BALLISTICS: Caliber 22 Hornet. Despite its American origins, every time I hear the 22 Hornet caliber mentioned, my thoughts go to the ancient Central European hunting traditions.
In fact, for decades, this fine caliber and its European equivalent, the 5,6 x 35 Vierling, have been the most used for hunting precious grouse (grouse, black grouse, francolin) and those most comrades in three-way swing guns. and more rods. Weapons that I consider, rightly or wrongly, to be the greatest German and Austrian weaponry of all time. I don't know how many of you have been lucky enough to be able to admire live, or just to see in photographs, those mechanical jewels that are drilling with the third barrel placed inside the rib or the four-barreled Vierlings, two overlapped and two side. In ninety percent of cases one of the barrels is chambered in 22 Hornet caliber (5,6 x 36 R) or in 5,6 x 35 R. I would like to immediately specify that these two small - large calibers are almost identical, so much so that perfect interchangeability. Personally I was able to shoot the 5,6 x 35 R both with a gearbox of caliber 5,6 x 50 R Magnum - 22 Hornet in a Zanardini kipplauf, and in a Walther KKJ Stutzen rifle without any problem.
The 22 Hornet was designed in America by a team of engineers from the Springfield Military Arsenal in the late XNUMXs and early XNUMXs.
It appears to derive from the .22 WCF which, loaded with black powder and chambered in the Winchester Model 52 shotgun, was intended for sporting use only. The first weapon that was instead marketed in .22 Hornet caliber was the Savage mod. 23-D. There carbine Savage, with sliding - swivel bolt action, very well made and also characterized by an excellent quality - price ratio, combined with the revolutionary (for those times) ballistic characteristics of the caliber, contributed considerably to the diffusion of the .22 Hornet. A really small cartridge in size, but capable of expressing unsuspected energies and a remarkable intrinsic precision. And even if in Italy it is unfortunately forbidden for hunting (the current law requires 45 mm as a minimum length of the cartridge case), can give us moments of great entertainment on targets and cans, with minimum consumption of powder, to the delight of reloaders. The .22 Hornet (hornet in English means "hornet") is part of a group of ammunition that appeared around those years, which included the .218 Bee, the .219 Zipper and the .219 Danaldson Wasp. Almost all of these calibers have been considerably downsized in their diffusion following the appearance of the .222 Remington and those monsters of power which are the .224 Wetherby, the 22-250 Remington and the 220 Swift.
The .222 Remington immediately established itself and gained widespread popularity thanks to its exceptional intrinsic precision and the happy relationship between capacity and caliber that made it, until the recent appearance of the 6 mm PPC, the most accurate cartridge ever seen on the market. Despite this, the .22 Hornet has not completely disappeared, it is still in production by Remington, Winchester and Federal in the United States and RWS in Germany. The .22 Hornet is still quite widespread in the States, also because many companies still continue to produce rifles for it chambered. Anschütz offers two models for small hunting (obviously where permitted with this caliber), the 1730 model and the 1733 model and the 1432 model for shooting. The Ceska Zbrojovka of Uhersky Brod in the Czech Republic offers the 527 model and it is lucky those who still manage to find in some provincial armory the most beautiful 22-gauge Hornet carbine ever built: the Walther KKJ. And it is precisely with the latter that I was able to appreciate the nice cartridge, whose dimensions and personality harmonize perfectly with the German weapon and which, although several years after its birth, offers many advantages over others, more modern and authoritative, .224 caliber ammunition. The advantages consist in its great compactness, in the very low level of exasperation, in the very low noise of the shot, in the total absence of recoil and in the excellent intrinsic precision.
