Some thoughts about the .22-250 Rem.

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The only way I reload for rifle these days, are with body dies, and Lee collet neck dies. You set the body die for .001"-.0015" head spacing, then neck size. The days of squeezing my necks down .004" under size, then dragging a sizing ball through it with a Lee die, are over! I do not have to trim brass anymore after switching to this method.
 
JDGray said:
The only way I reload for rifle these days, are with body dies, and Lee collet neck dies. You set the body die for .001"-.0015" head spacing, then neck size. The days of squeezing my necks down .004" under size, then dragging a sizing ball through it with a Lee die, are over! I do not have to trim brass anymore after switching to this method.
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That would be nice as trimming brass is definitely my least favorite part of reloading.
 
The .22-250 has been the preferred rifle of large ranches in California for the last 40 years as for what I saw. When they deliberately went after bigger dear, bear or Elk they took something bigger but the .22-250 rode with them allways, along with a .22 . I found a tough 55 grain bullet , not a Varmint thin jacket type, will kill Blacktail local deer very nicely to 400 yards and works nicely on the neck shot especially. In the late 70s thru the 80s I used a .224 Weatherby Varmint Master German made with the factory 55 grain bullet . This is about 200 FPS slower than the .22-250 but was a super little Blacktail rifle and death on coyotes and mountain lions back when they were hunted, I sold it 10 years ago. Anyway I have a Browning B78 ,22-250 I bought new in 1979 with a 12 power Leupold that had a couple thousand rounds thru it and is still sub MOA accurate. Not wanting to wear out the browning and wanting to be able to shoot heavier 60 grain Nosler Partitions and even the longer new new bullets of the middle 90s I had a 1-9" .22-250 AI barrel put on a pre 64 Winchester Model 70 Varmint with a shot out .220 Swift barrel I bought cheaply 25 years ago . It has a big old 6-24 Baush&Lomb American made external adjustment scope and it is death on stuff as far as I can shoot it if it weighs less than 200 pounds .It loves the 75 grain A max bullets and gets 3500 fps with H414 easily. I Bought last year a Weatherby Vanguard .22-250 and I shoot the good old Sierra 55 Gameking at 3700 fps and use it as an all around truck rifle. I also have .22-250 loads of the 60 Grain Nosler Partition that work in the weatherby well , but never worked in the Browning B78 . Of course they work very well in the Winchester. They are real deer killers., as are the lighter Barnes 53 grain copper bullets in the slow twist guns and the heavier weights in faster twist guns; now mandated in Calif. !!!
 
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Gordon said:
The .22-250 has been the preferred rifle of large ranches in California for the last 40 years as for what I saw. When they deliberately went after bigger dear, bear or Elk they took something bigger but the .22-250 rode with them allways, along with a .22 . I found a tough 55 grain bullet , not a Varmint thin jacket type, will kill Blacktail local deer very nicely to 400 yards and works nicely on the neck shot especially. In the late 70s thru the 80s I used a .224 Weatherby Varmint Master German made with the factory 55 grain bullet . This is about 200 FPS slower than the .22-250 but was a super little Blacktail rifle and death on coyotes and mountain lions back when they were hunted, I sold it 10 years ago. Anyway I have a Browning B78 ,22-250 I bought new in 1979 with a 12 power Leupold that had a couple thousand rounds thru it and is still sub MOA accurate. Now wanting to wear out the browning and wanting to be able to shoot heavier 60 grain Nosler Partitions and even the longer new new bullets of the middle 90s I had a 1-9" .22-250 AI barrel put on a pre 64 Winchester Model 70 Varmint with a shot out .220 Swift barrel I bought cheaply 25 years ago . It has a big old 6-24 Baush&Lomb American made external adjustment scope and it is death on stuff as far as I can shoot it if it weighs less than 200 pounds .It loves the 75 grain A max bullets and gets 3500 fps with H414 easily. I Bought last year a Weatherby Vanguard .22-250 and I shoot the good old Sierra 55 Gameking at 3700 fps and use it as an all around truck rifle. I also have .22-250 loads of the 60 Grain Nosler Partition that work in the weatherby well , but never worked in the Browning B78 . Of course they work very well in the Winchester. They are real deer killers., as are the lighter Barnes 53 grain copper bullets in the slow twist guns and the heavier weights in faster twist guns; now mandated in Calif. !!!
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Barnes now has the 50 gr ttsx and it's a blast in both our 12 twist .223 and .22-250
 
