The Homeboy .22 Hornet Mold

[HotGuns]

A friend of mine came over to the house and wanted me to cut and thread his barrel for a suppressor. It was a .22 Hornet and I told him that it wouldn't be worth putting a suppressor on 9it because it would just be too loud to do much good. He then told me that he reloaded for it and had some loads that he wanted to try out. So, I cut off his barrel, threaded it and then mounted a .22 can on it. The loads he had were amazing. Using 1.3 grains of Red Dot that thing was so quiet that I had to get a video of it. I was fiddling with the phone and he shot...I had to ask if he shot as I wasn't sure. He laughed, jacked another round in it and shot again. Pretty much what I was hearing was the bullet whacking the target 50 yards away. He had my interest now, I was quite intrigued.

Since then, I was on the hunt for a Hornet. I found a great deal here locally on one so I grabbed it. It was a M77 Ruger in great condition. I bought the dies, got some brass and my friend gave me some cast bullets to get started. I chopped the barrel to 16.5" and threaded it. I mounted a Huntertown Arms can on it.

I've been playing around with it shooting it suppressed. . I was amazed by the fact that it shot so well and was very, very quiet. The fact that you could download it to .22 LR specs or bump it up to near .223 speeds captured my interest.

Since .22 LR is slim to non existent in some places, the idea of having a rifle that could do the same thing as a 22LR but be reloadable just seemed to good to pass up.

Thinking that its just a matter time until the bullet supply dries up again, I got to thinking that having a mold to cast for would be a good thing. Since I have been experimenting with powder coated bullets and having great results, it occurred to me that having a slick bullet without the need for lube grooves might be a better performer and minus the grooves a bullet the same length would be a bit heavier.

Heavy is good if you intend to suppress it. At subsonic velocity, the heavier the better. It hits harder and the increased weight makes up for the fact that the bullet is moving slow.

So, I cut this one just a bit longer than the 50 grain cast bullets that I had been using.

After casting with it, the bullets measure right at 60 grains but are no longer that most 55 grain bullets. Short is good here because the longer the bullet the faster the twist must be to stabilize it.

I intend to size these and then powder coat them. Hopefully they be great shooters. Casting 8 bullets at time, one can build a pile of them very quickly. As you can tell, I basically used a Lee Pattern mold with 8 holes rather than 6. It is a small bullet after all.

Here's a few pictures. What do y'all think?

The guts of the thing...




A stack of bullets to be sized and coated...





The shooting stick that makes it all so fun...

[35remington]

Have you shot these yet? I'd wonder if the twist in the Ruger would stabilize the much heavier than standard weight at the very slow speed of 1050 fps.

A 55 grain bullet is still longer than the standard Hornet bullet. As are these 60's.

[35remington]

I have a 1-14 twist K Hornet barrel and it will not stabilize the 225415, a rather short 50ish grain bullet, at 1000 fps when the temps. get cold.

FWIW.

[RED333]

It will never work, you should the whole kit and kbodull to me.
Just take the quite thing off first.
Cool looking setup, congrats.

[Chill Wills]

When you can, please post a picture of some sample groups with this slow heavy pills.
I have a Ruger and have shot some of the Bator in it but not at that reduced velocity.

[leftiye]

Look at the .22 CCM, or .22 WMR (center fire made from CCM). Mo bettah. Shorten CCM to .22 LR or shorter - mo bettah-er. Rechamber (bore out) .22 LR contender barrel for thicker case and bigger rim, just set firing pin to center fire. (pop)

[steg]

Your lube grooves fell off!

[Fishman]

I think Waksupi has some lube grooves for sale . . .

[gzig5]

With what and how are you coating the boolits? Moly, Danzac, ???