Fourth of July Shooting Session

[bigbore442001]

I had the day off but my wife had to work so the day was to myself for the most part. I headed off to the range with the shooting chrony with the intention of testing the 22 calibers I had with me. I had mt TC Contender with three barrels. One is a Super 16 22 lr stainless tapered barrel, a 10 inch 22 Hornet and a 14 inch MGM barrel chambered in 221 Fireball.

It was an interesting session to say the least. We had thunderstorms roll through the night and into the early morning in Southern New England and it cleared up by 10;00 AM or so. I headed to the range and discovered that we have a pest problem. For some reason we have an inordinate number of horseflies. Yes. Those big, black biting ones. There was one the size of a humming bird. Needless to say it got interesting at the range while shooting.

I wanted to see what the various 22 long rifle loads would do out of a 16 inch barrel. So here are my results for that session.

Thompson Center Contender 16" barrel:

CCI SGB load: 1234.1 fps ave.
CCI Stingers: 1573.1 fps ave.
CCI Quik-Shok: 1631.2 fps ave
CCI Velocitor; 1401 fps ave.
Eley Silhouex: 1085.25 fps ave.
Remington Thunderbolt: 1022 fps ave.

The TC Contender with the 10 inch 22 Hornet did the following:

22 Hornet-46 grain Winchester HP bullet, 13 grains of H110

2336.8 fps ave

22 Hornet-40 grain Hornady V Max bullet, 13 grains of H110

2310.8 fps ave.

TC Contender 14: 221 Fireball:

Remington Factory load: 50 grain V max Boattail bullet

2761.1 fps average

Handload:

40 grain Hornady V Max bullet, 19.5 grains of AA 1680 powder

3164.27 fps ave.

Next time I will take something for those horseflies.

[stretch]

Next time I will take something for those horseflies.

Might I recommend a halftrack with quad fifties..........

We're having a deer fly explosion up here in Maine.
Little buggers HURT when they bite!

-Stretch

[1894cfan]

Might I suggest LOTS of .22lr shotshells?

[6pt-sika]

I got out early this morning also and had two friends join me as well !

I shot exactly 30 rounds of handloads in my Remington 700BDL Varmint 222 REM . Nine different groups of 3 rounds each and 3 foulers as I cleaned the barrel every 10 shots .

Also fired a circa 1974 Second Model 444 34 times . 15 times with the Lee 43-310GC bullet pushed with H322 and 19 times with Remington factory 240 grain jacketed .

I was set up and ready to fire at 8AM since thats the earliest we're supposed to shoot at our club . And was finished by 10 AM .

One friend had his CZ550 collection out . shooting bowling balls again and resighting . 375 H&H MAG , 416 Rigby and 505 Gibbs . He also had his two Remington 700 TAC suppressor rifles in 223 and 308 . And last but not least his Remington Model 7 stainless synthetic on 300 SAUM .

My other friend brought three of those bastid black rifles !

A 223 , a 6.8 SPC and his 13" suppressed 300 Blackout .

In two hours I drank a half gallon of iced tea , it was getting hot quick as I heard the guy on my truck radio say it was 79 at 07:45. Hence once I was done I kinda flew the coup so to speak !

[earlmck]

22 Hornet-46 grain Winchester HP bullet, 13 grains of H110

2336.8 fps ave

I'm afraid that load would kinda' make my hornet come unglued. Isn't that a couple of grains over what Hodgdon shows as max?

Anyway, looks like you had a fine fourth of July and I'm glad your Contender handled the load fine and didn't produce fireworks for you.

[bigbore442001]

You are correct on the load for H110 and that bullet. It was my error. I have some loads with Lil Gun at 13 grains which is the maximum load. I do believe those loads were using 10.4 grains of H110 instead. I need to mark my loads better.

[AJMD429]

.22 LR 'shot' loads would probably do, but getting them in mid-air would be harder than things like carpenter bees, that tend to hover more.

OTOH, a good 1/2-MOA target rifle off the bench will nail a horsefly if you can get it to land on your 100-yard target...