Thread: What to do? Suppressing 22 Hornet

I've kinda made my mind up about this baring someone sitting on me, but interested in other's thoughts anyway.

I have had for 3 yrs now a Savage Sporter 23D .22 Hornet, an excellent shooter with an excellent barrel, but, a series of previous owners have had a go at drilling and tapping the receiver for scope mounts, top, front, back, sides. You name it. To the point it looks like a colander. So not really collectable. Some holes were blanked off with screws, some not. I cleaned it up some with a file to dress screws in unwanted holes down flush, removed some that were munted and took it to my Gunsmith. Did I say none of the holes lined up? He took one hole that could be used and drilled and tapped three more to take Weaver style bases for and aft and fitted those. $85. With a set of rings and an old Loopy fixed x4 scope it became my goto rabbit & hare rifle with PPU factory ammo - best shot on a hare just on 150m on the RF, leaning on a strainer post, connecting thru the kidneys aiming for the head. Blamed the crosswind. Head and neck shots at 90-100m no sweat. Reloading for it now and it shoots very tight indeed.

Then a few months back, along came a rare beast, a 1963 BRNO .22 Hornet in almost unused condition. Too nice a rifle and paid too much to want to remove front sight and thread, or heaven forbid, relocate the sight. Was going to sell the Savage but havn't been able to bring myself to move it on. Sticky fingers aye!

Anyway, I've decided to have DPT thread and supply a suppressor for the Savage. I also want my Zastava 243 done and plan to use the same suppressor between them. 6mm should be fine on the .22 Hornet. I'll take DPTs advice on thread but probably 14:1mm

So, two questions. Do I chop the Savage barrel from its original 24 in? Its a paddock rifle rather than for Bush or hills.

Second, are there other suppressor options I should consider?

Cheers

are you planning to use the savage now you have a brno?

Id be surpressing the brno and to hell with the collectors value, I never sell anything anyway

24 plus 4ish inches for a suppressor will be unwieldly yes

BBTI - Ballistics by the Inch :: Calibers/Cartridges

I always refer back to this when deciding what I want length wise and its really up to you. I like really short barrels for varmits but thats a personal preference that I pay for with velocity loss

ohhh man I share your dilemma - I have a mint vixen and would like to use it more but just cant bring myself to suppress it -so the Rem 700 in .222 is getting the chop - the 63 BRNO is in same category - my personal opinion leave it as it is - but a thought - you could sell savage and rebarrel BRNO - keep original barrel with sights in case anyone wants an original version - suppress new barrel - just an idea

Yes I'm planning to use both the Savage suppressed and the BRNO. There's situations when suppression is useful and others where it doesn't matter. I'm thinking of bringing the Savage back to 18". Hope the accuracy remains.

If you get any over barrel DPT it adds about 4”. Maybe a good middle ground for the Savage would be to chop 4” before re crown and thread. You keep a 20” barrel and with suppressor in place you keep existing length.

Logic for my suggestion is that your post reads as if there is some attachment on your part to the status quo for the savage, either due to competence bred from familiarity and/or an ‘if not broken don’t fix’ approach. And let’s face it, regardless of collector value an accurate rifle that you have confidence in has inherent personal value.
All things being as expected the accuracy should remain other than needing new load development. The overbarrel DPT will probably add some weight up front but nothing you can’t live with.

If the BRNO is a ZKW I would not be suppressing it - I would be very afraid about any tension in the already slim muzzle doing the bell mouth thing because then you start chasing backwards. If the Savage is an option, no loss if you end up shorter than expected before you get to a point that stays tubular! If the BRNO is a later model than the ZKW series, I'd feel a bit more confident as the later models to the best of my knowledge had a heavier profile barrel. My own Hornet that I had was a ZKW465 and the accuracy of that thing - I would not dare stuff with it. 3 holes touching at 100m if I got the wind right was a regular thing.

Now, the Hornet has a HUGE powder capacity as you are aware. Using the same suppressor for the Hornet as the .243 won't achieve what you are expecting for noise suppression as the can is way oversize for what it needs to be and it'll be a fair lump hanging off the muzzle of a light rifle. You basically need something halfway between the DPT for the .243 and a .22LR can - and light as possible. Best barrel length for a .22LR is 16" approx, if you want to retain best performance possible obviously as long as possible before you get to the point of diminishing returns where the drag in the barrel is actually slowing the pill down (which for .22LR is anything over about 16"). For the Hornet, I'd be thinking that the .22 Mag data on the above list is roughly a good enough guideline so personally - I would chop to 20" and not be bothered.

