.22 hornet

The No1 App in Europe for Hunting Area Management - MyHunt
I first shot a 22Hornet around seventy years ago and have had one ever since. It's a lovely calibre to shoot and I can remember fallow being dropped on the spot with one.
I've also had a 17HMR since they first appeared, it's had its ups and downs but as a night shooting, drive round, rabbit round it's the best there is. I'm talking about being able to take rabbits out to 100 yards no matter what the weather and wind are like.
I don't profess to be a particularly good shot but my ageing Anschutz 17/17 will do the job night after night. Clearly, the Hornet will do the same job but carcase damage comes into the equation as does cost. I also reload for the Hornet but I certainly wouldn't want to be loading fifty rounds or so every week for the rabbits.
Forget the neck splits. providing you look after the ammo they shoot perfectly well. Incidentally, for drive-round night shooting the .22LR doesn't enter the competition!
 
mealiejimmy said:
Get a rifle basix trigger for your CZ Hornet - it's great and easy to fit

Cheers

Bruce
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Mine is an Anschutz 1432, 1987 vintage shoots great but I need to lighten the trigger really...it is adjustable. Thanks for the advice.
PS. do they do an aftermarket trigger for the Annies?
 
old keeper said:
I first shot a 22Hornet around seventy years ago and have had one ever since. It's a lovely calibre to shoot and I can remember fallow being dropped on the spot with one.
I've also had a 17HMR since they first appeared, it's had its ups and downs but as a night shooting, drive round, rabbit round it's the best there is. I'm talking about being able to take rabbits out to 100 yards no matter what the weather and wind are like.
I don't profess to be a particularly good shot but my ageing Anschutz 17/17 will do the job night after night. Clearly, the Hornet will do the same job but carcase damage comes into the equation as does cost. I also reload for the Hornet but I certainly wouldn't want to be loading fifty rounds or so every week for the rabbits.
Forget the neck splits. providing you look after the ammo they shoot perfectly well. Incidentally, for drive-round night shooting the .22LR doesn't enter the competition!
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very surprised you rate the 22 lr so low , 95% of keepers and pest controllers here use 22 lr for bulk shooting and supply .22 lr subsonics FOC from the esttates for folks who help out with big amounts . At under a dozen expected it would be 22 hornet all the way and i normally do better than other guys on the same ground using 22 lr ( few now rate the HMR here ) windages are almost exactly same as .22 lr 4" at 100 yards 10mph FV .22 subs has more drop but its quieter and cheaper
Different areas have different preferences though
Nice things about the 22 hornet are range and the ability to drop a fox cleanly up to 200 or so . Shoot the rabbits in the head and carcass damage is irrelivent less windages and a lot less drop make that easier . Making up 50 or 100+ a week or paying for factory ? Thats why we have 22LR !
Ammo like cci velocitors in 40 grain give the LR a longer reach 100 yards being within most shooter capabilities. much past that it gets hard under field conditions
 
Bowland blades said:
very surprised you rate the 22 lr so low , 95% of keepers and pest controllers here use 22 lr for bulk shooting and supply .22 lr subsonics FOC from the esttates for folks who help out with big amounts . At under a dozen expected it would be 22 hornet all the way and i normally do better than other guys on the same ground using 22 lr ( few now rate the HMR here ) windages are almost exactly same as .22 lr 4" at 100 yards 10mph FV .22 subs has more drop but its quieter and cheaper
Different areas have different preferences though
Nice things about the 22 hornet are range and the ability to drop a fox cleanly up to 200 or so . Shoot the rabbits in the head and carcass damage is irrelivent less windages and a lot less drop make that easier . Making up 50 or 100+ a week or paying for factory ? Thats why we have 22LR !
Ammo like cci velocitors in 40 grain give the LR a longer reach 100 yards being within most shooter capabilities. much past that it gets hard under field conditions
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When you're driving around in a 4x4 at night, you don't have much idea of wind strength or direction, so forget it! The .22LR is . what it is, a very good general-purpose round, but its trajectory lets it down at night. when you have no accurate idea of distance. The 17HMR is flat shooting so within a hundred yards it's point-and-shoot.
As I said, the Hornet is an excellent calibre but for bulk shooting then 17 HMR wins hands down. I did try using the Hornet for night shooting rabbits, but soon got fed-up reloading the number of cartridges needed.
As a foxing round the Hornet wins hands down, it's horses for courses.
I'm probably just too old now to be able to guarantee head-shooting rabbits at night like some on here, but then I have to get rid of the rabbits, I don't shoot for fun, it's a job and the chest is a bigger and more forgiving target than the head!
 
