An ode to the classic .222 Remington cartridge - Rifleman

Guns Magazine, April, 2002 by Dave Anderson

The 2001 Remington catalogue lists the .222 Remington cartridge as being available in the 700 BDL with a 24-inch barrel. A call to Remington, though, indicated that it has "temporarily" stopped chambering rifles for the .222 Rem. Frankly, I suspect the halt will prove permanent. Some gun-makers still list .222 rifles as being available -- but try and find one. For old timers this is a bit shocking. For nearly a quarter-century after its appearance in 1950, the .222 was one of the most popular and influential cartridges. It set new standards for accuracy and greatly enhanced the growth of varmint hunting as a sport. We can't let the .222 Rem fade away without a nod of respect.

The .222 Rem was the right cartridge at the right time. In the American post-World War II era, there was a growing interest in hunting and shooting. At the same time, hunting opportunities were not as available as they are today. Whitetail deer were still relatively rare in many areas. Populations of game such as sheep and grizzly were greater, but few hunters had the means and time to hunt them. And people who had hunted Africa were about as common as astronauts are today.

But people wanted to hunt. What was available were groundhogs, prairie dogs, rockchucks, crows, magpies -- creatures then considered pests, vermin, which came to be known as "varmints." Of the .22 centerfires available immediately following World War II, the .22 Hornet was a bit on the mild side, the .220 Swift had (unfairly) been criticized for short barrel life and for being tricky to reload, and the .218 Bee and .219 Zipper were available in lever-action rifles that were difficult to scope.

The second influence was the increasing interest in accuracy and benchrest competition. In 1944, a Seattle-based group of shooting enthusiasts formed the Puget Sound Snipers Congress, with matches at 100 and 200 yards from the bench. On the east coast, an informal accuracy match in Maine was followed by the now-legendary Johnstown, N.Y., match over the Labor Day weekend, 1947, at which benchrest as a formal shooting sport began.

Development Of The .222 Remington

Military historians say that "victory has a thousand fathers, defeat is an orphan." It's the same with cartridges. No one claims responsibility for the .225 Win or the 5mm Rem Mag. But with successful cartridges, people line up to bashfully admit 'that, gosh, it was my idea first.

Mike Walker of Remington, doe of the pioneers of benchrest competition, was most responsible for designing the .222. He had been working on a .22 varmint round in between the .22 Hornet and .220 Swift. Walker experimented first with .25 Rem brass, then .30 Carbine cases. As a Remington employee, he had an advantage most wildcatters lack. He wasn't limited to modifying an existing case. He simply had Remington make up a new rimless case with the capacity he wanted.

Warren Page, shooting editor of Field & Stream, was also a benchrest pioneer and a close friend of Walker. He and Walker found that the first .222 loads (48-grain at 3,135) had bullets a bit too stiff for good expansion. Page recommended upping bullet weight to 50-grain, velocity to 3,200 fps, and making bullets with thinner jackets. The resulting load proved highly effective. Remington began chambering its model 722 for the new round in 1950.

The Remington 722 wasn't fancy, but it was moderately priced, extremely strong, very accurate, and had an excellent trigger. The rifle and cartridge were just what the market wanted. Varmint hunters and benchrest shooters alike appreciated the .222's fine accuracy, mild report and light recoil. Among benchrest competitors, the .222 was virtually the standard cartridge for more than a decade while experimenters unlocked many of the secrets of rifle accuracy.

Nothing Lasts Forever

Even, while the U.S. military was standardizing the 7.62mm M-14 service rifle, experiments with lighter calibers were ongoing. Reducing recoil to improve controlability in full-auto fire and increasing the soldier's basic ammo load were the factors that motivated the search for a smaller cartridge. The .222 was tested, but the ballisticians wanted a bit more bullet weight and velocity.

The cartridge that Remington offered in commercial form as the .222 Remington. Magnum (1958) was tried, followed by a slightly smaller version that the military standardized as the 5.56mm M193 round in 1964. Remington offered it as a commercial cartridge called the .223 Remington in January 1964.

The .222 continued its dominance as a varmint cartridge and as a popular benchrest cartridge for about another decade. In the early '70s, the Vietnam War ended, and tons of low-priced, good-quality military surplus 5.56mm ammunition became available. About the same time, Dr. Louis Palmisano and Ferris Pindell were developing the "short, fat" cartridge concept into the .22 PPC that would eclipse the .222 as a competitive benchrest cartridge.

Name recognition kept .222 sales steady for a few more years, but the .223's huge advantages of cheap surplus ammunition and brass, plus its somewhat superior ballistics, made it unstoppable. Riflemakers began dropping the .222 from their lineup. Today if you want a .222, it will have to be specially ordered, custom-built, or bought in used condition.