LoonWulf said:
I'd hope to get over 3k with 88s, it's got the capacity for it.
Your right also, 2850-3k with those types of bullets are usually where I like to be.
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Not sure on your bbl length, I was figuring on a 20" bbl that winds up with a can on the end of it, if we're closer to 24" I'd easily expect to break 3k, 3100 top end, and 2800 bottom end. I had been entertaining a .22-250 ai, but the cm is kinda making sense......... P.s. my wife hates all of us congratulations guys!
 
Gordon said:
The .22-250 has been the preferred rifle of large ranches in California for the last 40 years as for what I saw. When they deliberately went after bigger dear, bear or Elk they took something bigger but the .22-250 rode with them allways, along with a .22 . I found a tough 55 grain bullet , not a Varmint thin jacket type, will kill Blacktail local deer very nicely to 400 yards and works nicely on the neck shot especially. In the late 70s thru the 80s I used a .224 Weatherby Varmint Master German made with the factory 55 grain bullet . This is about 200 FPS slower than the .22-250 but was a super little Blacktail rifle and death on coyotes and mountain lions back when they were hunted, I sold it 10 years ago. Anyway I have a Browning B78 ,22-250 I bought new in 1979 with a 12 power Leupold that had a couple thousand rounds thru it and is still sub MOA accurate. Now wanting to wear out the browning and wanting to be able to shoot heavier 60 grain Nosler Partitions and even the longer new new bullets of the middle 90s I had a 1-9" .22-250 AI barrel put on a pre 64 Winchester Model 70 Varmint with a shot out .220 Swift barrel I bought cheaply 25 years ago . It has a big old 6-24 Baush&Lomb American made external adjustment scope and it is death on stuff as far as I can shoot it if it weighs less than 200 pounds .It loves the 75 grain A max bullets and gets 3500 fps with H414 easily. I Bought last year a Weatherby Vanguard .22-250 and I shoot the good old Sierra 55 Gameking at 3700 fps and use it as an all around truck rifle. I also have .22-250 loads of the 60 Grain Nosler Partition that work in the weatherby well , but never worked in the Browning B78 . Of course they work very well in the Winchester. They are real deer killers., as are the lighter Barnes 53 grain copper bullets in the slow twist guns and the heavier weights in faster twist guns; now mandated in Calif. !!!
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Gordon and I must be about the same age. You could transfer these comments to my experience in TX where the .243/6MMRem and the .22-250 were pretty much the kings of the ranch. There is no telling how many whitetails we killed with the .22-250 but it was a lot. Then again there were a lot of deer where we were hunting and would often end up with 10-15 deer tags each year. Coyotes were taken almost daily and rarely tallied. As Gordon noted, we liked the 55 grain Sierra GameKing as an all around bullet. This bullet works well on all things from pasture poodles to pigs. Believe it or not, there was a time when the .223 was really a novelty cartridge with only a couple of loading. Don't get me wrong, I love the .223, but back in the middle 80's it was not overly popular. The 22CM seems interesting, but if I was going to build up a rifle I would probably look hard at the .224 TTH. Fortunately the .22-250 does pretty much everything I need to have done at this point with a .22 caliber bullet. I recently took my son out varmint hunting and we had a blast with our .22-250's. He is 14, so yes some folks under 40 still shoot the .22-250. Anyways, I am more happy about all of the choices we have these days then worrying about which one is best. It is neat that folks can tailor a rifle to their specific needs!
 
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horsey300 said:
P.s. my wife hates all of us congratulations guys!
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Yay! success!.... misery loves company and all that....and believe me I'm about to be miserable lol.

I'm thinking 24" is gonna be my minimum for what I want the round to do.
The .22-6mmAI and 22-.243AIs both interested me for quite some time, but for the effort and cost (already dealing with 2AIs), being able to buy stuff ready to go for cheap is appealing more and more.
 
