Yellow Jackets and gophers, I'm impressed!

Bull's-Eye

Bull's-Eye

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I was out shooting gophers with my 1712 and a box of American Eagle 38 grain HP's and I was a little dissapointed. I would make solid contact, most of the time within 50 yards or less and they would make it back down their hole. Not cool.:redface:

So I picked up a brick of Remington Yellow Jackets and shot them out of my Browning BL-22 and I was amazed! I was getting one shot kills, no flipping around or making it back down their holes.

I was quite impressed with this round. Not too sure how they group as I use my BL-22 for open sight practice and will not mount a scope on it but I did O.K with the irons.

The ammo is dirty as hell and out of 150 rounds 2 were FTF but I guess thats why the make cleaning equipment :D

Anyone else like this ammo?
 
Remington Yellowjackets are ok in bolt guns, but I use semis and being that the bullet is very truncated, they won't feed worth crap up the ramp. The squared off nose gets stuck more often then not.
I use Remington Cyclones HP and they feed great. Good expansion too...but also a dirty round. I guess thats the way Remingtons ammo is.
 
I've shot quite a bit of it in the past, but my 10/22 doesn't always feed it reliably. It does kill gophers quite well though. Have you tried Stingers? They kill well too. Winchester used to make something similar to Stingers called Xpediters with a lengthened case and a 29 gr. hollow point at @1680 fps. They were one of the most destructive 22 rounds that I tried.
 
Makes no difference if you have a semi-auto or not. The hyper-velocity .22's require trying a box of each to find out which one your rifle will shoot best. Semi's also require the ammo to cycle the action. Not all semi's will jam with Yellow Jackets. My old Cooey feeds 'em with no fuss.
When the hyper velocity .22's first came out a few of the guys that came into the shop I was working in did some informal tests with Stingers, Expeditors and Yellow Jackets. Shot at an M1 Steel Pot helmet. Both the Stingers and Expeditors would penetrate one side and stop. The Yellow Jackets went right through both sides with no fuss.
"...Not too sure how they group..." You need to sight in whether you have a scope or not.
"...they would make it back down..." Head shots make that go away.
 
Yellow jackets used to be my goto round when I was a kid, they would tear a squirrel right in half at close range. They fed fine in my old Squires-B many moons ago. Stingers were good too but be carefull with them in "match chambers" as the cases are longer then regular .22lr. If you are looking for a deadly looking round check out CCI Velicoter (sp) the HP on thet thing is gaping and will no doubt cause awesome expansion on those rats, much cleaner then the remington too. But yes those Yellow jackets are destructive too. Happy hunting.

I just checked the HP on the Yellow Jackets, they look even more destructive then the Velocitor.
 
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Nothing I own right now really likes to shoot them that well:(. In the past though I have had a lot of fun with them. Gophers don't make it very far regardless of where they are hit. you are right though, they are DIRTY and will FTF if your gun has a soft pin strike.
 
I like the American Eagle 38grHP (copper plated) for accuracy and gophers with my GM barrel. A solid hit opens them right up.
 
KDX said:
I like the American Eagle 38grHP (copper plated) for accuracy and gophers with my GM barrel. A solid hit opens them right up.
Click to expand...

No offence, but did you read the first post? He said the AE 38gr HP were a little dissappointing...
 
Yellow jackets used to be my goto round when I was a kid, they would tear a squirrel right in half at close range. They fed fine in my old Squires-B many moons ago.
Click to expand...

Wow, funny you mention the Squires...That was the rifle that I had problems with the YellowJackets. Bought my Mod. 20 new in '86. It absolutely LOVED the Winchester X HP (gold? colored bullets IIRC) I buy the Cyclones now for the price and they do a reasonable job to mess up dirt pigs. ;)
 
I never did like yellow jackets. As an example, I used to own an extremely accurate Marlin model 60 with a high powered scope. 100 yard shots were a breeze with Remington Cyclone ammo, either in the field or on the range. Anyways, one day I had set up a few water bottles on the bottom of a berm, and fired with both brands of ammo. The cyclones were easy, 1 shot 'kills' but when I loaded the tube with the yellow jackets, you could litteraly see the bullets hit dirt all around the bottle and it took 6 or 7 shots before I could hit it. I had similar results with different rifles so I've never bought them since.
 
I just cleaned my rifle after 150 round of the Yellow Jackets and boy was it dirty!!:eek: There was gold glitter all over the bore. It took a while because I ran out of patches and had to find an old shirt to cut up to use:redface:

I don't know if I'd use these again knowing how dirty they were. At least with the American Eagle ammo the bore was less dirty and quicker to clean.

Anyone in the Medicine Hat area want 6 boxes of Yellow Jackets? You can pick them up anytime.
 
Yep, I use AE 38Gr HPs too. I like em just fine. I build my .22s around this cartridge because its cheap, accurate, and does the job on gophers.
 
the old Cooey 64 in the safe loves Yellow Jackets and their effect on varmits is outstanding. But, they seems to be very hit and miss with the guns they like. The Marlin 880SQ shoots them to minute of gopher but nowhere close to the level of Winchester Powerpoints
 
Re: Marlins: perhaps the YJ's didn't like micro-groove rifling.All my guns like them and stingers.............Great for scrambling skunk brains too........Harold
 
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