22 Hornet

I have a Contender carbine in 22 Hornet. I do not find it difficult to load although the thin walled case needs a little more care than something more robust.

Mine shoots most bullets, 45 grains or less, fairly well but likes the Speer 40 grain spire point best.

Case life is short, 3-4 loadings or so. Improves a bit if necked sized. Most failures due to head separation.

Hope this helps.

You'll get better case life if you ream it to k-hornet.

Fire form your brass and neck size only , you will get better accurece.

Be careful with the brass. It's paper thin and will collapse on you if you aren't very careful.

I must be doing something wrong.
I've got .22Hornet brass that I bought in 1977 that I'm still re-loading. Some of it has been reloaded 25-30 times.....
However, I did have one seperate on me 3yrs ago. It had been one of a lot of 100 that was "long in the tooth" and were showing the tell-tale ring indicating incipient head seperation and were thereby relegated to light-cast bullet loads.....
But, yes, the Hornet brass is "thin", and requires a light touch....

But, I do "partially" full length size..... just enough to "uniform" the cases and allow easy chambering....

GooseGestapo said:

I must be doing something wrong.
I've got .22Hornet brass that I bought in 1977 that I'm still re-loading. Some of it has been reloaded 25-30 times.....

Click to expand...

You are fortunate.

I understand that European 22 Hornet chambers are cut better than US chambers. US chambers tend to be "sloppy" including the rim area and this leads to the short case life.

The gentle taper of case is another part of the problem. Re-chambering to the 22 K-Hornet solves this problem.

Neck or partial sizing helps.

I own and shot two Ruger 22 Hornets. The first one is a HB Varmint-Target 77/22H and the second is a model 1B. My 77/22 would only give me at the most 2-3 reloadings before showing the start of a case head separation. This was even with the use of a neck size die. I did have it rechambered to a 22K-Hornet and most of my problems disappeared and my accuracyactually increased, giving me three shot 5/8'' groups at 100 yds. using the 45 gr Hornady bullets. My 1B is entirely different, and I can get at least six reloadings, again using a neck sizing die and it also will give me sub MOA groups with the same Hornady bullet. Be glad to answer any 22 Hornet questions.

Hodgdon's Lil'Gun,is the go to powder ditto the neck sizing, some are having good luck with small pistol primers, bullets like the Nosler Ballistic Tips,Hornady VMax,Sierra Blitz Kings, in the 40 grain class shoot great in the 1-14 twist.

Good starter load 11.5 grs LilGun 40 grain VMax, neck sized brass, mild primer Remington 6 1/2's, CCI Benchrest. Seat the bullet out as far as your chamber-magazine permits.