Just for the wildcatters

[kevinosborne]

Anybody else here ever try loading .22 caliber pellets in a .22 hornet case? The load I worked up is a .22 hornet case with a WSR primer charged with .80 grns of H110 topped off with a 14.7 grn Beeman .22 cal pellet. Shoots good and kills tree rats like a hammer. Won't feed from the magazine, but it's a single shot wrecking ball that's quieter than any sub-sonic .22.

 

[RamRoddoc]

That sucks it won't feed from the magazine. They have some plastic spear tipped pellets, perhaps they might feed your hungry hornet. You do know once you broached this subject that a range report with pics of targets or dead tree rats is required. You knew that right?

 

[Chuckdog]

Sounds like a fun combination. I need to eliminate several of those critters in my yard.

 

[SpeedyR]

figures I have a sheridan blue streak that took me forever to find 20 cal pellets for, but maybe I'll go buy some .22's and try it with the hornet. sounds like it might be fun on the contender barrel.

and .8 grains of powder? I guess I'll have to measure that one by hand as I doubt I can get my 550 to meter that. sounds like a good time to try TrailBoss for this load. lol.

 

[kevinosborne]

That sucks it won't feed from the magazine. They have some plastic spear tipped pellets, perhaps they might feed your hungry hornet. You do know once you broached this subject that a range report with pics of targets or dead tree rats is required. You knew that right?

lol. I just went digging around the loading room and found this from when I was working the load up. This is loaded with 1.0 grns of H110 and shot at 25 yds. (I slowed it down some to the final load to reduce leading and the groups tightened slightly...go figure.)

I don't have a picture of the first recovered pellet from a bushytail, but at about 35 yards the pellet passed behind the shoulder, broke two ribs, travelled through the chest cavity, BROKE the off-side shoulder and lodged under the skin on the off-side. When I shoot some later this month I'll try to remember to post some pics on this thread if I recover any pellets.

SpeedyR----get a set of Lee Dippers for around 20 bucks at a gun show. That's the best way.

 

[kevinosborne]

figures I have a sheridan blue streak that took me forever to find 20 cal pellets for, but maybe I'll go buy some .22's and try it with the hornet. sounds like it might be fun on the contender barrel.

and .8 grains of powder? I guess I'll have to measure that one by hand as I doubt I can get my 550 to meter that. sounds like a good time to try TrailBoss for this load. lol.

i just re-read that about the TrailBoss. Any quick pistol powder works ok, but magnum handgun powders seemed to work best. Really quick powders (red-dot, unique, etc.) is where I started and I had only ok results. I've stayed away from really light loads of faster rifle powders like R-15 because of the chances of high pressure spikes and wouldn't recommend them for safety reasons.

You can push this really fast with the H110, but it starts to get pretty loud around 1.5 grns. My test target for that load was three "soup" cans of differing sizes places inside each other leaving about 1/2 inch between the wall of each can and filled with water. That load would penetrate all six walls 50% of the time, but like I said, it gets loud and I was looking for quiet. That's what started me on this quest.

 

[killitgrillit]

I use to take a .223 case and drill it out and fit a 209 primer in it and shoot them that way worked good.

 

[BHJ]

Cool project.

 

[loadnplenty]

definitely cool