bullets. In the late 1990s I started shooting the Hornet in sin- gle-shots, where the longer plastic-tipped 40-grain Hornady V-Max and Nosler Ballistic Tip weren’t a problem, as they can be in magazine rifl es. Soon it became apparent that when loaded with Hodgdon Li’l Gun and plastic 40s, the Hornet was no longer limited to 200-yard shooting – on a good day. Hits were easy at 200, and even on a moderately breezy
afternoon quite possible at 300. Best of all, I could watch the action through the scope, especially with my 9-pound Ruger No. 1B. Even the scope reticle didn’t even move all that much at the shot! The 1B Hornet also taught the important lesson that
Here’s what a 40-grain Ballistic Tip does from an accurate 220 Swift at 4,300+ fps: The target was made with four pairs of shots, taken at 100, 200, 300, and 350 yards. The entire group is under fi ve inches, smaller than a mature coyote’s chest cavity.
There’s also another advantage to 40-grain bullets:
Lighter recoil allows us to look through the scope during the shot, so we can spot our own hits and misses. In the 223 this works best with heavy-barreled rifl es, but in any smaller .22 centerfi re it’s possible with a sporter-weight barrel. After you become used to watching the action with a 22 Hornet or 221 Fireball, it can be somewhat annoying to go back to a “hard-kicking” 223. The Hornet fi rst turned me on to plastic-tipped 40-grain
there’s a limit to the virtues of sheer speed. At the time, the lightest .224 bullet available was the 35-grain Hornady V- Max, specifi cally designed to work through the magazines of bolt-action Hornets. It could really be zipped along in the 26" barrel of the No. 1B, but turned the rifl e back into one of those conventional 200-yard Hornets, because of the extremely low ballistic coeffi cient of .109. In comparison the 40-grain Hor- nady V-Max has a listed BC of .200, and the 40-grain Nosler Ballistic Tip has a listed BC of .221, thanks to its little boat tail. Since then some more ultralight .224 bullets have ap-
peared, including the 30-grain Barnes Varmint Grenade and Speer TNT Green. I’ve tried these not only in the Hornet but the 221 Fireball and 222 Remington. Despite their spectacular initial velocity, they just don’t hold up past 200 yards like the plastic tips. (Neither, for that matter, do lead-core softpoint or hollow-point 40s, because their ballistic coeffi cients run in the .140 to .160 range – though they hold up better than the ultralights.) The best “non-toxic” .224 lightweight I’ve personally
tried so far is the 35-grain Nosler Ballistic-Tip Lead Free, with a listed ballistic coeffi cient of .201. Unfortunately it’s a little long to stabilize completely in factory twists common in smaller .224 centerfi res such as the 22 Hornet, 221 Fireball, and 222 Remington. It does work great in a 1:12 twist in the 223 Remington, shooting even a little fl atter than the 40-grain lead-core Ballistic Tip, while providing the same nifty lift to small rodents out to 400 yards. The 40-grain plastic-tips even work very well for specifi c
purposes in larger .22 centerfi res. A couple of years ago I came out of a rifl e trade with a sporter-weight, tang-safety Ruger 77 in 220 Swift. This is exactly the same model as my fi rst Swift, acquired back in the 1980s, purchased used at a very good price from a guy who thought the barrel was shot out. In those days many shooters didn’t know all that much
about barrel cleaning, and thought that a brush-scrubbing with Hoppe’s #9 once a year was plenty. I cleaned the bore down to bare steel and, lo and behold, the rifl e regularly grouped fi ve shots into an inch or less at 100 yards. I can’t remember exactly why that Swift was sold a few years later, but the sale was regretted ever afterward, despite a number of other Swifts, along with several 22-250s. This “new” Swift shoots even better than the original, with many bullets group- ing fi ve shots into around 0.6" at 100 yards. Back then I envisioned my sporter-weight Swift as the
While some coyotes are taken at more than 400 yards, most are taken at shorter ranges, where the ultra- fl at trajectory of a 40-grain bullet means no holdover problems in big rounds like the 22-250 and 220 Swift.
Page 26 Winter 2012
all-around varmint rifl e, perfect for everything from prairie dogs to coyotes – and even the occasional deer or pronghorn. It did all of that, but with experience I eventually decided the Swift is far from the ideal prairie dog cartridge. It recoils
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