.22 Hornet

Developed in the 1920s, the .22 Hornet was based on the black-powder .22 WCF. Winchester loaded the first commercial Hornet ammunition in 1930; soon several rifles were factory-chambered for the round (the case has a .350-inch head and measures just 1.403 inches in length).

Winchester listed its Model 54 in .22 Hornet in 1932, but rifles didn't become available until the following year, a few months after Savage offered its first 23D rifles in this chambering. Stevens Model 417 "Walnut Hill" single-shots also appeared in .22 Hornet in 1933. So popular was the cartridge that Winchester cataloged it in the Model 70, adapting the big action with extensive modifications to bolt and magazine.

During World War II, survival rifles were issued in .22 Hornet. Later, lightweight varmint rifles by Anschutz and less expensive single-shot models from Savage and T/C gave hunters options for shooting foxes and woodchucks to 200 yards.

Early rifles had .223 bores, but .224 is the current standard. At 2,690 fps, the 45-grain bullet can't compete with the .222 Remington or even match the .218 Bee, but it's a very mild round.

The K-Hornet (for Lysle Kilbourn, who came up with it in 1940) has a straighter body and sharper shoulder. Hornet ammunition can be fire-formed to produce Kilbourn's case.

During 1956 Jim Harvey developed the similar Harvey Kay-Chuck. A handful of early Kimber rifles were factory-chambered for the K-Hornet, but it has since faded. In Europe, the .22 Hornet is known as the 5.6x35R.

Suitable Applications

The .22 Hornet evokes images of men in plaid shirts smoking briar pipes while cradling falling-block rifles with long scopes by stone fencerows above rolling green fields.

The Hornet is a short-range varmint round, eclipsed first by the .222 and buried, ballistically, by the Swift and the .22-250. It is to the 'chuck pastures what the .30-30 is to the hardwoods. In fact, the two have near-parallel trajectories.

Belly up to within 150 yards of a woodchuck, hold a couple of inches high and that 100-yard zero will plant your 45-grain bullet in the vitals.

If you're serious about killing at distance, pick another round. The .22 Hornet is for hunters.

Ballistics

Speer's 33-grain TNT, an explosive bullet loaded by Federal to 3,100 fps, kills instantly. But its low ballistic coefficient makes it vulnerable to wind and gravity. The Hornady V-Max and Remington's AccuTip, both 35 grains, fare better. Traditional 45-grain softpoints and hollowpoints, still sold by Federal, Winchester and Remington, hold up surprisingly well in comparison.