.22 Hornet for Deer

[Kleanbore]

Here's a true story from this week in 1980.

We arrived at a Holiday Inn in Staunton, VA after a long drive just before Thanksgiving. I went to the bar for a distilled relaxant or two before dinner. I liked Canadian whisky then.

A man wearing an old-style herringbone tweed sport coat with suede elbow pads mentioned the bone chilling cold and said he had come it from deer hunting.

I asked if he was restricted to shotguns.

"Not here. They are in the Piedmont, but not here. But nothin' is legal here right now, though. The season is over."

A poacher who would admit his crime to a stranger!

The man was an author, and he had been poaching to get food for a poor neighbor mother and her kids.

"What were you using?".

He pulled from his pocket a .22 Hornet cartridge loaded with a heavy-looking cast bullet with some of the lubricating grooves exposed. He told me that it was extremely quiet, but that if you placed your shots well, one would do it at close range.

The man looked a lot liked Sam Waterson, and he spoke like the narrator on The Waltons.

I probably knew the bullet weight then. I'm thinking 55 grain.

Staunton is pronounced "Stanton". Wonderful part of the country.

The most notable gun writer I ever met was Col. Townsend Whelen--not at a bar, but at a range. He let me shoot his Winchester single shot chambered in .22 K-Hornet. That was in 1959.

I do not hunt, but I have been a rifleman since 1857;

 

[Random 8]

Reminds me of Grandpa's 25-20 single shot, the Lyman nut cracker, a VERY old can of unique with one of Grandma's thimbles for a measure, and a much too heavy wheel weight cast bullet. You had to grind the round part off the nose or they'd hit sideways. We always ate well at Grandpa's even when it was a bad year for farming and logging! Pretty sure he shot a moose one year, as the deer he shot with the .300 Savage in actual hunting season sure lasted a long time and tasted a bit different. Grandpa wasn't an author, and probably didn't know what a tweed sport coat was unless he held the pastor's while he tossed a horseshoe or Hamms. He certainly didn't talk like the narrator of the waltons. More of a buffalo Mackinaw or M59 field jacket kind of guy with a heavy dose of Norwegian accent, curse words, and a few borrowed from the Finns and Germans laced with Copenhagen. Ah the memories!

 

[Anchorite]

Here in the Deep South, from the low country of South Carolina across south Georgia, clear through the Florida panhandle over to the big-thicket region of south eastern Texas, there have been truck loads upon truck loads of white tailed deer harvested by the 22 Hornet. I know a few old timers who swear by it (and they probably used one to poach with as youngsters).
Many used an old flat-based 45 grain bullet made for the Hornet by Sierra.

 

[eastbank]

a .22 hornet was used to shoot deer in the buck weath on the farm.

 

[Ranger99]

In the early settlement days of east Texas, the wt deer were so troublesome about
mingling with the livestock, they had to
be chased away like you'd shoo away
a dog pestering your chickens.
The vegetable gardens had fencing
around them like in "the yearling "
movie, and the settlers had to plant
sharp stakes inside the perimeter to
impale the deer as they jumped the
fence.
They eventually got very scarce in
the days before and during the depression

 

[7mmRLC]

Back in the early 80's I ran across a fellow while deer hunting in N Nevada that was carrying a Win Mod 70 in 22 Hornet. Said he's taken many deer and also a black bear with it.
I've used my Ruger 77/22 Hornet that I had converted to a K Hornet for self defence against charging burrowing ground dwellers and even a coyote here at home. But nothing larger yet!

 

[Hookeye]

Shot 3 chuck w a Ruger #1 in .22 K hornet.
Fun on the range for sure, and polite afield
But not enough HP for my taste.

Went back to .22 250. Which for sub 200.yarders is way too much. Proly ideal would be .223 for me

On deer? Wouldnt even try it if legal.

 

[MachIVshooter]

That's a good way to cause a painful infection that kills them days or weeks later.

 

[jmorris]

I've killed hundreds of pigs with 40 grain standard velocity .22lr. Not my first choice for hunting them but if you poke a hole in the right spot...

 

[redneck2]

Supposedly at one time long ago the state record buck for Michigan was taken with a .22 mag

Story was that every morning the deer would eat off a hay stack in the farmers barn lot. Opening morning the farmer cracked open the back door and got it with a head shot

 

[mm93]

Here's a true story from this week in 1980.

