Jan 10, 2015 4 min read

As I sit in the house and look out at the crust of snow covering the landscape, I feel my age and every sore joint in my body.

When the temperature drops below zero, I stay inside – or at least common sense says I should. This is the perfect time to spread the bull among friends or as my dear mother used to say, “hibernate and wake up when the Hepaticas bloom.”

Since we can’t sleep winter away, we visit sports stores and gun shows. It’s at these venues we hear what is going on in both the hunting fields and what was taken in deer season.

A state record buck was rumored taken but that proved to be a fiasco brought about by some taxidermists. Because of extremely bad weather, the deer take must be down, at least in our neck of the woods. Most scoring of bucks will start to take place in the near future as owners await the 60-day drying period to end. I am sure there will be a few high-scoring bucks, and I am just as sure I will see some of them.

The biggest rumor flying through the firearms business is the financial problems of not one, but three, companies. These are not small fledgling builders of firearms but three manufacturers who have been with us for more than 100 years.

I don’t want to name them at this time, but don’t be surprised if we lose three of our most popular firearms makers during the course of 2015.

• It’s no secret one of my favorite rounds is the .222 Remington. I was loafing at Johnsons Sports Shop when someone asked me why. Sometimes the answer to any question is not an easy one.

Back in the late ’40s and ’50s, Mike Walker was head of research and development for Remington and well-known to shooters of the era. Walker shot primarily bench rest and was a knowledgeable reloader and top shooter.

The .222 was an offspring of Walker’s work for the company and was chambered in the then-fairly new .722 bolt-action rifle. It immediately became popular in other makes, such as the .340 Savage and almost any other gun maker except Winchester.

Appearing like a miniature 30-06, it came into being in 1950, was latched onto by the bench-rest clan and probably was the top round by these accuracy experts for some time.

The same could be said of those who spent summer evenings looking for groundhogs.

Its common range limit was about 250 yards, and while that doesn’t sound all too far away, some shots farther than that are done in gun shops or in the living room. In fact, they grow longer every year.

Moving a 50-grain bullet at slightly less than 200 fps and having the ability to place each and every shot into a ½-inch circle, it’s a great little round. Not only is the .222 a great performer for its size but recoil is almost non-existent.

When reloading for the .222 just fill the case with the proper amount of IMR4198 topped with a 50-grain bullet and almost 100 percent of rifles will group well under one inch at 100 yards.

Barrel wear is almost non-existent, and the cartridge is economical. Therefore, it is shot a lot.

Give me a good .222 and I will take 80 percent of the hogs I shoot with the larger rounds.

In truth, the first varmint round I used was a .222, and it was the first I ever reloaded.

I will always have a .222 in my gun cabinet – it stands tall in performance although it is small.

Mine is a 700 BDL heavy barrel and has shot groups under at under 1/5-inch more than 20 times. That’s not a single one-hole group but the shooter can take the blame when groups open to a quarter of an inch.

George Block writes a Sunday Outdoors column for the Observer-Reporter.