36 gr. Barnes varmit grenade .22 cal.

[bfflobo]

Any one out there try these yet? What load? Thanks

[daddywpb]

I have been looking at trying these also in a 22-250. I would also be interested in comments from someone who has tried them. Looks like a great bullet. There is a short video on Barnes' website showing one passing thru a grape. Spectacular.

[bfflobo]

I also shoot the 22-250. Most accurate loads are deffinitly the 50 -55 grainers because of the bullet length. Tough on fur though. The best fur load I have found is slowing the 40 gr. nosler BT down to around 3700 fps. Shoots o.k. but not like the longer ones. My thinking is the Barnes V. Grenade is about the same length as a 55 gr. lead bullet and can be shot at the higher velocities. The BC numbers are not up there with lead ones so would probably lose the long range capabilities of the 22-250. Most shots are under 200 yrds. anyway. If they shoot good, they just might be the best fur pill out there.

[bfflobo]

Finished experimenting with it for now. Over 100 round in two different rifles. Found that small differences of powder and seating depths made alot of difference. Settled on 34.9 gr. Varget, (35.1 gr in one rifle and 34.8 gr. in the other was best) seated too 2.400, which is @ .007 off the lands on our Savage rifles. Used CCI primer. This is well below a max. load. Clover leafs with the bull barrel rifle, 1/2" with model 16. My main interest for this load is shooting coyotes and cats for fur sales. Next step will be to find a running fur ball and see what it does.

[Inrut24/7]

I  have been playing with them in the 223 and 222. In my h&r 223 with 24.5 grains of h322 i got a little over a 1 inch 5 shot group. With my 788 222 I tried them  from 22 grains up to 24 grains of h322 and got best accuracy with 22 grains, 5 shots right around an inch with 3 touching, I loaded up 50 for to 222 for groundhogs and hopefully i can get a few this week. I shot 3 groundhogs with the grenades from the 223, 2 of them performed great with no exit holes and and the third was a chest shot at only 80 yards and the bullet never opened up and just left a single dime sized exit hole.  Ill continue playing with them in the 788 for the rest of the summer, but will probally switch back to the v-max when i run out of the varmint grenades.

[bfflobo]

Last fur season I used the 40 gr. Nosler Balistic tip. Worked good for the most part. Very little fur damage, except for one coyote that I hit behind the shoulder and came out between frount legs. Some sewing was done on it.  I have the Barnes VG shooting at the same zero as the Nosler so if it don't work right I'm still in business. Always fun to try something different.

[Inrut24/7]

 I did some testing at the range this morning with some water bottles and was very disappointed with the results, I shot 3 bottles at 150 yards with the grenades from the 222, All three had a single hole in and single hole out and were all still half full of water, I then shot 3 bottles with some 40 grn v-max loads and if you ever shot a v-max at a water bottle you know what they will do, bottom blown out, cap blown off, the whole back of the bottle split down the center from top to bottom...ect  I had one bottle left and set it out  30 yards from the bench, at that close range i would expect the bullet to really open up, damage was still not much, My 17 hmr does as much damage to a bottle at 100 yards as the varmint grenade did at 30 yards, Basicly im seeing soft point performance with this bullet and will never buy them again.

[bfflobo]

Disappointing news. Looks like they would do better.