If you enjoy the forum please consider supporting it by signing up for a NES Membership The benefits pay for the membership many times over.
That's the first time I've heard that anyone owns that caliber. It was developed after Remington brought out the .222. I read somewhere that it was offered in the Army trials when they were creating the M16, but the military went with the 5.56/.223. Looking at my Lyman reloading manual, the .222 Mag. has the same bolt face size and bore as the .222 and .223. Other case dimensions are a little smaller than the .223, and none are larger, so it would be a simple job to have a gunsmith cut the chamber to accept .223 ammo. I've seen .222 at Walmart, but never .222 Magnum. Lyman calls it "almost obsolete." Good luck.
Ahh yes, reading comprehension fail . Regular 222 Rem was it@Woodstock Oh yeah its totally obsolete now but I happened across an upper chambered in it and want to try it out. It was setup for match shooting so hbar and scope, etc. I can get brass locally but I would need the dies so I'd rather just get some ammo first to see if I want to get into loading it or not.
@andrew1220 I'd be surprised if you saw this there, probably was regular 222 rem.
@JRT yeah its scarce, I found some at Midway for about $1.20 a round for a box of 50. Ouchie.
@mac1911 thanks, I'll give them a call!
It is actually slightly better than the .223, about 5% greater case capacity. I have a 40X chambered for it. The .204 Ruger is based on it necked down. I don't consider it "totally obsolete" in any way, shape, or form.Speaking of reading comprehension fails, I was wrong about rechambering the .222 Mag to .223. The shoulder angles are different, but the Mag case is longer, so no way.
The .222 was developed by Mike Walker at Remington in the early '50s as a target round, and he set a benchrest record for group size that stood for years, around .000x. It was a popular varmint round and is still chambered by gunmakers including Savage and CZ. Barrels are typically 1/12 or 1/14 twist, so heavy .22 bullets don't stabilize well.
Got a smaller hole. same powder load and primer but with Berger 50 gr flat base target. Then they quit making the 50 gr so I'm using the same bullet in 52 gr. Still better than the Sierras.I understand you can rework .204 Ruger to fit. Last brass I got was from Duck Creek Sporting Goods but it is no longer available there. Found ammo @ Reed's but it was $1.50 a bang, so... It's a dandy caliber. I inherited a Rem 700 in this cal. and it is Very Accurate. Right now I am just looking for its favorite recipe. So far 52 gr Sierra hpbt, 26 gr 3130 w/ BR4 primers. One ragged hole @ 100 yds. Going for a smaller hole.
Stook
OP: you said you have an upper, are we talking AR upper?
Nice! That's definitely different. Any feeding issues with standard mags? I'm guessing not because they are so close.Yup, AR upper that someone was using for some serious target shooting. Heavy barrel like 1" thick, looks like maybe it was a 223 barrel they had reamed to 222mag.
I found new brass at Glenn's in North Reading and some dies in the classifieds here for cheap so I went ahead with reloading it. Tried 10 or 20 rounds so far and it shoots good but I need to try it at more than 100yds to get a better idea.
Nice! That's definitely different. Any feeding issues with standard mags? I'm guessing not because they are so close.