21st Century Rodent Rifles

The first smokeless rifle powder appeared in the 8mm Lebel cartridge in 1886, and shooters continue to feel the effects more than a century later – partly through a fixation on sheer muzzle velocity as the primary source of hunting rifle “magic.”

- John Barsness

This is particularly common among varmint hunters who shoot the abundant burrowing rodents of the West.

Black-powder cartridges had muzzle velocities averaging less than 1,500 fps, but the Lebel’s 232-grain bullet had a muzzle velocity of roughly 2,060 fps. Smokeless powders improved rapidly, and cartridge designers soon realized they could further increase velocity by using lighter bullets. Target shooters and hunters found relatively blunt bullets and slow rifling twists to be more accurate, due to the imperfect balance of many early jacketed bullets. This is partly why the first “high velocity” .22-caliber varmint round, 1930’s .22 Hornet, featured round nose, 45-grain bullets at around 2,650 fps in a 1:16 twist.

In 1935, the .220 Swift broke the 4,000-fps barrier, but its lightweight, 48-grain bullets didn’t maintain velocity much better than the Hornet’s. As a result, even scoped Swifts weren’t effective at what we now consider long range, but the high muzzle velocity flattened trajectory considerably out to 300 yards – and the varmint shooter’s obsession with high velocity began.

After World War II, the new target sport of bench rest shooting became very popular. Its major development wasn’t a longer-range varmint round but 1950’s .222 Remington, which was hotter than the Hornet but much milder than the .220 Swift and still using relatively light bullets in a 1:14 twist.