I had a chance to shoot some 30 grain Barnes Varmint Grenades and Accurate 1680 powder yesterday. Groups were pretty good with most at an inch or less, with no flyers. Good enough for shooting 150 yard gophers or what ever. I make a note here, as my go to load was always 13 Grains of Lil Gun and a 35 Grain V Max. Since I can't get either now, I thought I'd try something else, as I had some success with 1680 in the past.

According to Hornady, they are sending the 35's to the big distributors, like Midway and Cabelas. They are filling back orders so quickly these bullets never hit the shelf. Hogdon, says they have a new producer in place, and Lil Gun will show up soon. This is info from the SHOT Show, FYI.

Jerry

quote:

Hogdon, says they have a new producer in place, and Lil Gun will show up soon.

I'm unaware of who the previous producer was, but they managed to turn out batches with some of the worst lot-to-lot consistency I've ever seen in a canister-grade powder. I've worked with dozens of powders and dozens of calibers over 50 years of handloading and have never seen a powder as capricious as Lilgun.

AA1680 usually doesn't yield quite the velocity in a Hornet that Lilgun averages in its widely dispersed velocities, but AA1680 is much more consistent and provides excellent accuracy with low pressures in the Hornet. Besides, the Hornet is not about velocity. If you want more velocity there are only about 20 other choices in a .22 centerfire that will do that for you.

I have had some wide velocity swings with Lilgun as well, but always had very good accuracy with it, at least to 150yds.

With a new supplier for Lilgun, it will be 'back to the drawing board' and working up new loads.

Good thing I can get about 525 loads out of a pound of Lilgun. It goes a long way.

Stonecreek: I have seen your comments on Lil Gun before and it kind of puzzles me. I have no doubt your info and data is correct for you, but in my case it has been just the opposite. A friend up in Montana suggested I try 13 grains of Lil Gun, and the 35 grain V-max, as I was complaining about my rifles throwing "flyers" in just about every group. I tried it, and the flyers disappeared, groups also got better. It wasn't until a couple years after that, that I tried 1680, with good success. The wide spread you speak of from lot to lot, is something I haven't seen, because I bought a bunch of powder back then, and just recently used it all up.??Just a note from my experience.

Jerry

Jerry,

Sounds like you got a good batch. I intend to use the remainder of my "good" batch in my BRNO Hornet where it delivers outstanding accuracy and velocity.

I have no idea what percentage of the "batches" were "good" and what percentage exhibited erratic behavior. Having first gotten hold of a "bad" batch, it is wonder I ever bought a second canister to try, which happened to be a "good" batch.

HOWEVER, even with the "good" batch, when I tried it in a .218 Bee with what should have been a fairly mild load, I got pierced primers -- in two different .218 Bee rifles. That recent experience has caused me to abandon Lilgun as too unpredictable and simply use other powders which exhibit more consistent performance.

I absolutely agree with you on the 218 Bee. Same results here. Still in the Hornet, it has been superb for me. I just got another can of Lil Gun from a friend. I'll give it a try, and see how this works. It'll be a couple weeks before I can do this, but I'll let you all know.

Jerry

Interested in your results as I'm just starting to load for the Hornet with Lil' Gun. Do you use rifle or pistol primers?

quote:

Originally posted by BoomRM:
Interested in your results as I'm just starting to load for the Hornet with Lil' Gun. Do you use rifle or pistol primers?

I use Remington 6 1/2 small rifle primers. They are better than Rem 7 1/2 with Lil Gun.

It's been quite some time since I've played with the Bee, but I remember getting several pierced primers with various loads using AAC1680 and I MR 4227 using the Remington 6 1/2 primers. I know that this primer has been advised and used successfully by a lot of people but my experience was the exact opposite. Maybe I just got a bad lot. I started using Win. WSR'S and the problem went away.

Last few years I have been playing with a CZ 527 Hornet.... col limitations due to the magazine and a 1:16 twist barrel. I really like 8.6 or 9.0 grains of Vihta Vuori N 110 and the 40 grain Sierra Hornet bullet. It regularly puts 5 shots at 100 yd into .7" or less.

