New Varmint Rifle for 2019 Season

Several years ago, I put together a Ruger 77/17 rifle in .17 Hornet caliber. I had some trouble with reloading the little Hornet cartridge which caused some damage to my brass cases. I decided in the off-season give up on it and to sell the .17 Hornet and build something else to fill the small center-fire portion of my lineup. I looked around at 218 Bee, .17 Fireball and others, but nothing jumped out at me as a good low-end centerfire cartridge. I wanted something more powerful than a 17 HMR, but well below the power of my .17 Remington or .204 Ruger. I called my buddy Rich in Placerville to discuss other possibilities. The 22 Hornet came up. The 22 Hornet is the same case as the .17 Hornet that I was giving up on. It has less velocity but more terminal energy. Several things came up regarding the soft, thin case of the cartridge. After some discussion with other friends, I decided to go ahead and put together a 22 Hornet for 2019. I found a used Savage model 25 Lightweight Varminter at Huntington's in Oroville, CA that was reasonably priced and in very good shape. I bought some 22 Hornet cases and put together some test loads. I attached a Zeiss Terra3 4-14 scope and it is ready for testing on ground squirrels beginning in March. My hope is that it will be useful past the range of the 17 HMR, but not have the report and recoil of the .17 Remington or .204 Ruger. I have test fired the rifle and I was impressed by the lack of report and recoil of the 22 Hornet.