The latest victim to my .218 Bee's sting. I do believe this ol' sow was allergic to it.

Doc Holidude


http://www.angelfire.com/music3/danolyrics/DCP_0008a.jpg

Nice rifle - beautiful wood.

Thanks kdub, she's my favorite varmint rig. :)

How do you like the caliber? I'm going to get a "22" of some kind and it seems the 218 is a pretty good choice if you want to break away from the mainstream 223. I also like the 221 Remington Fireball. I read a lot about the Hornet being difficult to load because the case is so thin and that bothers me. How are the 218 cases? I took a close look at some 221 cases made by Remington and they seemed good quality and would stand up to several loadings. Is that the case with the "BEE"? No pun intended.

Nice gun. What power Leupold is it sporting? I have a #1V in 25-06 outfitted with a Zeiss Conquest 4.5-14X44 that I can shoot the eyes out of a snake at 200 yards using my handloads. Another #1 in 22 caliber is in competition with a CZ Lux as my top two choices.

The Bee reloads fairly well.
I have it in a Contender barrel, also just bought a Martini Cadet im .218. Wonderful custom wood, 8X Unertl scope.

flashhole,

Thanks! Actually the scope isn't a Leupold, it's a Bushnell 3x9 Circle-X reticle.

As kenh said, the .218 Bee is pretty straight forward as far as reloading. Brass is quite sturdy, and readily available from the normal big places. (Midway, Cabelas, etc.) I actually luck out, because a guy that owns a gun shop about 30 miles away carries it, and he usually brings it to our local gun show, which is even closer. Price isn't bad either. The Bee is pretty much a "handload only" caliber in my mind. Partly because you can wring alot better performance out of it, and partly because a box of factory .218 Bee's will cost you an arm or a leg! I love my Bee. Mostly load 35gr or 40gr Hornady V-Max's, or 32gr MHG custom hollowpoints. My favorite powder is 2400. I have several other varmint guns...but this .218 Bee #1 is always the one I grab to walk around with.

Doc Holidude

Hey Doc,

All I am getting is a logo that says image hosted by Angelfire.com -- no picture of your favorite varmint rig, or the sow that fell to it.

Have you moved it, or do I have some computer problems to figure out?

Thanks,

The Old Guy

Old Guy,

Not sure why the pic comes and goes??? Maybe because of the file size, or traffic to the link? Either way...it's there now...I swear! Might be gone in a few seconds, or an hour, but it's there somewhere. :)

Doc Holidude

Hey Doc,

All I am getting is a logo that says image hosted by Angelfire.com -- no picture of your favorite varmint rig, or the sow that fell to it.

Have you moved it, or do I have some computer problems to figure out?

Thanks,

The Old Guy

Right click on the logo, and left click on print picture. It will give you a print from your printer. Thats what I had to do.

Lee L.

Nice rig Doc, kinda makes me wish I had kept my #1.

Lee L.

Right click on the logo, and left click on print picture. It will give you a print from your printer. Thats what I had to do.

Lee L.

Tried that, Lee, and printed a real nice copy of the logo :)

Next I copied the image's location, opened a new window and pasted the link in the navigation bar, then just kept hitting the refresh button sporadically until -- SUCCESS! (Must be age related...)

Really nice No. 1, Doc! I've always been partial to them myself.

The Old Guy

flashhole,
The hornet reloads nicely. Everyone does warn you about thin brass, but if you keep that in mind it reloads just like anything else. It was a concern I had when I bought mine. I haven't had a problem buckling cases or stretching them yet. I do neck size only however and take my time seating bullets.
Just treat it like any other high performance handload and you won't have any problems.

I like either one, loaded moderatly.
Should get many miles of happy motoring out of the cases.

For "whizz-bang" I have a .204 Ruger (Savage) and a 25-06(Nr. 1)

I think the Martini is cute, so ordered another one in .22LR

Lee,

Thanks! I have three #1's and they're all keepers. This Bee, a .22 Hornet, and a stainless/laminated in 7STW. The Hornet has pretty wood, but not quite as nice as the Bee. The stainless/laminated one is actually nice looking too...doesn't have that inherent "cold look"(for lack of better terminology) that most stainless rifles have.

TOG,

Thanks for the kind words, and for bearing with the pic hiccup.

Flashhole,

As MMichaelAK said, the Hornet isn't the problem child it's sometimes made out to be. I've gotten 5-6 loadings out of Hornet brass with no problems. They do need trimmed after while, but dern near everything needs trimming after that many go rounds. Only 2 problems I've ever had with Hornets were trying to load a decent velocity 2400 load under a 40gr V-Max's for a Ruger 77(the mag is so short), and it's a bit tedious to load a 32gr MHG custom flatbase hollowpoint. You have to almost let your fingers go up into the die, so that tiny little bullet won't tip! Neither one of these quirks is any fault of the Hornet though. I do like the bit more of zip that the Bee offers though.

Doc Holidude