The Rem 6 1/2 primers are only for Hornet use and no other. That is why you had pierced primers in the Bee case. Do not use them in the Bee.

I have been using nothing but Lil-Gun and Rem 6 1/2 primers in my Hornet for years. The results have been spectacular. This combination in the Hornet is the last word in handload accuracy.

Interesting.... I had never heard that about the 6 1/2's. If you lived near me I would gladly let you have my remaining supply. IMHO they are about the most useless primer ever made by anyone. No flames please. .. just one opinion.

I would gladly take you up on that offer H, if I lived near you. I think Remington even went so far as to print on the newer boxes of 6 1/2 primers that they are not for high pressure cartridges.

But they are living proof that God loves Hornet shooters.

I have used small pistol primers as recommend in my Speer #14 reloading manual. These and Remington 6½ primers, both worked well in my Ruger K77/22-VHZ. I did record 150 fps velocity swings with Lill'Gun and 45 gr. bullets but the groups stayed tight enough to satisfy me for a small game hunting gun.
My can of Lill'Gun is about 5 years old and my newest can still unopened is about 2 years old.
I still have a few boxes of small pistol primers to use up then I'll stick with the Rem 61/2 primer.
I haven't tried 35 gr or lighter bullets with Lill'Gun as my Hodgdon manual showed higher velocity with Hodgdon H110. With the velocity swings I got with 45gr bullets I suspect the lighter bullets would be even worse. Although the low pressure the light bullets get with Lill'Gun should make for a quiet shooting round.

I've tried just about every type of small rifle and pistol primer in my Hornets and have found no significant advantage to any one over another.

The standard small pistol primers do tend to have slightly thinner/weaker cups which make for a good warning sign when you are about to exceed the pressure limitations of the rather thin Hornet brass.

A friend recently picked up a quantity of SP primers at an estate sale for peanuts, but was in a quandry as to what to do with them since he loads very few small pistol rounds. He was delighted when I told him they would work just fine in his two Hornets.

Sorry I haven't got back to you all sooner, but I have been down in Alabama, Orange Beach, last week and a half. Like Stonecreek, I haven't found much difference using rifle or pistol primers in the Hornet. I have tried both and been satisfied with the results of either. Try them both. I can't see any problem starting around 13 grains of Lil Gun and the 35 V-Max, with both primers and see what you prefer.

Jerry

quote:

Originally posted by Jerry Eden:
I had a chance to shoot some 30 grain Barnes Varmint Grenades and Accurate 1680 powder yesterday. Groups were pretty good with most at an inch or less, with no flyers. Good enough for shooting 150 yard gophers or what ever. I make a note here, as my go to load was always 13 Grains of Lil Gun and a 35 Grain V Max. Since I can't get either now, I thought I'd try something else, as I had some success with 1680 in the past.

According to Hornady, they are sending the 35's to the big distributors, like Midway and Cabelas. They are filling back orders so quickly these bullets never hit the shelf. Hogdon, says they have a new producer in place, and Lil Gun will show up soon. This is info from the SHOT Show, FYI.

Jerry

Has anyone got a recently made canister of LIL'GUN and fired the new powder in their 22 Hornet over a chrono?

The reason I ask this is I am one of the victims of LIL'GUN wild muzzle velocity extreme spreads (ES).
I bought my first canister of LIL'GUN in 2010 for use in my new Ruger K77/22 Hornet. Just last week I finished using up this can, still only loading Hornet for the Ruger. I fired 40 shots across my Shooting Chrony and got the usual 150 to 200 fps ES that I've always seen since I stated using this can in 2010.
A pound of powder last a long time at ~13grs per shot.
During last weeks reloading session I got to open my second canister of LIL'GUN that I bought in 2012.
This 2012 vintage looks different than the 2010 lot. The old lot looks like 2 different kinds of powder was mix together. There was the smooth flattened round balls mixed with a finer irregular granular stuff that look like it dropped from a pepper grinder. The newer 2012 powder appears not to have any of the irregular ground stuff present it looks uniform flattened balls.