I've had a couple of .22-250s, a 6mm Rem., and a couple of .223 Rems; all bolt-actions. The .22-250 Rem was a fun woodchuck/crow cartridge that worked pretty well and was relatively safe to shoot in fields, compared with the .30-06s we were using for practice with our deer-hunting rifles.

When we switched to .22-250, we noticed that we had to be much more refined to make sure that bullets didn't hit low or encounter grass before hitting critters. We also noted that a miss was much harder, if not impossible to see and correct from than the bigger rounds. More scope power was very beneficial to varmint hunting, even for 200 yard and under shots.

Off topic: Getting away from the .22 centerfires, I found the 6mm Remington a very capable varmint cartridge that could even double as a deer cartridge. The only problem I had with it was that it was in a heavy-barreled varmint rifle that wasn't conducive to carrying around the fields for hours. If I'd had a 7 1/2 lb. rifle to hunt with, the 6mm could have been perfect. These days, I have a couple of .243 Win hunting rifles, including a lightweight Tikka that works very well for a walk-about varmint rifle and has doubled as a "teenage" grand-kids deer rifle that has provided several one-shot kills, including one buck for me at 200 yards on a big hill, after carrying/setting up a pop-up blind for relatives.
 
[QUOTE="Off topic: Getting away from the .22 centerfires, I found the 6mm Remington a very capable varmint cartridge that could even double as a deer cartridge. The only problem I had with it was that it was in a heavy-barreled varmint rifle that wasn't conducive to carrying around the fields for hours. If I'd had a 7 1/2 lb. rifle to hunt with, the 6mm could have been perfect. These days, I have a couple of .243 Win hunting rifles, including a lightweight Tikka that works very well for a walk-about varmint rifle and has doubled as a "teenage" grand-kids deer rifle that has provided several one-shot kills, including one buck for me at 200 yards on a big hill, after carrying/setting up a pop-up blind for relatives.[/QUOTE]

I ended up with my 6mm because I couldn't find a good .243 and the guy that owned the 6mm liked bigger calibers. I went the local gun shop and they had an abundance of 6mm ammo so they made me a good deal. I then headed off to a ranch I used to hunt on near Ft. Worth and broke three Dr. Pepper bottles in a row at about 100 yards and was hooked (I know shooting glass is a no/no, but this was 1986 and I was shooting at the ranch dump pit). That rifle became one of my staples for many years and I still have it. We are both a little beat up and showing our age but functional none the less. My rifle is a nice 700 BDL.
 
Of my .22/250 rifles, past or present, this Ruger #1 has to be about the favorite. Though it is not as accurate as the others, it is a pleasant companion on groundhog safaris and the vintage B&L scope adds a sweet whiff of nostalgia.. DSC_0010.JPG DSC_0015.JPG
 
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I had a Sako in 22-250 that I just could not get to shoot like I thought it should. I did everything one can do to a rifle to make it shoot with no success. Its gone now. But I did notice the cases stretching more than other cartridges.

A few years ago I built a 22-250AI on a Remington 700 action. Its shoots great! Even the fire forming loads shoot great! The formed case holds about 1/2 grain of alcohol less than a 220 Swift case and I use 220 Swift load data for it. The biggest drawback is that the AI case does not feed perfectly through the magazine.

Its a nice cartridge for larger varmints like Coyotes. But it gets too hot too quick for Prairie Dogs unless you want to use all of your barrel life up in one weekend! Oh, it shoots flat and does a number on a Prairie Dog.
 
Don’t be afraid of Sporter weight barrels.
Easily the most accurate rifle I own is a late’90’s-early 2000’s Remington M700 ADL in .22-250.
Plain plastic stock was JB weld bedded, barrel free-floated, and trigger adjusted.

With anything Sierra 50-63gr, most powders (all I’ve tried) 1/2moa is a given. With the 55gr flatbase Sierra Varminter (flat base) over 39.0gr of H380, it gives 3,700fps and frequent 5-shot, 1-hole groups (.3’s). I bought it used, for $200...!
My preferred deer bullet is the 63gr Sierra SemiPt. Over 38.0 H380, its 1/2 MOA, and I’ve never recovered one from a deer yet. Kills better than a .243, in my experience. 55gr is death on a coyote as far as you can see one in W.Georgia or E. Alabama.
 
