Big options for small game hunting rounds

The best rifle cartridge ever created for taking small game is the .22 rimfire.

From CB Caps to Long Rifle, all .22 rimfire ammo is “the bomb” for squirrels, cottontails, snowshoe hares, and even jackrabbits and groundhogs. But, there are other options.

Allow me to rank them by my preference. Then you decide.

1) .21 Sharp

This new rimfire round is Winchester’s excellent solution for non-toxic ammo jurisdictions. It is a 21-caliber rather than .22. Why lop off one-hundreth silly point? Because the ancient .22 rimfire, harking back to the 1850s, holds a bullet the same diameter as its shell casing.

In order to get the .22 bullet into the .22 straight-walled shell, the bullet’s base must be narrowed, rebated, if you will. This gives it a heel and makes it a bit more expensive to manufacture in copper, which is the preferred non-toxic material.

So … Winchester kept the .22 Long Rifle casing but gave it a .21-inch diameter bullet. The upshot is a rimfire cartridge that spits a light, but relatively narrow and long, pointed bullet fast enough to yield downrange performance quite similar to the standard 40-grain high-velocity .22 Long Rifle load small game hunters have been shooting for nearly 100 years.

There’s a bonus – the .22 lead bullet loads in the .21 Sharp outshine the .22 Long Rifle. We don’t have space to cover all the details, but the .21 Sharp is cool stuff worth investigating.

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2) .17 Mach 2

Another rimfire many do not know, but should. This is the little brother to the more famous .17 HMR, but instead of a necked-down .22 Winchester Magnum case, the .17 Mach 2 is a necked down .22 Long Rifle (one of the hyper-velocity Stinger type cases, which is a smidge longer than the standard Long Rifle case.)

This little hot rod ships a 17-grain bullet from the muzzle at roughly 2,000 fps for an impressively flat trajectory ideal for head shots out to 110 yards or so. Be forewarned: The combination of high velocity and light, frangible bullet results in explosive impacts. Hit any body part but the head and you’ll lose a lot of meat.

But man-oh-man, is it fun holding dead on a squirrel’s eye from 20 yards out to about 80 or 90 yards (depending on the specific load) and score a solid head shot.

3) .17 HMR

If you read about the .17 Mach 2, you already have a good idea about the .17 HMR.

And if you appreciate the explosive, meat-destroying impact of the Mach 2, you’ll know the .17 HMR must be carefully and precisely applied to small game. But the 500 fps or so more velocity from this one means you get to hold dead-on roughly a 2-inch diameter target out to 100, perhaps 125 yards and score. This is particularly useful when hunting the warier jackrabbits and woodchucks.

I’ve put a .17 HMR to good use on fox squirrels beyond 75 yards, but even at that range a head shot is mandatory if you enjoy squirrel stew.

4) Squib (reduced) loads

This is a long shot, but a great way to get more use out of your higher velocity centerfire rifle cartridges, including “deer” rifles. It’s a handloading project with roots going back to muzzleloader days when woodsmen would use just a bit of powder to propel their round balls at much lower muzzle velocities than they usually got from their deer loads.

But with modern, centerfire cartridges one must be careful, use just the right powder, and just the right amount, and usually use a filler to hold the powder against the primer at the base of the case. Fail to do this and there is the potential for exploding the rifle, odd though that sounds.

Do thorough research before attempting this, but once you do, you should be able to load your .30-06 or .243 or even .223 to muzzle velocities low enough to make them acceptable for head-shooting small game.

Do an online search for Reduced Power Centerfire Rifle Loads. Speer Handloading manuals usually have at least a few handloading recipes for this. Deer and elk hunters can carry such low-power cartridges for collecting small game (and forest grouse where legal) for camp meat.

These, then, are my picks for the best small game rifle cartridges other than the number one and still king, the .22 Long Rifle.