.22 caliber for long range varmint hunting Questions

[Marc]

Hello,

Does anyone have experience with .22 caliber rifles using heavy bullets like the 80 / 107 grs HPBT from Sierra for long range rockchuk hunting ?
Do these bullets perform well on distances over 500 m ? What about the risk of richochets if they fail to expand due to velocity lack ?

What would be an ideal cartridge for such a .22 combo ?

Would a 6mm be a better choice than the .22 for the task at hand ?

As I'm new to this BB i'm gratefull for all the information i can get.

Thanks,

Marc

[Darryl Cassel]

Hello Marc

I have a 22/284 that has propelled an 80 Gr Sierra MK through a 5" hardwood bowling pin at 1000 yards two shots in a row. It has a 30" long 8 twist barrel on it.
I don't have a lot of rounds through this rifle yet to tell you how it will hold up.

I believe the 6mm or 243(I have both) using the 107 Gr Sierra with a 30" barrel (8 Twist) would be a bit better then the 224 diameter bullets for fighting the wind. The BC is better with the 6mm bullets.

For what it's worth.

DC

[Steve in Mi]

For LR shooting I looked into a 6-284 two words are said almost in the same breath about this wildcat "barrel burner" however the 6.5-284 is much easier on the barrel and the bc is great. I have seen that this a caliber that is really catching on for 800+ yard shooting. Mine will be done in the spring hopefully in time for some yote hunting.

[Marc]

Hello all,

Thanks for sharing the knowledge with me.
One question concerning the different .22 cartridges remains nevertheless.

As you, Darryl, pointed out and from what I could gather from other sources the 22/284, 22 Vais or 22 Clark are extrem long range cartridges for .22 caliber standards.

But how would a 22-250 or 220 Swift compare to these cartridges when using
the same setup, meaning, 30" barrel (8 Twist) in a custom rifle ?
Or put differntly, what are the reasons why such a combination would not perform as expected ? Would this only be due to the smaller case volume ?

So far i couldn't find an objective comparison based on hard facts concerning this questions.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Marc

[Mysticplayer]

Like every overbored situation, there is a point of diminishing returns where a huge increase in powder delivers a small increase in performance. The 22/284 is really overbored. Smaller cases like the 22/250AI will not be that far behind in performance.

If interested in the "reg" cartridges, I would suggest the 22/250 AI. This will have the added capacity to launch the heavies out at 3000fps from the longer barrel. This will give pretty good performance out to 1000yds. Going much faster may cause problems as the bullets start to break up.

Big downside of the 22 cal is that BC is quite low compared to other calibres. Wind drift and vel. loss will reduce long range performance. Best way to see this, is put in numbers for different BC and Muzzle vel in Ballistic software and see their interaction at longer ranges.

Unless there is a specific reason for using a 22 cal rifle, other cal from 6.5mm to 338, will give better performance.

There isn't a lot of feedback to your question directly because most will not build a 22 cal rifle if long range performance is the goal. There are better options.

For long range varminting, High BC to reduce wind drift will be very important.

Good luck..

Jerry

[Marc]

Hello all,

Thanks for your answers, seems like I should further investigate the 6 and 6.5 mm alternatives.

Sure enough i will need your help again when the questions start popping up again.

Kind regards,

Marc