rifle back to me. That old rifle is now in its permanent home. We have been together for almost 45 years. In recent years, my work has
involved me in a lot of reloading and testing, some of which has been done with the old Remington 700. Even though I now have other rifles that are superb varmint rifles, the 222 is still my favorite. In terms of performance, it is close enough to the 223 Remington that I feel no need to try to achieve about 25 yards of additional range. Reloading data for the 222 is
voluminous indeed. However, as in the case of any cartridge, no manual lists all the available bullets, powders, cases, and primers available. When new propellants become available, re- loading manuals may not report data for them for a few years. Neither are all data obtained in the same type of firearm. The result is that I, like many others, experiment with different loads in an effort to determine how my rifle performs. But is it all necessary? In an interesting article, “Reload-
ing Facts & Myths: What Really Helps” by Ritchie Moorhead (The Varmint Hunter Magazine®, 2012 No. 83, p. 18) many facets of reloading are discussed. The effects of sorting bullets, making flash holes uniform, sorting cases, and so on are systematically examined. However, Mr. Moorhead makes the statement, “On average, we can do extremely well with factory loads in the varmint cartridges.” That got me to thinking about how much time and effort I spend reloading for my 222
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Remington. Is it necessary? Not having fired a factory car-
tridge through the 222 for quite a few years, I found that I did not even have any factory ammo on hand. So, I pro- ceeded to obtain several of the most popular factory loads. One thing I found quickly was that there has been a quiet revolution in factory ammuni- tion, even for some of the “old time” cartridges such as the 222. Factory am- munition is available in the traditional soft point, but there also are a few types that feature polymer tipped bullets. I also found that some of the modern “super” loads were touted as producing significantly higher velocity than the
Redfield, Nikon Vortex
Trijicon and Counter Sniper
3,140 ft/sec of the original factory load. The factory ammunition was
tested in my Remington 700ADL with a Cabela’s Alaskan Guide 6-20x AO scope attached. Although I use that scope for testing, the rifle normally wears a Leupold Vari-X II 3-9x, which to me seems about right for a rifle in 222 Remington caliber. I fired the rifle supported on sandbags with the Competition Electronics ProChrono chronograph 10 feet from the muzzle. The velocities recorded were not cor- rected to be muzzle velocities. The testing was done at an out-
door range on the side of one of the foothills of the Big Horn Mountains.
This 0.44-inch group was produced by the Fiocchi V-Max load.
Horizontal stringing as shown by this group is the result of a crosswind operating on the small bullet.
www.varminthunter.org Page 95
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