Cast .22 Bullets

[gitano]

Couldn't make up my mind where to put this, so I decided to keep it general and put it in "Reloading".

With the purchase of the two Anschutz .22s (Hornet and Match RF), the .22 Jet in hand, and shooting .22 pellets out of the Hornet, I thought I should just get a mold and make some 'pellets' - projectiles to be used in various rifles chambered in .22 caliber and intended for relatively 'slow' velocities.

I wanted something that would be appropriate mostly for the .22 Hornet and therefore, not too 'heavy'. I would have liked something in the mid to high 30 grains, but those get fairly universally bad reviews when it comes to reports on shooting them. Neither did I want to go to a 50+ grain bullet for the Hornet. I found a Lyman mold - 225438 - that throws a nominal 44-grain bullet. It looked good, and was also a gas check, so I parted with the $60-ish delivered. I got the mold yesterday, and the .22 gas checks also came in yesterday. Already having handles and a bullet sizing die in hand, I was pretty much ready to make bullets, so I made some today.



Without gas checks and made from clip on wheel weight alloy, they weigh 43.5 grains and are 0.225" in diameter right out of the mold. The sizing die spits them out at 0.2235" and with the gas check they weigh 46.5 grains. I'll assume that Lee's Liquid ALOX will add about 0.5 grains for a finished weight of 47 grains even.

I'm going to load up some Hornet brass with these aiming for a MV of around 1600 to 1800 f/s. I'll give a range report when I have one.

Paul