Who among you has seen the movie "The day of the Jackal"? If you notice, the handcrafted weapon built in Italy (and where else!) Used by the killer to attempt the life of President De Gaulle was unmistakably in 22 Hornet caliber! The cartridge case capacity of the .22 Hornet is very low, in fact it does not exceed 12 - 13 grains of powder, and this involves several difficulties in reloading, including the obligatory choice of very lively propellants and bullets weighing no more than 45. grains. Finally, the caliber demonstrates extreme sensitivity to even the smallest variations in dose or according to the capacity of the cases (which changes significantly between brand and brand). This does not mean that in this caliber it is not possible to use bullets of 50 and even 55 grains, but these bullets greatly reduce the space available to the powder, already considerably limited in itself, thus generating very low speeds. The performance that can be obtained with 40 and 45 grain balls, which can also be pushed to 2.800-2.900 ft / sec (850-880 m / sec approximately) with relative energies of 90-100 kilograms are, on the other hand, decidedly good. In the United States, the 22 Hornet is selectively intended for rats, squirrels, prairie dogs, wild rabbits and crows. With us, since the caliber is not usable in the hunting field, we cannot even insert a weapon chambered in it in the European Green Card. A real shame in my opinion because its characteristics could, at the limit, make it suitable, at a short distance, even for animals such as foxes and roe deer. Here I say it and here I deny it, I know an old hunter who with a 22 Hornet "terrorized" the game of entire mountains, and woe to anyone who tells him that it is not a suitable caliber to hunt chamois. Also in America, the Hornet is used by hunters of small fur animals, loaded with 55 gram Fmj balls that do not expand and do not damage the hides. As in Europe it is used for ptarmigan, francolin, black grouse and capercaillie, all wild which are hunted only for the trophy and which therefore must be little damaged in order to be successfully stuffed.
Aside from hunting uses, the Hornet is one cartridge very pleasant and fun to shoot at inanimate targets in all the strangest shapes, on which the small and fragile balls of 40 and 45 grains give explosive and spectacular effects up to 100 meters. For this use, its precision and the absence of recoil, as well as the very low noise, are much appreciated in the countryside rather than at the shooting range. Usually the barrels of weapons chambered in 22 Hornets are 600 mm (approx. 24 inches) long, more than enough to allow the lively propellants used by the Hornet to better accelerate the small 40 and 45 grains. Charging the 22 Hornet presents absolutely no problems. The recalibrator dies are quite easy to find even if they are not produced by all the most well-known manufacturers. It goes without saying that a good reloader always retrieves the fired cases, but they are still found on the second-hand market.
The primers to use are the Small Rifle, excellent: the RWS 4033, the Federal 205, the CCI 400 and the CCI Bench Rest 4, while for the choice of propellants we have to fall back on those most available on our market, such as: Vihatavuori N110, ICI Revolver N ° 1, Bascheri & Pellagri M410, Norma R123, IMR 4227, Norma 200, Vectan Sp3, Hodgdon H110 and Winchester 296). Although the 22 Hornet falls within the ranks of calibers that "could fit" all 224 thousandths of an inch bullets equal to 5,69 mm in diameter, it originally uses .223 "bullets equal to 5,66 mm. The best gun manufacturers have specific bullets in their catalog for the Hornet. I will list a refill table with doses to be considered as MAXIMUM. They must be reached gradually starting from lower doses. Regardless of the type of ball chosen, the overall length of the ball (OAL) should not exceed 44,5 mm.
POWDER DOSE (grains) BALL (grains) SPEED (ft / sec)
Standard R123 10,1 40 2723
Standard R123 9,6 45 2509
Standard 200 12,5 40 2500
Standard 200 10,5 45 2166
Standard 200 10 50 2020
Viht. N110 10,8 40 2685
Viht. N110 10,2 45 2546
Viht. N110 9,6 50 2328
IMR 4227 11,8 40 2711
IMR 4227 11,3 45 2589
ICI R1 10,8 40 2711
ICI R1 10,1 45 2467
ICI R1 9,5 50 2286
WW 296 12,2 40 2919
WW 296 11,8 45 2798
WW 296 11,6 50 2716
Hodg. H 110 11,1 40 2824
Hodg. H 110 10,6 45 2686
Hodg. H 110 9,7 50 2497
B&P M410 10,5 40 2559
B&P M410 10,1 45 2510
B&P M410 9,5 50 2287
Vectan SP3 11 40 2836
Vectan SP3 10,6 45 2688
Vectan SP3 10 50 2501
I want to conclude with a wish. Who knows if in the future the good old caliber 22 Hornet will ever return to wander around the Italian woods? Chambered in a rifle, kipplauf or in a highly prized combined weapon does not matter, the important thing is that those who want to use it have the opportunity to do so!
Mark Benecchi