Shootermick wrote:bladeracer wrote:bigrich wrote:Three shot groups are consistent and fine in my hunting rifles. And I’ve had some like my 222 that would make one hole with monotonous regularity. Five shot groups are overthinking it from my perspective
With the .222 when I was a kid I would get out and fire 30-40rds very regularly (at least a couple times a week) over perhaps an hour, dropping either rabbits, galahs or crows at long distances (get out there and set up before daybreak and wait for them to come out to play). Knowing bullet number 40 is going to hit within the same group as bullet number one can only be learned by firing 40rds in a test session. I carried three very tatty 20rd Winchester boxes in my Vietnam-era web kit when I went out, but I rarely burned the lot as I always kept some for anything popping up on the way home. If you're only ever likely to fire five rounds then I agree, pointless even wondering whether round number six will hit the same spot if you're never going to fire it.
Nowadays I only live in hope of finding such a rabbit situation again
I’ve shot 222’s years ago, but never owned one.
So Blade, for small game, are they really that consistent, shot after shot? I know they’ve lost popularity due to the 223, but it seems they might still have a place today.?
I have only owned one and it spoiled me rotten. It was my first centrefire and I expected everything to be able to do what that $200 788 did with its bullets, the .204 probably comes closest now for me. If I still had the 788 I doubt I'd ever take the .204 out.
Absolutely, the .222Rem is still a great cartridge, with built-in accuracy. But it lacks versatility in today's world due to the 14"-twist rates commonly used. A short fat 60gn bullet is about the heaviest lump it'll throw (70gn in a 12"-twist), and with fairly poor long-range ballistics. I found the 52gn and 53gn HP's were the best for extended ranges (300m max for me), and those are still quite low in today's BC figures (.168 compared to .485 for the 80gn ELDM). With a tight-twist .223 being so common now it's a stretch to buy a .222 as well, but lots of people do buy the .204 just for varminting (myself included). With today's bullet consistency, even fairly cheap VLD bullets shoot remarkably well in the .223, giving you the flexibility from 30gn bullets up to short 90gn bullets with the basic 8"-twist. And the high-BC of the heavy bullets means they're still going fairly hard out there, unlike the light ones that haemorrhage velocity very quickly. To really get the .223 VLD's moving though you also need a long throat and/or feed system, not a Mini-Action where you're seating the bullet more than half into the length of the case. I also found I had to put in special effort to load something that the .222 didn't shoot very well, load development was dead easy, pick a number out of the sky, load some up, test shoot them, load a bunch more exactly the same, go find some bunnies.
Back in 1983 the 788 also offered the .223Rem, so I did toss up which to get, but the .223 did not have the reputation for accuracy that the .222 had at that time, and we didn't have the enormous selection of bullets that really light the .223 up nowadays. I have more than twenty different .224" bullets from 30gn to 95gn on the shelf. When I was a kid the lightest I knew of was the Winchester SJHP 40gn WMR bullet sold in bulk 500rd lots wrapped in cling-film, and the heaviest I ever tried was a 55gn FMJ I stumbled upon somewhere. I know I still have quite a few of the 52gn and 53gn HP's somewhere in my old reloading stuff - I should dig them out and see if they're the same as what's being sold currently. I left my gear in SA when I moved back to WA, but my brother brought me down a box of goodies a couple years back that he'd hung onto for 35+ years for me.
Dammit, now I'm going to be making some calls to see if I can find a 788 in .222Rem