Since I was young I wanted a 22 Hornet. About 8 months ago my dreams came true but has turned into a nightmare. The rifle is a Ruger 77/22 and the accuracy is terrible. I have tried all of the recommended powders and bullets without success. I hear of groups at 100 yards under .5 inches but 2in is more the rule with this one. Floating the barrel helped a bit and I wanted to glass bed the action but this gun does not have any thing that looks like a recoil lug and I am not sure where to bed. So far my best loads seem to be with N110 powder and Hornady 40gr Vmax bullets. If anyone has been able to obtain accuracy with this gun I sure would like to know how.. reddman@brmemc.net

Wish I could help, but my Hornet is a Savage. I'm probably w-a-y off track here, but I simply do not believe that the Rugers have sufficient inherent accuracy to be tack drivers. I am told by people I trust that the barrel is not up to the task to start with.

Be that as it may ------ my most accurate load has been:

WW brass; WW SR primer; W296 powder and EITHER 40-gr Hornady V-MAX OR Sierra 40-gr BlitzKing.

My Hornet likes to be driven up near max. power.

I have floated the barrel and bedded the action. I wish I could say it was a one-holer, but on a windless day, it will only shoot about 0.5" -- 0.7" groups --- any wind and forget it!!!!!

It's a great little cartridge ---- keep trying, mate!!

Bruce

Unfortunatly, the Ruger bolt guns have a so-so reputation for accuracy in .22 Hornet. It has been attributed to the two piece bolt that they use. There is a company that tightens up the bolt and has had great success in improving accuracy. I have the other Ruger .22 Hornet (#1B) and can say that it shoots great. Some will say that the cartridge itself is not that accurate but I brought back some Anschutz rifles (and a handgun)fron when I was stationed in Germnay in .22 Hornet that prooves that theory wrong. Those things shott everuthing into nice tight groups.

I have had relatively unsatisfactory results trying to get accuracy from my Hornet, but Bob Hagel's book describes it as an accurate cartridge, so I must be doing something wrong!! I can't even get it to shoot with factory ammo!!

A friend has a CZ 527 in a 22 hornet. He uses the 35 gr V-max and Hodgdon's Lilgun powder. 1/4-1/5" groups all day long at 3000 fps. Rugers suck!

Redd - This whole series of small Ruger M77 rifles built on the short action from the .22LR up to the 44 Magnum are ALL DOGS for accuracy. They are beautiful rifles, feel good, handle and function good and shoot like crap. I've owned almost all of them in this series hoping for some different results. It won't happen. If there is a cure out there, I don't know it. My cure has been to get rid of them.

You can expect "hunting accuracy" and that's about it. Anyone who has gotten better results is very lucky.

The hornet cartridge is as accurate as the next cartridge out there...unfortunately few hornet rifles are capable of producing this little cartridge's potential.

Sorry. Love it or trade it.

Trade it on a cz 527 American, I have one and mounted a leupold 3-9x50mm scope on top and it is my favourite spotlighting rig. Took a little bit of work to find a load it like but once I did no woories. I wanted a ruger at the start as they loo good, but my dealer told me what your saying he had sold two and neither blokes could get 2" at 50 yards out of the box. Sham because it is a really nice looking rifle.

Redd,

This subject of 22 Hornet accuracy just keeps coming up. I posted a note about it on the small rifle page just a couple of days ago.

If you are haviong trouble getting groups under 2" the problem probably is primarily your load. The problem with that diminutive case is that if you have too much primer, it will blow the bullet out of the case and into the barrel where it stops and waits for the flash to get a fire going in the powder. Result is, wide variation in muzzle velocities and big groups. Solution, use the weakest primer you can find, use a fast powder like Alliant 2400 and if you can, set the bullet to touch the rifling. These things will slow down the departure of the bullet. Result, velocity standard deviations will drop to less than 10 f/s and accuracy potential can be met. My 18" K-Hornet Contender carbine will easily shoot 1/2 minute.

Hope that helps,

Don Shearer

I agree with what Don says. I use small pistol primers and Lil-Gun powder in my Ruger and it shoots under 1" all the time. I'm not claiming .5" or anything like that. The Hornet never was a BR cartridge. It was the first varmint cartridge is all. Shimming the bolt and bedding it the right way helps the Rugers an awful lot. You can send the Ruger to CPC if you want it fixed so it shoots and for bedding talk to Shaun Frame after doing a search on "Hornet" over at Coyote Gods Forum. Here are the URL's in case anyone is interested. Check them out and decide for yourself. Also Rocky Raab over at Hunt Chat has a wealth of Hornet information. Hope this helps you some.

CPC www.ct-precision.com

Coyote Gods www.coyotegods.com/ubb/forum.shtml

Hunt Chat www.huntchat.com/index.php?

Here's a link to how one guy solved the accuracy problem with his Ruger Hornet.
Ruger Hornet Fix

The Hornet can be very finicky, many rifles will finally shoot if you can find it's magic load. The K-Hornet is much easier to find a load for; and the conversion only takes setting back the barrel 1 thread and re-chambering by a gunsmith who knows his stuff.

I've heard lots of good things about Hodgdons' Lil'Gun powder from Hornet shooters.

