Several years ago I bought a supply of Lil' Gun to load .410 skeet ammo. It was touted as a good powder for the 22 Hornet as well. Having rifles in both 22 Hornet and K-Hornet I decided to give it a try. There was no load data for the K-Hornet at the time so I looked at the 45 grain bullet loading for the regular Hornet and saw the max listed was 13.0 grains. The pressure for that load was (and still is) listed as 31,600 CUP. This pressure was pretty mild when compared to several published loads in the Hodgdon manual some of which were in the mid 40,000 CUP range. And the velocity with the Lil' Gun load of 13.0 grains was shown as 200 fps faster than any other load with Hodgdon powders, 2787 fps.
I decided that if 13.0 grains produced a moderate pressure it was probably listed as a maximum load simply because the Hornet case was filled to capacity with this charge. And therefore a 13.0 grain load would be a reasonable starting load for a K-Hornet since it is a slightly larger cartridge. I proceeded to load up a supply of both K-Hornet and regular Hornet rounds with 13.0 grains of powder. Then, some additional K-Hornet ammo was loaded with 13.3 grains and 13.5 grains of powder. All loads used the Sierra 45 grain .223 inch diameter Hornet bullet and Federal small rifle primers.
A fair amount of time passed before I got around to testing these loads and I didn't remember my reasoning behind the charge weights used by then. I started with the K-Hornet loads and after only a couple of shots decided that the report seemed sharper or louder than I remembered for that rifle. Now I'm pretty sure that the loudness of the bang isn't a good way to monitor pressure of handloads and I have never noticed a difference in sound between loads having (slightly) different amounts of powder before so maybe there wasn't really any difference in the noise of the report. At any rate, I checked the primers and was surprised to see that they were flattened and deformed much more than the usual loads I shoot in that rifle. I know that flattened primers are not a reliable way to monitor pressure either but these were really flat. Being conservative by nature when it comes to loading ammo to near maximum velocities and/or pressures, I quit shooting right then. I labeled all the unfired loads as “probably too hot!â€? and planned to later pull the bullets and reduce the powder charge.
I sent Hodgdon and email describing my experience and wondering if they had an explanation for why the K-Hornet loads had shown signs of high pressure. I never did receive a reply. Since I was waiting to hear from Hodgdon before pulling the bullets and reducing the charge and they never did respond, I soon forgot about the supply of hot loads. Recently, while looking through my miscellaneous loaded ammo I discovered those Hornet loads with the “too hotâ€? label.
Hodgdon now publishes 22K-Hornet loads for Lil' Gun and the maximum loading shown is 13.0 and 13.2 grains for the two 45 grain bullets listed. (Hodgdon website at http://data.hodgdon.com/cartridge_load.asp>http://data.hodgdon.com/cartridgeload.asp ) They also show a charge of 13.0 grains for a 50 grain Sierra bullet. The pressures for these loads however are all around 40,000 CUP.
Unfortunately, I have no conclusion to this narrative. I haven't gone back and reduced the powder charge in the Hornet or K-Hornet loads or done any more testing in those cartridges. After getting pressure signs in the K-Hornet with 13.0 grains of powder, I was reluctant to shoot the Hornet ammo with the same charge even though both were listed as safe (but maximum) loads in the manual (back then and at present). I have since shot some Lil' Gun in a .221 Fireball and the pressure seemed OK. The limited shooting I did produced only mediocre accuracy but that may not be the fault of the powder.
I would caution those planning to try this powder to follow the standard advice to start well below the maximum listed loading and work up carefully. I used a charge that was apparently too much for my rifle even though I thought I was starting at a reasonable level. The extrapolation I made to a starting load for the K-Hornet from the standard Hornet published load seemed logical but was wrong. I still don't know why but perhaps the pressure shown for the Hornet loading was a misprint or something about my rifle caused higher than normal pressure. Looking back at it now, it seems unlikely that a powder could magically produce 200 fps more velocity with a much lower pressure than any other load. Something doesn't ring true about those values.
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