hi i am looking at having a rifle built in this calibre for crow shooting using 55g ballistic tips and was wondering what u thought of this cartridge and its performance? will i see a significant improvement over a 22-250,how many shots approx can i expect froma barrel and how good is it out to 500yds?i wld prefer to use ballistic type bullets as there is just to much riccochet potential over here to use vld's!
thanks for your help

I have a rifle in this caliber, and am quite please with it, mostly. I built mine on an 788 action with a 27" barrel, with 1 in 14 twist. If I were to do it again, I would get a faster twist, to use the heavier bullets. That said, it will add about 200 fps to the 22-250's velocities (although that's in my rifles, and my 22-250 has only a 24" barrel). I haven't used up my barrel yet, so I don't know about barrel life. A 55 gr bullet at 3900-4000 fps is possible, but hard on barrels, I'm told. I load mine to 3950, and no problems so far. As for 500 yards, that's a long way for a .22. That's why I would use heavier bullets next time around. The wind pushes the bullet around a lot. There isn't that much drop, but doping the wind is much more difficult then calculating drop, at least for me. FWIW - Dan

There is a guy I know shooting a 22Cheetah which is 22-243 that is pushing 52gr bergers @ 4260 with a 1 in 15 twist 27" bbl. Barrel life is right around 800 rounds.. To date he has killed groundhogs out to 650yds...

6.5 Bandit

BB
I've owned and shot a 22/243 Middlestad for years. Had it put together in Calif. by Rex H. a Win 670 action and a 26" douglas Brl. I never thought of counting rounds and all that I had it built to do in some PD's and found it so much fun to shoot I use it for most every type of Varmint shooting pastures poodles to red fox to crows to targets. Because of a mix-up in packing for deer hunting my son used it to fill his tag -55 gr hornaday, some 4350 and Lake city brass. the range finder showed just short of 350 yds. I have shot 63 gr and 52 gr. HP but always come back to the 55. If and when the brl. goes west I'll do it all over again.