Small Game Bullet for Hornet??

[Jim-Iowa]

Have a Hornet Handi-rifle ordered.
Am wanting to work up a small game load, in the 1500FPS range.
While at the Shooting suppliers last night I noticed he had bulk Winchester 46grn hollowpoints at a very attractive price.

Since I know little about this bullet, I am wondering if it would be suitable, or too explosive for this application?

Other Bullets I have on hand are Sierra 45 & 50gr Varminter, both of which I suspect will be a bit much for small game.

[William Iorg]

Jim,
I shoot the bulk hollow points in the Hornet and the K-Hornet with good results. I do have some problems with ricochettes with this bullet. Our ground is hard.
I believe you will have more satifactory results with the Winchester bulk 46 grain JSP's. The Sierra and Hornady bullets work fine too.
The premium plastic tip bullets shoot smaller groups in my rifles but the bulk bullets are not that far off and you can shoot a lot on the price difference. In my rifles the Nosler 40 grain ballistic tip is the clear accuracy winner with the Hornady right behind it. I do not have enough experiance with the 33 Speer but in my Bee it seems to shoot well. I am having a little health problem at the moment and only shooting rimfires so have not been able to shoot much in the last few weeks.
In my Hornet rifles brass preperation has done more for producing small groups than bullet selection. This is one cartridge that I believe benifits from deburring flash holes, uniforming primer pockets and trimming to uniform lengths. Do not mix brands of brass.

[Jim-Iowa]

This is a new one for me, been loading again for two years.
Have been shooting a Savage 10FP .223, started shooting facotry class BR. So I too use Accuracy Brass prep techniques(with the exception of turning necks. which I consider not needed with factory chamber). Even if I did not I beleve deburring primer hole is always needed.

I have 50 rounds prepped for loading as of tonight.
Will load up a mild Lil Gun load to start with.
Need a different powder for the slow loads, so it may be a couple weeks before I do that.

BTW Sorry to hear your a bit out of sorts! Take care of yourself.

[William Iorg]

Jim,

Thanks, just feeling grumpy.

For moderate loads try 5.0 grains of Unique. Shoots well with both cast and jacketed bullets. IMR or Hodgdon 4227 and 4198 is another good choise for case filling less than maximum velocity loads. A compressed charge of 4198 is a very uniform load in my rifles.

[Jim-Iowa]

It may be a couple weeks, but will pick up some Unique and try that load. I loaded up some mild loads with Lil Gun today.

[bigbang]

37 grain Calhoon HP's work quite well at killing things from birds to coyotes out to 125 yards. I use a K hornet case nearly full of W296

[GregH]

Do not use Lil Gun for 1500 FPS. It will not like such low pressure loads. Try 6 grains of Blue Dot instead. That is one of Rocky's prescription and I have shot it for some time. Will run about 2000fps.
Hope this is of some help!
Greg

[GregH]

I didn't read the bellet question part . Use the 45 Grain Sierra Varminter, may be part #1410. It will be a pretty hard bullet at those low speeds. Have used it up to 3000FPS and there it works like a controlled expansion bullet.
GregH