My opinion, and like bum cracks everyone has one!

The .22 Hornet is very loud I would not chop the barrel on a BRNO 1963 if in the condition you say is, There are more than enough stuffed ones out there already
I hunt rabbits with a friend that uses a suppressed .17 HMR the Hornet is not really any noisier than the .17
Sub sonic loads in even a .22 Hornet are a wastes of components you need so little powder it is a pain in the arse trying to weight the charge,
And are probably less accurate than a subsonic .22RF.

Originally Posted by No.3

If the BRNO is a ZKW I would not be suppressing it - I would be very afraid about any tension in the already slim muzzle doing the bell mouth thing because then you start chasing backwards. If the Savage is an option, no loss if you end up shorter than expected before you get to a point that stays tubular! If the BRNO is a later model than the ZKW series, I'd feel a bit more confident as the later models to the best of my knowledge had a heavier profile barrel. My own Hornet that I had was a ZKW465 and the accuracy of that thing - I would not dare stuff with it. 3 holes touching at 100m if I got the wind right was a regular thing.

Now, the Hornet has a HUGE powder capacity as you are aware. Using the same suppressor for the Hornet as the .243 won't achieve what you are expecting for noise suppression as the can is way oversize for what it needs to be and it'll be a fair lump hanging off the muzzle of a light rifle. You basically need something halfway between the DPT for the .243 and a .22LR can - and light as possible. Best barrel length for a .22LR is 16" approx, if you want to retain best performance possible obviously as long as possible before you get to the point of diminishing returns where the drag in the barrel is actually slowing the pill down (which for .22LR is anything over about 16"). For the Hornet, I'd be thinking that the .22 Mag data on the above list is roughly a good enough guideline so personally - I would chop to 20" and not be bothered.

My opinion, and like bum cracks everyone has one!

you could remove most of the baffles when using on hornet...

suppress the savage and keep using your full noise loads...and enjoy having one of each...as said above use the 243 can but try it with only one baffle.

The answer is always chop everything

Originally Posted by shooternz

The .22 Hornet is very loud I would not chop the barrel on a BRNO 1963 if in the condition you say is, There are more than enough stuffed ones out there already
I hunt rabbits with a friend that uses a suppressed .17 HMR the Hornet is not really any noisier than the .17
Sub sonic loads in even a .22 Hornet are a wastes of components you need so little powder it is a pain in the arse trying to weight the charge,
And are probably less accurate than a subsonic .22RF.

My hornet was barely louder than a .22LR, definitely not as loud as the .17 Rem that my mate built on a ZKW465 with a corroded tube. That thing had a vicious bark to it, worse than the .17HMR and that's saying something. I never thought that the ZKW needed a can, and I've pretty much gone to cans on everything I shoot regularly. It was one reason I got rid of the ZKW to be honest, as I was advised not to attempt to chop it as the slim muzzle with it's fully banded front site is a bugger for relaxing and going sloppy if threaded.

I agree though there isn't much point loading a Hornet subsonic, you can't use them on public land with DOC pigeon rules and it's far more expensive than having a 22LR around with subs already in it. Part of the reason that the Hornet is as accurate as it is is the loading 'density', and the quality of the chamber. It's considered more accurate than the WMR and you don't get subs in that for the same reason as far as I'm aware.

you can get 22magnum subs...the ONLY advantage over a .22lr is projectile weight.....

Here's a thought- get another suppressed barrel for the Brno and put the original aside. No harm done in the end, you can always swap back.

Not interested in shooting subs from the Hornet really. Only reason to do so is to have the capability on hand when out shooting hi-vel rounds. But if I want to be quiet my old suppressed Toz with Aquila subs does all I want.

Update:

So what I did is take both my Zastava 243 and the Savage 22 Hornet to my local guy and had them both chopped to 21" and threaded 14:1mm. Then today stopped at DPT in Hamilton and bought a 6mm DPT suppressor with separate bushes for each rifle. Now I'll be putting scopes back on and re-zeroing. Will post an update with pics once I get to the range.

Thks for all the input