I just started reloading for the hornet and I have read that most crimp for the hornet. Is it really neccessary for good accuracy? Also, is Lil Gun less "dirty" than h110?

I did a fair amount of hornet loading, mostly with Lil'Gun. I did not size the cases in any way, instead, I seated the bullets in a paper cup. To get decent ignition, I used a heavy bullet - 55gr and 60gr Hornady spire points, settling for 55gr because they were cheaper and slightly flatter shooting. I used quite a stiff charge of Lil'Gun - compressed. I can't say Lil'Gun was dirty at all but it is a weired powder that seems to produce higher velocity with the hornet than it does in a k-hornet, at the same pressure! (To do with case capacity and amount of powder and possibly the compression factor and neck tension or something). For me, case life was infinate. No case prepping after the initial squaring up and internal chamfering of the case mouth. OBecause I did not neck size, I could headspace on the case mouth and this prevented case elongation. (One has to be careful with doing that - the chamber has a 45° step. It will not headspace a sized neck!)

In my experience most Hornet chambers have too-large necks, probably left over from the original specs for its parent the 22 WCF. The 22 WCF used a nominal 0.228" bullet and groove size varying down to the 0.226" level but in all cases much larger than necessary for the modern Hornet's 0.224" bullets. As a result the sized case kinda wanders around in the chamber without being confined to the same position every time. A good crimp with a very slight bulge will frequently provide enough centering action to improve accuracy while also providing more bullet pull than a completely unsized neck, for better ignition. Worth a try IMO.
Regards, Joe

I have three Hornets that I load for now.
The best powder for these is Lil-Gun, although I do get good accuracy with 10.2 grains of H-110.
13.0 grains of Lil-Gun with Sierra's 45 grain Hornet bullet shot better than any of the other light weight bullets, and I've tested all of them, including the pointy tipped ones.
I use small pistol primers, and crimp bullets. That crimping seems to provide better accuracy, but I need to do some more testing to verify that it does.
The very best bullet for the Hornet is no longer being made, and that was the 40 grain Starke Varmint bullet, so I'm now doing the 45 grain Sierra's.

There is no need to crimp your Hornet loads.
Some people choose to do so, just as some people toss a pinch of salt over their left shoulders or carry a rabbit's foot. Most people seem to have better luck in general than I do, so maybe crimping, salting, and rabbiting are good ideas.

Lil Gun works fairly well with the Hornet -- just don't bother to chrongraph any loads as they will drive you crazy with their velocity deviations. However, at the ranges you normally shoot a Hornet, 150-200 fps spread has little impact on accuracy. Other good powders for the Hornet are WW 296, AA 1680, and good old IMR 4227. Even Alliant 2400 does pretty well with the lighter bullets.

I've never found any accuracy advantage in small pistol primers as opposed to small rifle primers, but many Hornet shooters swear by them. By the way, do you know where I can find one of those rabbit's feet on a key chain?

My hornet has a rather light firing pin strike so it might well benefit from pistol primers. However, I use Federal 205 small rifle primers - they are supposed to be softer and more sensitive with a smaller 'spark'. These work just fine for me. I have chronographed my loads but longer distance shooting does not reveal any bullet drop variations so velocity spread can't be too bad. I also like the soft Federal primers because they show pressure much quicker for the 'low pressure' hornet round (about the same some pistol primers I tried).