Re-Introduction Of The Remington V-Max

Guns Magazine, April, 2000 by Jon R. Sundra

There's been a surge of interest lately in the .22 WMR - or just plain ".22 Magnum." Some of that interest can be attributed to the recent introduction of two new semi-autos by Ruger and Remington. Also, the .22 WMR is becoming increasingly popular as a second rifle to take along on prairie rat shoots. On the open prairie the .22 Magnum sounds like a popgun. So it doesn't disturb the rats as much, and the ammo's a damn site cheaper!

A couple of years ago in conjunction with the introduction of the 597 Magnum semi-auto, the Remington folks also introduced a Premier .22 WMR loading featuring a 33 gr. V-Max polymer-tipped boattail bullet which Hornady designed expressly for them.

When the gun became available, the only fodder that came with it was Remington's regular 40 gr. JHP and PSP loadings, no V-Max. As it turned out, although the 597 functioned superbly with the Premier load - as did all other domestically produced .22 magazines - there were a couple of foreign-made self-loaders that didn't feed reliably with the original cartridge configuration, and had mainsprings that were either too spirited or too wimpy. In the case of the former, there was the occasional rupturing of the case head; with the latter, unreliable ignition. In short, they were the kind of glitches that no amount of care or planning on Remington's part could have foreseen.

Here's case of a major manufacturer having to postpone for two years the introduction of a perfectly viable product simply because a couple of foreign-made guns aren't up to snuff. No wonder there's so much gray hair in the gun industry!

Obviously, with what Remington is calling a "reintroduction," whatever glitches there were with the V-Max Premier load have been sorted out. This revised loading achieves the original goal of unleashing a 33 gr. Bullet at 2,000 fps, compared to the 1,910 fps exit velocity for Remington's "regular" ammo in the 40 gr. PSP and HP loadings.

With its higher velocity and more streamlined bullet, the V-Max load adds about 25 yards to the maximum practical range of the .22 WMR. It should be good for prairie rats out to 125 yards or more.