I do not hunt, but I have been a rifleman since 1857;

Holy cow! You must be the oldest guy in history at 167 years old!

 

[HB]

Any centerfire is legal for deer in MO.

 

[Ranger99]

Way back when a couple of us used to
get to cull hunt several ranches, the
ranchers used 22/250's and 222's
with success

Some time back I talked to a G.W.
at a display of various poaching
things they'd seized during arrests
( such as fish shocking doo-dads
and rigs for spotlighting etc.)
and he said that the most used
poaching firearm was a scoped 22
rifle

 

[Dunross]

I ate a lot of venison, wild pork and turkey, along with alligator all taken with a 22 wmr. I inherited that rifle and have taken a couple of hogs with it myself.

I've always like the idea of a 22 Hornet, especially over a 410 barrel, or better yet over a 20 gauge. It's a pity the Hornet isn't more common than it is.

 

[Sniper66]

It is legal in Kansas to hunt deer with any centerfire rifle, including the .22 Hornet. I had a Savage Model 25 Walking Varminter .22 Hornet. Excellent p-dog killer. but I would not hunt deer with it. If the circumstance arrived that I had a chance to bag a whitetail and all I had was a .22Hornet, I'm confident that a well placed shot would do the trick. I could hit a dime with it, pretty much every time at 100-150yds on a calm day. The fragile long neck on the brass makes reloading tedious, so I sold it.

 

[MachIVshooter]

I'm not clear on your purpose in sharing this story, but in context it sure seems like an "ends justify the means" argument supporting unethical practices, plus the implication that anyone who would try to stop it is a quisling.

Correct me if I'm wrong here.

Someone intentionally gut shooting game animals with a rimfire on my acreage would be a lot better off getting caught by law enforcement than by me.

 

[Sniper66]

I'm not clear on your purpose in sharing this story, but in context it sure seems like an "ends justify the means" argument supporting unethical practices, plus the implication that anyone who would try to stop it is a quisling.

Correct me if I'm wrong here.

Someone intentionally gut shooting game animals with a rimfire on my acreage would be a lot better off getting caught by law enforcement than by me.

I took it as an interesting story about what happens in the real world. There was a poor family near where I was raised who were well known poachers. The father of the brood poached deer and coons, mostly at night. The rest of us mostly ignored them, knowing that they fed their large brood of kids with the poached meat. We didn't condone it really, but it didn't bother us much either, knowing that if we were poor and hungry, we would do the same thing.

 

[Kleanbore]

When the man in VA told me that he had been poaching, I was shocked. Missouri poachers do not do that.

I knew a young man who became a forest ranger here--a life-long ambition. He quit, because the poachers he encountered were violent criminals who required him to bring out his .357 Magnum for self defense more than once.

 

[Jim Watson]

I once went with a coworker to visit his country cousin. I thought I could talk him out of his .25-20. He declined and showed me a freezer it had filled for him. He snickered and said "That one didn't have very long horns, snicker, snicker."

Mention here of shooting out crop-eating deer, now we have traffic accident deer.
In between, they were scarce.
I have heard and read many a story of how shooting a buck was a once in a lifetime thrill.

A friend has a Winchester Model 43 in .218 Bee instead of the more common .22 Hornet. It seems to be easier to reload, a more conventional case shape.

 

[MachIVshooter]

Sidestepping the question.

I'll try making it as direct and unambiguous as possible: Do you condone unethical, inhumane practices because the poacher needs to evade detection by authorities for the ostensible reason that he can't afford food?

I maintain that all animals capable of feeling pain, which certainly includes all mammals and birds, deserve the quickest, most humane death possible, regardless of the reason for killing them.

 

[Sniper66]

I hunt frequently in NW Kansas. Many of the ranchers out that way do not like the antelope because they help themselves to hay stored for winter cattle. The ranchers eagerly point the way for hunters in search of antelope. I shoot prairie dogs and have made lots of new ranch owner friends who greet me warmly and eagerly await the body count at the end of every hunt. I use a clicker to count every hit. During the shooting, I periodically text the count to the land owner who, in turn, forwards the info by text or in person to his neighbors. I'll occasionally send a picture. We have great fun. It reminds me of shooting at the rat-infested city dump, when I was a kid.