Looking for a quiet rifle...Hornet...Fireball?

[Gary Kaney]

Browning also make a Hornet. I love mine. 35 grn V MAX and 12.8 grns Lil Gun. You will find that the Hornet is a finicky round to load.

 

[lewwetzel]

I have a Hornet and a .221FB. The Hornet is a little quieter; that may be partially due to having a heavier, longer barrel than the CZ sporter, but I'd hazard a guess that the .22 Hornet is the quietest over-the-counter centerfire cartridge you can buy. No way is the .223 quieter.
If I were a gun/ammo maker, I'd be looking at quieter, short-range c-fires as the wave of the future; we're simply running out of land and it's getting harder to shoot at longer ranges. That, and/or making suppressors easier to get in the U.S., as they are in the U.K., (they may even be mandatory in some areas there.) I looked at internally-suppressed like those at johnsguns.com, but seem pretty expensive.

 

[bassin93]

The wife and I both have the M77/22 hornet from ruger. They have a semiheavy barrel and shoot dime sized five shot groups at 100 yards. I load 12 grains of Win 296 behind a 35 grn Vmax. Devistating on gophers, in fact after buying these I gave my Rem Varminter 22-250 to my son, I just love this cartridge. I have several 223s and the hornet is way quieter. Over my chrony, my hornet load is running 3220 fps.