Thread: 22 Hornet factory ammo

I just acquired a Zastava 'mini-mauser' in 22 Hornet. Winchester 45 grain shoot fine (1" 5 shot group at 100 meters), but 35 grain Hornady V-max were blowing the primers back, which seemed odd for factory ammo. They also would not group at all. Anyone else have a similar experience?

I presume you mean the primers are protruding after being fired? If so I have 2 Hornets and they both do the same as yours. One is a '49 Brno and the other modern Savage. Most annoying. So, both mine have headspace issues. Was common for the old Brno ZKWs but pisses me off for the modern Savage. The issue with my rifles (and yours I bet) is made worse by the fact that the SAAMI rim thickness specs for the Hornet is 65thou” but no factory ammo has rims that thick. Run closer to 62 thou”. One work around that Robbie Tiffen put me on was to put a very thin O ring down over the case to the rim and fire it. Quite hard to close the bolt and the O rings only last a few shots, depending upon your type of extractor and how it damages the O ring. This should blow the shoulder (what there is of one) forward and instead of head spacing on the rim it headspaces on the shoulder. All good, fired a whole lot like that and no primer protrusion. Reloaded them all fired again and back to protruding primers. I think because the shoulder is so miniscule and the cases so thin the firing pin force just pushes the case fwd in the chamber at the fraction of a second b4 ignition. Back then to primer being able to protrude. I also tried pushing the shoulders forward by seating the projectiles right out to touch the rifling (needed to reduce load). Bolt hardish to close but when fired same result, primer sticking out. I just live with it now but keep a very close eye out for signs of case separation.

Had reasonable results with Winchester and S&B factory. Piss poor results with Hornady (brass not ever consistant for reloading), poor results with R-P, and so so results with some old Sako ammo. Winchester the best in my experience but that's in my Savage.

Thats interesting zimmer. I also noticed that the necks were dirty, like the cases were small for the chamber. I guess if that is the way things work I wont worry about it, but it seems odd. Can't wait to get out after some bunnies with it.

Not the best photo, but I think you can still see the primer has backed out of the case. This was a bit more noticeable with the hornady than the winchester.

The tighter group is the winchester at 100 meters, and the hornady are the ones that scattered all over.

i have half a box of 223 american eagle (winchester) that with 10 rounds 2 of them have spat the primer out and its gone!

2 of them have spat the primer out and its gone!

They are probably rattling around down in the trigger mechanism somewhere and will jam things up at the worst possible moment.

Again, this is all new to me, I have always had them stay where they belonged. Even when a load was getting a bit hot they flattened out, but they didn't pop out.

I was actually fairly happy with the top target, first, because I am not that great a shot and wasn't shooting off a proper bench, and two, because that seems reasonable for factory ammo. I feel like I should be able to hit any bunny in hornet range.