Reloading .22 Mag

[Tasco]

I am going to regret asking this on this site, but (All ramslammers shut your mouth, I know get a bigger gun!)
Has anyone successfully reloaded .22 mag rounds for Rams on Pistol cal. I have been doing a bit of reading off the net but a bit of first hand knowledge would be good, and some real world results would be better.

Thanks

Rob

[TXCharlie]

Use to be a normal practice in Hunter Pistol many years ago. The folks that I knew doing it are no longer with us, will check with some of the old pistol shooters next weekend.

[Jason]

Yep. Works fine. I start with the 50gr Federal 757 "Game-shok" that used to be called the "Classic" load. I use a 25 auto shellholder and Hornady collet bullet puller to pull the bullets. Then I replace the powder with 7.1gr of H110 and seat the bullets back to the factory depth (same COL before and after) with an RCBS 22 Hornet seater die. Be careful about brands for seating dies. My Lee 22 Hornet die in the deluxe die set won't go short enough to seat the 22 mag bullets. The RCBS die has no trouble going short enough, though. I've heard of one guy using 7.3gr of H110 in very hot weather blowing an extractor off an old Winchester 22 mag levergun. I've never lost a pistol cartridge ram hit with one of these loads, so see no need to go higher. My average velocity out of the my Marlin 57 is 1780fps. The closest that I've ever been to a perfect score in silhouette was a 39/40 in pistol cartridge using that Marlin 57 and these loads for rams (10/10). Note that some people just use any old 22 mag ammo and replace both powder and bullet.

[the ex pom]

Tasco you certainly live up to your Ramslammer name. try loading with 8.2 grains of cement and HTFU 1 small amount at a time

[Tasco]

For those of you that are not Ramslammers thank you for your reply. I will be giving this a go, and let you know how it performes, it sounds promising.

For the others, Ex Pom what did I say at the beggining of the post. I don't want to hear it.

But thank you for taking the time out of your day to give me that speacial load of cement.

Rob

[AMB]

Use to be a normal practice in Hunter Pistol many years ago. The folks that I knew doing it are no longer with us, will check with some of the old pistol shooters next weekend.

Well we're not all gone Charlie, and we're not all old, well my kid call's me "old man" until I "bash the crap out of him" Tasco, we used to reload .22 mags all the time for IHMSA FP and NRA HP. We would use 45 - 52 gr spitzers in our contenders. But, Jason is the only one I know who has 100 percent knock down on Rams , the rest of us depending on the Range would get around 85 - 95 percent. Regarding reloading the .22 mag for PC-CLA, I personally didn't change powder, I used HV CCI's and replaced the soft mushy bullets with Speer .218 Bee bullets, simply seating them to the canneleur. End of the day it's a marginal cartridge. So, the day your on a roll and hit 10 but only get 9 , well you know the rest. As far as reloading goes at our club we were lucky my Dad was a machinist, so he designed and built a simple but elegant little hand reloader. It works slick and you can reload 10 rounds ( if not changing powder) in just a couple minutes. Good luck.

[cslcAl]

Tasco,

I have been reloading my .22 mag for three years using Jason's technique. It gives marked improvement over the factory loads. I chronographed mine and I got about a 400 fps. increase in velocity, and the accuracy actually improved. However, I did not get 100 percent knockdown.
I got bit by it big time at the Pa. state shoot last year. It rained making the targets wet and muddy, and we also had a pretty good wind blowing on the back of the rams. I had never lost one with these loads either, till in this situation I lost three out of fourteen I hit in the match. There went my new national record out the window. Instead of a 58 I got a 55. Still a nice score and enough to win the match, but I would have liked to had the record.
I will continue to shoot the 22.mag a our club shoots just to cut down on reloading centerfire rounds for all the animals, but when I go to the big matches I will be behind a 25-20.

Al Foust