Personal Pipe Dream

[Idaho_Hick]

I have always liked the old small game rounds like the 25-20 and 32-20, but have never had the pleasure of owning one, although a friend has an old '92 in 25-20 that I have been able to play with.  I like the idea of approximately magnum rimfire ballistics but with a larger bullet.  I have noticed an old wildcat in my sierra manual called the .270 Ren, a shortened and strait-walled .22 hornet necked up to .277 cal.  I guess it was developed for the contenders but I was wondering if a guy could put a new barrel on one of those pretty ruger 77/22 hornets?  Bolt face would be the same, using 110 grain bullets overall length would be the same, and you should have a little more velocity, a lot more accuracy, and a better ballistic coefficient.  All in all, I think it would very handily out-perform a 32-20.  Also, the rimmed case would make headspace for the strait-walled case very easy.  So, if it seems like a wonderful idea, how many other people have had it?

[Nobade]

I built up a Contender barrel for the Ren a few years ago, and it worked fairly well. I used an old Rem 700 .270 barrel and stubbed it into the back end of a Contender barrel. If I did it again, I'd use the Hornet case full length and not trimmed back. It's trimmed to make the max case length for IHMSA Field pistol, but in a rifle you don't care. However, on your project you're going to run into overall case length problems. The 115gr. bullets seat way out, in my case only 1/16" of bullet is in the case to make room for powder. With AA1680 it'll do 1800 fps with a 115gr, with H110 you could get more speed but you run into pressure and have to back off. Either way, it's doable and makes a fine rifle round. Especially now that Sierra makes that 115gr. Matchking for it. But I don't think I'd put it in a Ruger 77/22, because it's not going to like to feed from that magazine. Sure would be nice in a Martini or maybe a CZ 527 if you have to have a repeater.