Has anyone ever tried replacing the bullet on a .22 long rifle cartridge with something better? For example, I have a box of CCI Mini Mags here that use a 40 gr solid bullet. I pulled one and it mikes rights at .224". Would it be possible to simply replace this bullet with a 35 or 40 gr Vmax seated over the factory powder charge? Since the .22 bullet is heeled, I'm sure this won't work... What if one was to machine a very simple swage die and shape a small heeled section into a Vmax bullet base?

There has to be a way to get better performance out of a .22 without going to a .17 rimfire. I wonder why no one has tried to get better bullets for this cartridge? You can get premium bullets for everything else under the sun, but not a .22. Shooting out of a 10/22, there would be zero magazine or feeding problems with a pointy .22 bullet.

It has been done, by a gentleman called Bill Brawand. Bill made fantastic bench rest bullets. He got primed brass from Federal, and loaded them himself.

I don't think anything came out of that, as I have not heard much after.

Bill probably gave himself a headache - like most of us who try to make any sense out of why .22 rim fire ammo won't shoot as well as we hope it should.

We have tried many different ammo, in many different rifles, some are very accurate single shot, and we have not been able to pinpoint why we always get a flyer.

If you do a search on the Rim Fire Forum, for threads I made, you will see what I mean.

I honestly think the problem is not caused by the bullets, but by the powder and primer combination.

No matter what ammo we tried, including the high priced Eley, Lapua and RWS match ammo, we always got variations in velocity, which cause a change in the point of impact.

You can play around with the concept with .22WMR ammo. The .22 WMR ammo uses bullets with no heel so you can use standard reloading component bullets. The 45 grn Sierra Hornet bullet gives improved accuracy in the 22 WMR.
Once you have burned up time, money and energy doing this in a .22 WMR you will lose all interest doing the same in a .22 LR.

But then again you could make a wildcat using .22 WMR brass cut to .22 LR length. That would make more sense than messing with .22 LR heel bullets.

My .22LR stays at the back of the safe, unless I have to use it for subsonics on rats, It's been there since I got my CZ American .17HMR,

Define "better" in terms of what you want the .22 to do.

If you can find .224 jacketed bullets with a rebated heel, go for it.

quote:

Would it be possible to simply replace this bullet with a 35 or 40 gr Vmax seated over the factory powder charge?

I see no reason why this would not work out OK.

I don't think there is anything to gain. There is probably not enough velocity to expand a jacketed bullet of any type. fist, the jacketed bullet will be harder to push so you will loose some velocity. Second, even at the velocity they go, the pure lead bullets barely deform much unless they hit something hard.
On the other hand, If you are looking for accuracy gains, get a center fire, rimfire primers and powder charges are just too small to be consistant enough. Think about it. if there are 30 grains of powder, .2 grains difference is less than 1%. If there are 3 grains of powder, .2 grains is more than 5% difference. That can kill accuracy pretty quick

Back in the late '60s my friend Jim Bagby of Firearms Outfitters acquired a Rem 40X RF bolt and Rem 700 SA receiver. He fit the bolt to the receiver and then barreled it with a nice Shilen match job in 0.224"x14", chambered for the 22 WMR in a synthetic stock. To make a long story short, he tried several different match bullets as well as weighing all powder charges and using different bedding techniques without doing any better than about 1-1.5 MOA. Each experiment change resulted in a slight accuracy improvement but the final result still wasn't very exciting.

So he set the barrel back and rechambered for the 22LR. The accuracy immediately improved to the .75-.90 MOA level; this was with the 0.224" x 14" CF barrel using both Eley Tenex and Federal dimple-base Ultramatch. Subsequent experiments didn't improve on that.

This took place back in the '70s and '80s. I've been told that the accuracy of late-production 22 WMR ammo is significantly better than it used to be, so the results of similar experiments today may be different. Maybe.
Regards, Joe

This is coming from someone that has to modify with every thing he has. I have one question, WHY?????????????????? I guess I forgot about my Neil Waltz tool!

Lapua makes them.
They are .62c AUD a shot.
Dead accurate.