Reddman,
I bedded the action & first 2" of barrel on my 77/22VHZ. I'll post a picture when I can figure out how to do it...
Basically, the trigger guard cams the action down into the stock. I laid in bedding compound at the rear of the magazine well, in front of the cut-out for the trigger. I also laid in 2" of bedding under the barrel in front of the receiver. Basically, the bedding locks the action in front & rear.
As far as the rest of the rifle goes, I replaced the trigger & sear with a Volquartsen target sear and a SpecTech adjustable trigger. I got them from Brownells ( www.brownells.com ). The barrel is free-floated.
The bolt shimming... Well, I made a shim for mine from shim stock, also purchased from Brownells. I could only fit a shim of 0.0015" between the bolt halves, and it did nothing to improve accuracy. Yours, however, may be different and benefit from shimming.
I've found Hodgdon's Lil'Gun to be the biggest single improvement in accuracy. You can't overload a Hornet case with Lil'Gun. Start around 12.5 grains, and with practice (tapping on the side of the case) you'll manage to fit about 13.1 or 13.2 grains in a Hornet case.
I've also gotten best accuracy with small pistol primers, with Federal #100's working best for me.
My Ruger likes Berger 22/40MEF's best, seated about .020" off the rifling. They're too long to fit in the magazine, but accuracy is .5" to .75" all day long. I also get good accuracy with Starke 40-grain varmint bullets, and Hornady 40-grain V-Maxes. My gun won't shoot 35-grain V-maxes worth a damn, and I've found the 35-grain Sierra "Hornet" bullets fly apart at velocities of 3,000fps and faster.
I use RCBS Competition dies. I uniform the primer pockets and de-burr the flash holes. I sort all the cases into lots of +/- 0.1 grains (an electronic scale is excellent for this operation), because small differences in case volume can make a big accuracy difference 100 yards away.
I've found Winchester cases much more durable than Remington, and there's less bullet runout because of the slightly thicker brass. I probably get 10 reloads per case, before the necks tear or perforate.
Regards, George


[ 09-02-2002, 08:37: Message edited by: Saeed ]

Other posters here have certainly done more work on this problem than I but my solution to a mess of lousy Hornets have been to turn them into "K" Hornets. Loading became easier, caselife was tripled and a semblance of accuracy was restored. Had a few Kimbers, a Ruger #1 and #3 and an older Anschutz. Great little cartridge once you get one to shoot.

I have heard very good things locally regarding the CZ rifles. LOTS of happy shooters after they take the jump to CZ. Can't say the same for the Ruger Hornets.

The Rugers are such a dissapointment and they could have been such great little rifles. But IMHO Ruger is known for rifles that are 80 or 90% properly engineered. The Ruger line seems to be full of problems that hurt accuracy and yet they seldom make any positive changes.

FN

There are 10 Ruger 77 Hornets in my neighborhood,all shoot very well. Why?

They have all been set back and the chambers recut to K-Hornet. I've yacked about it lots on several Forums and quite a few gents in Cyberspace have done likewise,all were ecstatic.

Win-296 the 33 or 35gr V-Max and R/P brass is the combo we all use and with small rifle primers. One pard installed the bolt shim and could detect no accuracy improvement,but his rifle had already been setback and punched out to "K". I too hear great things about 'Lil Gun,but have a bunch of 296 to wade through first. I'm currently sub .5MOA at 3400fps,with the 33's.

The accuracy improvement is far beyond dramatic. I've built 5 myself,none of them wanted to stay sub 1.5MOA prior,but all are sterling now. A properly cut chamber and the ability to headspace the shoulder,provides many useful gains,accuracy is one of them.

Reddman,PM me if interested and I'll hook you up to the gent that has rebuilt all of those rifles. Tell him you want the "Alaska Special",he'll know.............

Reddman...the Rugers have poorly made barrels, barrels bored off center, barrels loose in the receivers, bolts that have slop in them, headspace problems, bedding problems, awful triggers, integral scope bases milled out of square, wrong spacing of the scope bases, for the perfect little scope for the rifle, the 2x7 Compact Leupold, hardly any loads that shoot very good in them...Ummm, that's all I can think of just now.......I'm sure there's more....Just do like my shooting buddy did. Trade that Ruger in on a CZ, and live happily ever after.... Grant. Oh, yeah, the magazines for the CZ don't make those funny looking lumps in your pants pockets either..........

The Ruger is a very nice looking rifle but the lousy bolt design on the Ruger 77/22 hornet and poor quality bores will not show good results in most cases. I had a Ruger 77/22 hornet and after one summer of waisted time and energy I sold it. If you don't want to put all that extra work and money into a rifle that may or may not shoot after your done buy a Browning or CZ 22 Hornet. Browning chambers for the Hornet and they will also shoot very well. No more Ruger rifles will be in my gun closet. I own a CZ 22 hornet and it will shoot fantastic groups with 12.5 grains of Lil-Gun 40 Gr. V-Max bullet Winchester brass federal small rifle primers. The clip feed will not work with my reloads so I shoot the rifle single shot.

My CZ will on a calm morning at the range produce 1/2" groups at 100 yards.


The 22 Hornet is not noted as an accurate shooting cartridge but with a little load tweeking they can shoot very well. The Hornet is only a 100 to 150 yard rifle and trying to stretching that range is poor judgement.