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As the title says I would be interested to know if any one has done any thing in .222 with cast bullets. I'm not a fan of .22 calibre mainly because you can not reload them. Well not easily. So I aim on using the .222. at mainly 25 yards. Why you may ask well its just to expensive and a total waste of ammo shooting .308. 6.5x55. .303 etc. at 25 yards. So I have changed tack I'm now buying stuff I can play with and reload for at 25 yards with cast bullets.

I am currently shooting .222, .218 Bee and .22 Hornet with cast bullets.

Nothing difficult about it so long as you can cast consistently and produce bullets of the same weight.

In fact at 25 yards the Hornet works very well with just a primer and a .22 airgun pellet.

Not .222, but .223. Started off as an experiment purely for the sake of it. One thing that did surprise me was even though I was shoving a 55gn bullet at just over 1000fps, the report was still more of a characteristic boom of a rifle cartridge than say a rimfire, of which it performance was more akin.

You want to stop soaking the powder in petrol.

dromia wrote:I am currently shooting .222, .218 Bee and .22 Hornet with cast bullets.

Nothing difficult about it so long as you can cast consistently and produce bullets of the same weight.

In fact at 25 yards the Hornet works very well with just a primer and a .22 airgun pellet.

That sounds interesting, can you seat the pellet by hand or are you using a seater die?

The case mouth needs expand to the correct diameter with an "M" type expamder and then you can hand seat. That is pellet nose down on the bench and press the case down onto it.

Taper expanding isn't good as the pellet can deform and it tends to go in cocked off centre.

In fact taper expanders are an abomination and like case neck expanders should be destroyed on sight.

I shoot .223 with cast. Easy to load and cheap. I get best accuracy at over 2200 fps. For lower, .22 LR, velocities it was hard work getting any meaningful accuracy.

I've played with primer powered airgun pellets and always came up against the issue of primer residue fouling that brings shooting to a halt after 4 or 5 rounds. Best route I found is with heavy pellets intended for section 1 air rifles and a grain or so of fast powder like GM3. But in the end it wasn't worth the effort over using cast bullets.

Never found a need for high velocity for accuracy in the .222".

I have never had a fouling issue either in the 22 Hornet and primer only, shoot a box of 50 no problem.

Shame that you are having these problems and can't get the rifle to perform.

dromia wrote:You want to stop soaking the powder in petrol.

I love the smell though...!

Fair point.