I bought a 222 Remington Contender barrel on an online auction and when it came in the mail today there it was a 221 Remington Fireball not a 222 Rem barrel . So how is the 221 Fireball?I think I`m going to send it back but I wanted to know a little more about it before the guy emails me back.Thanks in advance.

lots of variables. You don't say what length or whether it's a factory TC or an aftermarket. From what I've generally seen, the 221 Fireball brings more money than the 222. Before you send it back you might want to see what you can get for it.

Rick

It is a 10 inch Octagone and the Guy emailed me back and said he will refund my money with a little extra.

In a 10" barrel my preference would definately be the 221.

I agree with Pokerplayer, in a 10 inch barrel keep the 221. It was designed for a 10 1/2 inch barrel on the XP100. For a carbine length barrel, I would lean to the 222.

I would agree. 222 Remington is wasted in a 10". 221 Fireball is perfect. I'd keep it.

I would definitely choose the 221 over the 222 rem. I have a fireball barrel (10"), and am definitely impressed with the accuracy and "hammer" it delivers to our canine quarry!
The only other cartridge that comes close in a 10" bbl is the 22 hornet.
Shrubber

Definately keep that 221 Fireball in the 10" Octagonal barrel! 222Rem is a completely inefficient prospect and utterly a waste in a 10" barrel.

The Fireball is quite efficient and was originally intended for 10" XP100's and 10" Contenders.

The average 222Rem 10" Oct barrel brings $80.00-$95.00 the Average 221 10" Oct barrel more on the scale of $125.00-$165.00 depending upon condition.

Yotecaller,

I would agree totally with the previous posts about the advantages of the 221 FB in the 10" barrel.

I would also like to give you a bit of a warning. A few years ago I had a fella bring in an XP-100 that he said had been damaged from some type of case failure.

He said he had loaded up some 221 FB handloads using the 50 gr ballistic tip and headed to the range. On the first shot he said it sounded very strange and noticed that the action was covered in powder residue.

He handed me the fired case which looked like a nearly straight cylinder 221 case with just the very lst of the case having a shoulder.

It was clear to me what the problem was. I looked at the barrel markings and sure enough it said 221 Rem Fireball. I asked the man where he bought it from and he said from a classified add in the paper which said it was a 222 Rem XP-100. When he got the XP he noticed that it was a 221 FB.

As such he decided to try the little round but soon found out that in fact the XP had been rechambered to 222 Rem but had not been remarked on the barrel. This is obviously a very serious practice and probably done buy a not so qualified smith.

I recently in fact had a well know smith in my area rechamber a T/C Encore barrel from 7mm-08 to 7mm RUM. Just like the little XP he left the original barrel markings saying that it was to much of a bother to remark a T/C barrel.

Also I had a customer come in with a 7mm RUM in a Win M70 that was originally a 7mm STW and had not been remarked for the correct round. This could be very dangerous as the 7mm STW round would still feed and fire out of the 7mm RUM chamber but would have catastrophic case failure and more then likely destroy the rifle.

Point being, make sure some less then smart guy did not have the 221 rechambered to 222 and forget to tell you that. Probably is not the case, but check it out just to be sure.

Good Shooting!!!

50

Guys I sent the barrel back for a refund.I didn`t want to start reloading for another caliber.So I`m just going to use the money to pay off my Remington 870 12 Guage.