Most of the rifle cartridges introduced during these past few years have been given rather boring names, but there was a time when the name of a cartridge combined with a bit of imagination went a very long way. A mere mention of the .22 Hornet, .219 Zipper, .220 Swift, .17 Mach IV, .221 Fireball or .219 Wasp brought visions of fast bullets, flat trajectories and memorable days spent in fields full of targets.

Another cartridge capable of reaching across the back 40 and stinging a varmint is the .218 Bee. It came about in 1938 when Winchester, looking to boost the sagging sales of its Model 92 rifle, added the .218 Bee—failing to recognize that, even back then, hunters wanted their varmint cartridges in bolt actions and single-shots, not lever actions. As it turned out, only a few Model 92s were chambered for the new cartridge, but it managed to find a permanent home in a variation of the Model 92 called the Model 65.

The Bee case is a necked-down .25-20 Winchester (itself a necked-down version of the .32-20 Winchester). Only one factory load was offered: a 46-grain hollowpoint at 2,860 fps.

At the time, the .22 Hornet was loaded with a 45-grain bullet at 2,690 fps, and the .22 Hornet has enjoyed far greater popularity among varmint shooters, probably because it was introduced first and it has been available in a greater variety of rifles. But the .218 Bee is superior to it in several ways.

For starters it is a bit faster, which gives it a longer effective range. Those of us who have handloaded both cartridges also know that due to the thicker wall of the Bee case, it is less susceptible to neck collapse during bullet seating than the Hornet. Another benefit to the thicker brass is longer case life for the .218 Bee when both cartridges are loaded to maximum velocities.

On the negative side, the Bee also arrived with a handicap that may have prevented it from shining more brightly. Whereas the Hornet was designed for use in bolt-action rifles, the Bee was designed for a rear-locking lever action rifle, and for this reason it was loaded to lower chamber pressure. Had both cartridges been loaded to the same pressure, the Bee would have been at least another 100 fps faster than the Hornet.

Then we have the matter of bullet shape. Since the Bee was designed for a rifle with a tubular magazine, Winchester and Remington always loaded it with blunt-nosed bullets, whereas the Hornet was commonly loaded with pointed bullets. Even though a bullet fired from the Bee started out faster, its trajectory and downrange punch differed very little from the Hornet.

The first and one of only three bolt-action rifles chambered for the .218 Bee was the Winchester Model 43. Introduced in 1944, it was also offered in .22 Hornet, .25-20 and .32-20. The Model 43 was a nice little rifle and often described as the poor man’s Model 70, but those I owned in .22 Hornet and .218 Bee years ago were nowhere near as accurate as my Winchester models 54 and 70 in .22 Hornet.