I don't think the 17HMR was built to take over the 22LR market. That would be an impossible goal. Like other rimfire cartridges before it, like the 22WMR, the 17 High Standard, 17 Aguila, and 5mm Remington Magnum, it was supposed to place extended range and increased performance in a rimfire platform at reasonable prices. It was also hoped that the Ruger 10/22M could be marketed for this cartridge. It could not. If it had a failing, this would be it.** The 17Mach 2 was also hoped to be viable in the 10-22 platform. (I have a Ruger manual for the 10/17 that never went to market) It's lack of suitability was an immediate death sentence for the Mach 2.

I liked the 17HMR when it first came out. I have three rifles chambered for it. Two are customs. Haven't even looked at them in years.
~Muir

**CZ did make a 611 in 17HMR but it was short lived and too pricey for the American consumer.
 
old keeper said:
When you're driving around in a 4x4 at night, you don't have much idea of wind strength or direction, so forget it! The .22LR is . what it is, a very good general-purpose round, but its trajectory lets it down at night. when you have no accurate idea of distance. The 17HMR is flat shooting so within a hundred yards it's point-and-shoot.
As I said, the Hornet is an excellent calibre but for bulk shooting then 17 HMR wins hands down. I did try using the Hornet for night shooting rabbits, but soon got fed-up reloading the number of cartridges needed.
As a foxing round the Hornet wins hands down, it's horses for courses.
I'm probably just too old now to be able to guarantee head-shooting rabbits at night like some on here, but then I have to get rid of the rabbits, I don't shoot for fun, it's a job and the chest is a bigger and more forgiving target than the head!
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i think i have had one body shot with the hornet in the last decade , wasn't aimed that way but i badly misestimated the range and added too much wind ( classic farther Ted mistake ) " LOL ,"these are small those are far away" i see your point if your not able to do the head shot consistently 22 hornet is destructive on body shots unless you download and if you download a lot you end up with 22rf anyhow . Loading hornet i do with the little arbour press and it i am not looking for match accuraccy i just throw the loads into a primed case and pop a bullet on-top with the arbour press.. Its not a cartridge i would use the big loading press on and never have .
I sold the HMR after 18 months before any ammo problems had occured , cant see the circumstances where we might add one to the household again . I will just mention .22LR velocitors are point and shoot at the head of the bunny to 100 yards , if it proper bulk shooting thats what i would choose but fifty rounds a night ? take me longer to gut and skin 50 bunnies than make those rounds
PPU brass ( because you will loose cases), prime it fill it up with lilgun ( you will be under max load with this brass capacity ) pop a bullet in with the LE Wilson hand die . I think many miss the fact that the humble old 22 lr though beats the lot in terms of costs , killing without a mess and availibility of various ammo
Foxes are rare here , we shoot only incomers as almost every inch of green is pheasant, grouse or Lamb ground they have simply had zero tollerance sice the hunt stopped .
If the 22 hornet becomes a victim of copper regards twist rates and the 22lr costs rise to the point of the CF anyhow ? I think i will re-barrel .17 hornet because i am hearing good things about it with none lead ammo. lot of speed and room to cut it back .
 
Muir said:
I don't think the 17HMR was built to take over the 22LR market. That would be an impossible goal. Like other rimfire cartridges before it, like the 22WMR, the 17 High Standard, 17 Aguila, and 5mm Remington Magnum, it was supposed to place extended range and increased performance in a rimfire platform at reasonable prices. It was also hoped that the Ruger 10/22M could be marketed for this cartridge. It could not. If it had a failing, this would be it.** The 17Mach 2 was also hoped to be viable in the 10-22 platform. (I have a Ruger manual for the 10/17 that never went to market) It's lack of suitability was an immediate death sentence for the Mach 2.

