.221 Remington Fireball

The Little Cartridge That Can

- Randy Bimson

For those of us city dwellers who are ar-dent varmint hunters, it seems with every passing year, the ever-growing urban sprawl encroaches further on our favorite varmint hunting territory. With the sprawl comes a change in social attitudes, and where the friendly farmer once welcomed you in keeping the coyote, woodchuck or crow population in check, nowadays suburbanites living on the rural edge of cities and towns are not accustom to, nor as tolerant of, the report of a varmint rifle. If, like me, you are one such varmint hunter, I suspect that at some time or another you have thought about what the ideal “urban” varmint rifle and cartridge would be.

You have likely considered or tried the classic .22 Hornet. I did, shooting a very nice double-set triggered Brno model 465, which was an honest five-shot, one-inch rifle. The Hornet comes with its own foibles and eccentricities, none that are insurmountable for sure, but I was looking for a cartridge that I envisioned as being more accommodating and could extend the effective range out to 200 or 250 yards to handle a wider spectrum of chores.

Sometime in the late 1990s, I came to the realization that the near-perfect cartridge I was looking for had been with us since 1963. I guess you could call me a slow learner.