Re: Opinions wanted, again.....
Here is another idea I have been chewing on for the last year or so.
I have a Ruger M77/22 in 22 hornet. Well now its a K-Hornet which was a mistake. I had a smith ream it out long before I got into building rifles and the reamer he used was very large in the throat and neck area and accuracy went from 3/4" for 5 shots with the standard hornet to 1.5" with the K-Hornet chamber.
TO make matters worse, the larger shoulder diameter on the K-Hornet will not relaiably feed through the rotary magazine of the Ruger rifles, always binds up if more then two rounds are in the magazine.
I have had this rifle sitting in the safe for several years doing nothing at all, especially after I built my 218 Mashburn Bee on a Winchester M43 receiver.
Still, I have been thinking about what to do with this little rifle as I really do like it. Here are my thoughts on what I wanted to do:
1. Take the Hornet case and shorten it by 0.100". This would allow the use of the new tipped bullets in the short Hornet cases which is not possible with many of the current repeating Hornet rifles. This would still leave a neck length of over 0.280", more then enough.
2. Leave the shoulder-neck junction at the same location but increase the shoulder angle to 30 degrees and leave the shoulder diameter to the same as the old Hornet so that it will still function properly in the Ruger rotary magazines. This would increase case capacity just enough to return it to its original Hornet case capacity after shortening the neck length.
3. And this has been the undecided point so far, neck the case down to either 17 cal or 20 cal. The 17 cal version was what I was originally going to do but with the release of all the new tipped 20 cal bullets this really is an attractive caliber for a small round like this as well.
Basically this new little round would offer velocity potential higher then any standard 22 Hornet with the 20 gr 17 cal V-Max or the 32-40 gr tipped 20 cal bullets.
IT would have a much more positive headspacing shoulder compared to the old Hornet for better accuracy and consistancy and above all else, the shorter case length would allow you to use the tipped bullets in rifles with short magazine lengths which will offer these rounds a huge boost in ballistic performance.
basically what I would be looking to get would be to offer performance pretty much in between the 17 HMR an the 17 Mach IV which this round should do easily.
There is already the 17 K-Hornet and 17 Hornet Improved by these are on the full length Hornet case and shoulder diameters will raise hell with the Ruger magazines and the tipped bullets will often be to long to be seated to the lands with the full length hornet case. This would be solved with the shorter case design.
Anyway let me know what you think of this idea, totally different class of round then what I asked about previously for a much different use.
For those that think that one has to be rich to design your own wildcat round and that only rich gunsmiths can do it, that is really not the case. Here is a break down for anyone that wanted to do something like this providing they had a donor rifle to use for the project:
JGS custom reamer................$185 to $250(17 cal)
Lilja barrel.....................$315
Machining and chambering barrel..$180
Hornady Custom loading dies......under $100
Total............................$780 to $845
Now this is not chump change but I have ordered some new high tech barrels that cost more then the entire cost of this project would from start to finish. For the 6mm-223 it would be slightly more as there would be an additional $180 charge for receiver accurizing, $125 for installation of Sako extractor and bedding of stock to rifle($85 to $130).
Thats a total of $1215 to own your very own creation if you had the donor rifle to start with. Again, not chump change but many of us will spend more then this on some of the factory rifles out there so please do not feel you need to be "Rich" or a "Riflebuilder" to design and own your own round.
Dispite what many have said, if you do some homework and develop a well designed round, you will get alot more out of it then alot of spent time and money and only have one loaded round to show for it.
Many will make it sound like its rocket science to develope your own wildcat round and that its an investment of most peoples annual salary, that is simply bunk.
It can be intimidating at first but it is really quite simple and to be honest, not nearly as expensive as many would have you believe. Now bringing a new wildcat to the market for the public is a bigger deal because you have to really do alot of testing but this is not the case for a rifle for your own personal use.
Anyway, let me have it, what do you think of this little round. I just do not know if I would rather have the 17 or 20 cal version. Either would be a huge improvement over the standard 22 Hornet or even K-Hornet designs which are limited to rounded SP bullets or the very blunt 35 gr V-Max which I do like.
Thanks for your opinion,
Kirby Allen(50)