The end of Jerry's post I quoted above, stimulated me to comment on this old thread to ask about chrono'd ES on new batches of LIL'GUN.
I found this old thread while researching powder recipes to try in my Hornet.

I have on hand H110 which I only tested once with Hornady 35 gr Vmax. That bullet launched fast but flew like it had a drag chute attached think badminton shuttlecock flight. My ballistics manuals showed this bullets energy drops fast to quite low levels at 150 to 200 yds. I was hoping for more, so I switched to Sierra's & Hornady's 45gr "Hornet" bullets and LIL'GUN. Although my Sierra manual liked H110 best for accuracy.

I have a new 2016 can of Alliant 2400 but have't tried in the Hornet (yet) as its an old formula (mid 1930's). New is always better right?

I have a can of Accurate 1680 but I was reluctant to try it as the page from an old manual page shows pressure at 50k which I know is beyond max for a Hornet. I see that Accurate has corrected their pressure reading for the 45 gr bullet and its now shown at 40k. So I'm wondering what kind of ES 1680 shows?

That beings me back to the newer 2012 can of LIL'GUN with the uniform flattened balls. Maybe this one will test with less ES. But then there is the heat issue with LIL'GUN, 6 shots through the Ruger and you can't touch the barrel even for a second. Then again it is a newer batch.........low double digit ES and runs cooler? Ya I'm an optimist.

I just want tighter groups, that only open up if it's my fault at the trigger not at the loading bench.

The recently released CFE Black does extremely well in my Ruger K-Hornet--as does MP-300. Have not shot Lil Gun Because of the inconsistency from lot to lot

Good Luck
Jim

Does no one use WW 296 any more? I have two pet loads with it, a 40 gn Sierra at about 3000 fps and the 46 gn WW HP at about 2700 fps, in my Brno Hornet. Both average about 0.8 MOA for five rounds, and both perform well on small game. FWIW I'm using stock of this powder I bought up big some years ago. I also use SR primers (Winchester) not pistol.

A mate of mine tried the 35 gn V-Max and liked them for rabbits, but another mate tried them and found them unreliable on anything bigger - I was there to see them fail badly on a fox and a crow myself. They also seem to lose speed very fast, negating any advantage the initial velocity would give when it comes to trajectory and crosswind.

I shoot a LOT of hornets. The 35 and 33 grain V-max bullets are nice because they fit the Ruger 77 rotary magazine. Otherwise the barnes 36 varmint grenade works really well. For "long range" in the hornet, I think the nosler 40 ballistic tip is about as good as it gets. The hornady V-max or Z-max is almost as good. I use 55 FMJ for plinking.

For powder, I use W296, W297, and 680. Accurate 1680 should be pretty close to 680. W297 is a bit slower than W296 and is pretty much ideal for most hornet uses.

Inside a couple hundred yards ES doesn't mean much, but if you're worried about it I would try pistol primers. Trying different primers made quite a difference in my rifles anyway. The pistol primers usually show pressure sooner too, and there's not much to gain from running a hornet hot anyway. So when the pistol primers start to show pressure you can still get good brass life.

Winchester brass has been pretty good compared to other brands, but I did get one bad batch with off-center primer pockets and flash holes.

$0.02

I shoot a lot of hornets also, I had two rifles but sold the Zastava and kept my Contender Carbine. Speaking of Lil Gun, When I had use of a Chronograph I was seeing the same wide ES numbers as everyone else. What bothered me about the powder was the difference in physical characteristics like flow and the static that it produced. The can I am working on now makes enough static to make the hair on my arms stand up. It scares me. I have tied a wire around myself and hooked it to a ground, eliminated all plastic items that the powder contacts, grounded the bench and the press, and quit using the powder measure because of the plastic tube. It is dry here in UT. but I can't do much about that. Any suggestions would be appreciated. My little carbine shoots 1 1/8 to 1 1/4 with just about everything I feed it. Its a pot gut killing truck gun. I love it. DW