New to me Rifle

Good deal ! Ruger rifles and revolvers have gotten very expensive. I have had maybe about five Ruger rifles in 22 hornet some good and some not so good. The versions with the tang safety that I have had were not so good. Those would have been pre hammer forged barrels. The ones I have had with the side safety have been good and would have been post hammer forged barrels.
There has been a whole lot of chatter about the two piece bolt causing accuracy issues but I have never been convinced because there are several other types of rifles using a two piece bold but we dont hear any such issues with them
Some claim they have enhanced accuracy in the Ruger by shimming the bolt and that may be so but I suspect the issue is head space and not the two piece bolt per say.
Consider though that only factory ammo would have issue with that because hand loads that headspace on the shoulder of a case fired it that rifle by only neck sizing would eliminate the issue of excessive head space. If you have a head space issue and you full length size it will become apparent quickly with case separations after just a couple shots. If you keep the pressure down and can be happy with a couple hundred fps under book max and partial size case life can be very good.
I watch for neck cracks and if I see any I then anneal that batch of brass and this greatly extends case life. No special equipment needed for annealing. I use a large sardine can with a spacer of some kind in the bottom to raise the case to a level that the neck is just above the side of the can. I then put enough water in the can to just come up over the rim of the case. About 5 seconds on each side with a propane canister torch then tip the case over into the water, remove and on to the next one. Do this after about every five shots and cases will last a long time. Be sure to keep trimmed to length ( ROB !!!) as this is something that plays havoc with accuracy in the hornet.
Primers make a tremendous difference too. I never give up on a load until I have tried all four types that fit a hornet case SR, SRM, SP, and SPM. I have been amazed at how much difference just a primer change can make in a hornet or any very small volume case. I have recently been working with a 22 squirrel and this point has been driven home. I wont expand on the 22 squirrel here as I hope to do a separate wright up on that later.
Anyhoo congrats on the purchase you did good.
Oh I forgot to mention that the Ruger hornet rifles judging by their behavior with different bullet lengths seemed to have a 1/14" rifling twist rate which is good. That is what I ordered for my 22 squirrel and it is doing very well indeed with cast bullets in the 55gn weight range. In the squirrel at top end I get 2100 fps with cast bullets in that weight. In the 22 hornet I run the same bullets at about 2300 fps or slightly over and get good case life at that velocity level.
When your ready give a holler and I will be pleased and honored to send you a few different cast bullet designs to sample. Oh and another good thing that comes to mind about the hornet is that it is in the perfect velocity range for use with hand swaged bullets using the 22 LR spent cases for jackets. When compared to commercial jackets the 22 RF jackets are very thin and of a uniform thickness for their length where as commercial jackets are tapered being thinner at the nose and thicker at the base. For this reason the hand swaged bullets using the 22 RF jackets open up more quickly at 22 hornet velocities.
So in summary the hand swaged jacketed bullets are for exploding small varmints and the cast bullets are more better for small edible game.
And BTW as many folks that survived that other depression of eight decades ago well know the cast bullets work well on larger game too when well placed. I may be one of few that can say I know they work well on Yak !

way to go on the hornet!!!!

i have a 1898 spr armory in 30-40 krag and i also have two 1898 spr armory actions sans bolt. next year(i have two other rifles that needs done) it will either be the 9.3 krag(9.3/30-40 krag) or the 22 hornet. 

30-40 krag #2


1898 spr armory/ i have two sporter stocks that needs redone. 


this was my great grandfather's rifle( #1)

