.22-250 Remington

The .22-250 Remington is what varmint hunters reach for when they want things settled definitively. This is a cartridge built for one thing: sending a small bullet across a field so fast that whatever it hits doesn’t have time to reconsider. Based on the .250 Savage case necked down to .22 caliber, the .22-250 has been devastating on varmints and small predators since it went factory in 1965. If you sit in a prairie dog town with a .22-250 and a good rifle, you will run out of ammunition before you run out of targets.

The .22-250 spent decades as a wildcat before Remington finally standardized it in 1965. Gunsmiths and handloaders had been building rifles for it since the 1930s, which tells you something about how obviously good the concept was. Remington gets credit for legitimizing it, but the wildcatters deserve credit for figuring it out first.

Varmint hunting. Prairie dogs, ground squirrels, woodchucks, jackrabbits — this is where the .22-250 earns its keep. Coyote hunting is another major application. Benchrest and varmint target shooters use it in competition. The .22-250 knows what it is, and it’s excellent at it.

Standard .22-250 loads push a 55-grain bullet at around 3,680 feet per second. Lighter 40-grain bullets can exceed 4,000 fps — making it one of the fastest factory cartridges you can buy. At 300 yards it’s still moving at over 2,600 fps. Wind drift is real at extended ranges, but for shots inside 400 yards on varmints and small predators, the .22-250 is as good as anything you can put in a bolt gun.

Remington, Federal, Winchester, Hornady, and Nosler all produce .22-250 factory loads. Hornady’s 55-grain V-Max load is widely considered a benchmark for varmint performance. For handloaders, the .22-250 is a pleasure to work with: plenty of data, widely available components, and predictable performance.

Speed kills. And the .22-250 has more of it than almost anything else in a factory cartridge. The flat trajectory means less guessing at distance. The explosive terminal performance means decisive results. And the satisfaction of watching a prairie dog vapor trail at 300 yards never gets old.

Arms East carries .22-250 rifles and ammunition for the varmint hunters who know what they’re doing and need a store that does too. If you’re setting up a dedicated varmint rig or just want to know which load shoots best in your barrel, come in and let’s talk. We’ve had this conversation before and we enjoy it every time.