I just bought a new Savage Mod. 25 Walking Varmiter in .22 Hornet. I could not find any Hornet brass to reload so I bought a couple of boxes of Hornady V Max 35 grain loads to get me started. I sighted in the new gun and scope with these loads and was impressed with the accuracy for factory loads. After firing enough of the factory loads to start reloading my chosen bullet, 35 gr. Nosler Varmageddon. After loading a number of powder combinations. I took the gun out to my range and started my test. After firing a few rounds I checked the spent cases as I usually do checking for pressure signs and stuff. I wasn't really expecting to find any with the fairly low starting loads but I noticed the primers were slightly backed out a little. I checked some of the spent cases from the factory loads and they were backed out a little also. I fired some more of the faster loads I reloaded and they were all backed out the same amount. When I say a little I mean like .002. That's why I didn't notice it on the factory loads I fired first. I have tried to contact Savage about this and three e-mails have produced zero feed back and a call to customer service did the same. What do guys on the forum think about this? BTW the rifle produced .5 moa groups with 13.5 gr. of AA 1680.
Thanks for any advise.

I know nothing of the loading data for this cartridge, but I would suspect a head space issue. Just pulling that out of my arse.

Are these exceptionally light loads?

How was the brass prepared after shooting the factory stuff? F/L resized? What primers?

Good luck,

RMD

quote:

Originally posted by rduckwor:
I know nothing of the loading data for this cartridge, but I would suspect a head space issue. Just pulling that out of my arse.

Are these exceptionally light loads?

How was the brass prepared after shooting the factory stuff? F/L resized? What primers?

Good luck,

RMD

My loads were just above starting loads and cases were full length resized. Small pistol primers per AA load data. I tried a few loads with 2400 powder and small rifle primers too. Same result. The factory loads did the same thing.

Pictures are much appreciated if you're wanting people to diagnose a problem on a discussion board.

Also, I'm not clear what kind of pressure signs you think you can detect from a fired case. The only sure way of doing that is with a chronograph. Anything that would affect a case and become visible on it is already way over safe pressure.

I hope you took note of what rduckwor said about head space. Do you have gauges? And how did you adjust the F/L sizing die?