Primers and powder for a 22 hornet is a very controversial subject that I have mentioned before and given reason for my belief on what has caused so much disagreement since its introduction before the first depression.
As I have stated before I feel that one of the reasons for such mixed results is that many 22 hornet rifles have been built on actions that are basically 22 RF actions that lack firing pin energy for consistent primer ignition. I was led to this belief by the tests I have done regarding firing pin energy variability in which I witnessed an 800 fps extreme velocity spread and long hang fires when firing pin energy was reduced to the very minimum for primer ignition. With inconsistent and barely adequate firing pin energy you get inconsistent velocity and accuracy. This too may have been a cause for some folks getting poor accuracy with the factory two piece bolt in the Ruger rifles but after shimming getting better results. This because any looseness at the pivot can cause a variable firing pin energy transfer depending on what position for or aft the pin is in when the striker contacts. Any movement that robs energy causes variability. Some of the early guns that were build on mil-surp actions had plenty of firing pin energy so in those actions it was never and issue.
I mention all this because the controversy that has arisen is that some folks will parrot that the 22 hornet is more accurate when loaded with small pistol primers. I agree to a point but have to add ""WHEN FIRED IN RIFLES LACKING ADIQUATE AND CONSISTENT FIRING PIN ENERGY"" Now getting on to how this situation relates to powder choice. Some types of powders are harder to ignite than others and going further with that I will say that in general ball powders are harder to ignite than extruded or flake type powders. Also consider that the powder burn rate that works good in 22 hornet also works good in magnum hand guns. So to bracket that burn rate we are looking at burn rate from say Hercules/Alliant 2400 on the fast side to one of the 680 powders Like Win 680, Accurate 1680, and surplus WC 680 which I use a lot of. Now if yo look at about the center of that burn rate what your seeing is H-110 a ball powder that is notoriously hard to ignite and inconsistent at below 90% max pressure. Not to turn anyone off to using H-110 in their hornet but just saying match the primer to the powder. I really like H-110 for top velocity loads in the hornet but I always match it with a small rifle magnum primer. So can you see where the problem is with rifles with less than optimal firing pin energy? Any magnum primer has a thicker cup than non magnum so add another variable with such actions but is never an issue with actions having a robust firing pin energy. My Springfield rifle has so much firing pin energy it will pierce what I feel is the thinnest cup primer on the market the RP 1 1/2 with anything but very light loads. Other powders types that are easier to ignite may not require a magnum or even rifle primer so much test shooting is in order to find the best combination. The original powder that was developed for the 22 hornet 2400 as I understand it was so named because it gave the blistering velocity of 2400 fps in the hornet. It became Elmer's choice for his baby the 44 mag but as I have read was developed for the 22 hornet. This is a good example of what I earlier said that powders that work well for magnum hand gun loads are also the right burn rate for the 22 hornet. For light loads any of the faster burning shotgun powders work good and Unique is always a good choice for that type of load in about any cartridge.
I should also mention that when working up 22 hornet loads work up in 1/10th grain increments. Very small changes make a big difference in this case as do primer changes so its easy to miss the sweet spot. So once again I have rambled on longer than intended so now am late getting to work. .

I have more than likely used them as at other times when components were hard to find I would by what ever was available and I remember the sportsmen's store in Fairbanks at one of those times had only Remington primers. It seems like I remember using them but dont remember ever developing a preference for them but maybe I am just forgetting, not unusual. I will have to check my 22 hornet load data to see if I have any loads listed with them. My 22 hornet load data folder is one of the thickest in my stack of data folders.
Come to think of it I think I still have some of the RP small rifle primers but they are BR so I only use them when trying to work up ultra accurate loads. Most of my small cartridge loads are developed using a minute of rabbit head measurement. My intent is to know my max range that I can expect to stay inside that area about maybe 2.5". I guess what I am saying is a load with not more than 1.25" standard deviation.
OH BTW Tina found some Tula LR primers today at $30.00 per K . She also found some CCI and Win but they were about twice that much. At least things are beginning to become available again.

My 22 hornet is topped with an old steel tube Elpaso Texas Weaver K-10. They are great scopes, a bit slow to adjust paralax but very precise and fair quality glass. What I like about the old Weaver K-10 is that the paralax settings on the objective are precise to the markings on the objective bell. If you set it at 100 it is paralax free at 100 and so on. Many newer scopes will not do that and the stamped numbers only get you close and then you must fine tune by eye to be paralax free. Many low end scopes even though they have adjustments are unable to adjust out paralax so you have to try to get the exact same eye position for each shot but at best you still get about 1 MOA standard deviation of optical dispersion.
I like the K-10 too because it is more closely matched to the vintage of my rifle. I long ago read an article written by Lain Simpson in a long ago edition of The Rifle magazine titled "" The Colonel's Rifle"". It was about the original model 1922 Springfield rifle built for Townsend Whelen at Springfield armory, the first 22 hornet. Lain was given an opportunity to work with the original rifle to work up loads with it. In many ways it is similar to my rifle but mine is on the older 1898 Springfield. Anyway I remember reading it and the feeling it gave me thinking about working with ""THE RIFLE"" and wondering how the original owner or shooters felt, you know the nostalgia of it like trading places for just a bit. I also remember that Lain didnt get the accuracy I thought he would even though he used modern components and jacketed bullets. Its was fair but not great.
Anyway that is why I like the vintage scope on my rifle because I still get that nostalgic feeling that for just a wee bit I am going back in time trading places with the original shooters and I like that. Not only that but it works darn good too. My rifle with my cast bullets can equal the accuracy Lain got in the colonel's rifle with jacketed bullets so that makes me feel pretty good too. I really would have liked it if he had tried some cast bullets in it for the article but that was not the case, too bad ! That is something that always bothered me about gun writers even Ken Waters in his pet loads column that they either dont try cast bullets at all or as Ken often said "" cast bullets were tried peripherally but with not much emphasis"" That always seemed to relegate cast bullets to back seat status and turned many people off to their use. They never get past the vegetables and into the meat of it. I guess maybe I am being a butt about it because for me cast comes first and later on I might get around to trying jacketed bullets in it.
Well there I go again rambling on when its time for work.