuracy using 6.0 Blue Dot and 40-45 grain jacketed bullets (never used cast in this round). Speed is about 2100 fps, making it a 22 Mag clone, but more accurate. Use caution, as 6.5 gr can and will blow primers.

 

[ribbonstone]

A 10" Contender shooter passed this along to me:
Lyman 225415 / small pistol primer / 4.5gr. of Unique (I checked...the old Lyman #46 went to 4.6gr. in their Contender data). This gets about 1700fps from a 10" tube, not much more from a rifle barrel. I had some good results from it in one rifle, but was more than I wanted for a small game round.

Ended up taking the gas check base off that mold to cast a 44gr. plain based bullet, droped all the way down to 3gr. of Unique, which ends up pretty darn closed to a .22 LRHV in speed.


Had a good bit of Red Dot given to me, and tried an even lighter load with that plain based bullet. 2.0gr. of Red Dot worked well for me, and in that rifle would average 1012fps for a nice sub-sonic plinker (sounds about like a .22LR shooting standard vel. ammo).

 

[huffmanite]

have a BSA martini rifle in 22 Hornet. I use Lil Gun Hodgdon powder, 12.4 grains with 35 gr jacketed bullets and small pistol primers. Not a light Hornet load, but good accuracy. Powder burns clean.

 

[hipirn]

Thanks.... hipirn