I have a "bunch" of Rem 700s and they've been my favorites since about 1970, when I bought my first, a 30-06, which has probably taken 40 deer, between my son and me. I gave that 700 to him after buying another one in .270 Win. The 700 triggers would adjust well and were very good, for a while. Now, I just buy a Timney trigger mechanism when I buy a 700, especially after having one fire when the rifle was sitting in my lap when hunting varmints in a blueberry field.
 
Remington triggers are junk, plain and simple, they should have a recall or something...
I was watching an episode of Alaska the last frontier, when a couple were out hunting and her R700 went off by it's self. He scholded her for having her finger on the trigger, but she said she didn't. He had to know about the recall, crap triggers, guns going off when taking off the safety... The only AD I ever had was taking off a safety on a R700, glad I was on target!
 
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SwampWolf said:
Back in 1995, I debated for a long time between the .22-250 and the .220 Swift when I was looking at a Ruger No.1 rifle to buy for chuck hunting Ohio farm country. I ended up with the Swift and ended up with the most accurate rifle using factory ammunition I've ever owned (and Ive owned plenty of them). Colonel Townsend Whelen would find my No.1 very interesting.
In terms of practicality, if one doesn't reload, the .22-250 is probably the better choice if only because of more extensive ammunition availability. The comparative ballistics between the two cartridges for hunting varmints is mostly a wash.
Concerning the case-stretching issue, have you had your Model 700 checked for proper headspace? Not a likely problem but you never know til you look.
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Around that time my dad picked up an M77 in 220 swift and it is a tack driver as well.
 
SwampWolf said:
Back in 1995, I debated for a long time between the .22-250 and the .220 Swift when I was looking at a Ruger No.1 rifle to buy for chuck hunting Ohio farm country. I ended up with the Swift and ended up with the most accurate rifle using factory ammunition I've ever owned (and Ive owned plenty of them). Colonel Townsend Whelen would find my No.1 very interesting.
In terms of practicality, if one doesn't reload, the .22-250 is probably the better choice if only because of more extensive ammunition availability. The comparative ballistics between the two cartridges for hunting varmints is mostly a wash.
Concerning the case-stretching issue, have you had your Model 700 checked for proper headspace? Not a likely problem but you never know til you look.
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Mr. Swampwolf rings my bells with mention of Ruger #1's in .220 Swift. I've had a couple of #1 Swifts and also a couple #1's in .22/250 and both of the Swifts were significantly more accurate than the .22/250's. This is only a small sampling, and no way conclusive, but it was a fair , if limited, comparison. (And I confess to being somewhat Swift biased.) Mr. Swampwolf also makes sensible comment about "case stretching" with .22/250. If the Half dozen .2/250 I own and load for, I've never observed case, or neck, stretching to be notable. However, neck stretching with .220 brass is a common and well known situation. Which leads me to suspect that rumors of .22/250 stretching have originated from less-than-knowledgeable people getting the two cartridges confused and transferring one rumor to the other. Here's one of my #1 Swifts, I've kept because the wood is so pretty.. DSC_0180.JPG DSC_0184.JPG DSC_0187.JPG .
 
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Just a though on the case-stretching issue. If you are shooting a bolt action, you can neck-size your brass and pretty much eliminate the issue of stretching can't you?

I had a 200 Swift and I never full length sized a case for it. Neck sized only. I absolutely loved it because it meant I didn't need to mess with lubing cases. I only sold that rifle because a hunting buddy of mine offered me an obscene amount for it because he was so impressed with the accuracy.

He got all my load data and my dies along with it.
 
It was looking at a Ruger No.1 in .220 Swift that got me interested in the 22-250 to begin with. Sweet rifle.
 
I shot a turkey with a .22-250 once. Was instructed to aim at the base of the neck. Critical area, easy to ID, didn’t move as wildly as the head did.

turned out fine.
 
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