I liked the 17HMR when it first came out. I have three rifles chambered for it. Two are customs. Haven't even looked at them in years.
~Muir

**CZ did make a 611 in 17HMR but it was short lived and too pricey for the American consumer.
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That was the plan at the get go , It failed ! I think Americans often miss the fact that most of the world needs a really good reason to swap their rifle and most who buy 22 lr here in the uk ( where moderators are the norm on 22 lr) are interested in the lack of velocity? The over hype like the 300 yard fox marketing definetly held it back
 
Bowland blades said:
That was the plan at the get go , It failed ! I think Americans often miss the fact that most of the world needs a really good reason to swap their rifle and most who buy 22 lr here in the uk ( where moderators are the norm on 22 lr) are interested in the lack of velocity? The over hype like the 300 yard fox marketing definetly held it back
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What Americans? The manufacturer? They offer up what they think will sell. Nothing more. If the HMR was good to run in the 10/22M chassis, and the Mach2 in the 10/22 the over-all picture would be different. If Remington had not made the 5mm magnum with a proprietary rim diameter (.323") and pressures high enough (+40K psi) to warrant a rifle like their own nine-lug-bolted 590 series, the field would be different again -but manufacturers weren't going to develop a new rifle around this cartridge so it failed. Miserably.

What saved the HMR from a similar fate was the standard rimfire bolt face the and low operating pressures. When the HMR Hype was applied, people clamored for guns and any company offering a 22WMR was all set but for reamers and barrel blanks. The prototype HMR sent to manufactures was superb ammunition. Unbelievable accuracy and instantaneous kills on rabbit sized game out to 150 yards. The first one or two production runs were excellent as well but then they set the machines to run at high speed and took the afternoon off. Their (Hornady's) attempts to cut costs have caused intermittent problems that the consumers, for the most part, have somehow taken as a given instead of walking away. I remember on this site someone pitying Hornady and forgiving split necks in unfired ammo because the HMR was so hard to produce. Yuh....
I'll take a 22WMR any day. ~Muir
 
Muir said:
What Americans? The manufacturer? They offer up what they think will sell. Nothing more. If the HMR was good to run in the 10/22M chassis, and the Mach2 in the 10/22 the over-all picture would be different. If Remington had not made the 5mm magnum with a proprietary rim diameter (.323") and pressures high enough (+40K psi) to warrant a rifle like their own nine-lug-bolted 590 series, the field would be different again -but manufacturers weren't going to develop a new rifle around this cartridge so it failed. Miserably.

What saved the HMR from a similar fate was the standard rimfire bolt face the and low operating pressures. When the HMR Hype was applied, people clamored for guns and any company offering a 22WMR was all set but for reamers and barrel blanks. The prototype HMR sent to manufactures was superb ammunition. Unbelievable accuracy and instantaneous kills on rabbit sized game out to 150 yards. The first one or two production runs were excellent as well but then they set the machines to run at high speed and took the afternoon off. Their (Hornady's) attempts to cut costs have caused intermittent problems that the consumers, for the most part, have somehow taken as a given instead of walking away. I remember on this site someone pitying Hornady and forgiving split necks in unfired ammo because the HMR was so hard to produce. Yuh....
I'll take a 22WMR any day. ~Muir
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they didnt hit their targets hence the economies of scale did not make the numbers add up, i though which Americans was fairly obvious the ones you also refer to and why they " Set the machines to the cheaper faster settings " was of course to make things truly profitable.
No doubt the HMR will remain unlike the 5mm remington ?
Rimfire ammo has just one big advantage 1. its not expensive in terms of ammo and barrel life for the user 2. there is lots of money in it for ammo producers " but it must have big economies of scale" HMR did better than all the others but it couldnt match or better .22 lr for the extra velocity it gave . Remember here in the UK subsonic has always been the big seller for we have has moderators allowed on the calibre for a very long time
 
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