We will be looking at rifle cartridges that have a velocity of over 3,500 feet per second. There are not many of these out there. That’s because rifle cartridges aren’t the most effective mechanisms for creating high projectile speed.
If you really want to see fast projectile speed, there are a few examples. A depleted-uranium penetrator rod fired from a 120mm smoothbore main gun on the M-1 Abrams tank can go as fast as 6,000 fps. Then there’s the Navy’s Rail Gun, which uses electric current to accelerate projectiles up to 8,000 fps.
Keep in mind that velocity also produces a lot of recoils and also puts a strain on the projectile itself. There needs to be a balance between the force behind the shot to the durability of the brass cartridge as well as your shoulders. Then, there’s also the barrel durability to consider. If your ordinary rifle cartridge goes up to 8,000 fps, then it would either break apart the moment it leaves the barrel, breaks the barrel, or dislocates your shoulders from the recoil.
With that in mind, it’s already a significant achievement for rifle cartridges to breach that goes faster than 3,500 or even 4,000 feet per second while still being safe for the shooter. We’ve pretty much achieved peak velocity in 1935 when the .220 Swift reached 4,110 fps with a 48-grain bullet.
Nowadays, you can get a Swift that can top 4,300 fps without blowing itself up. Other than that, only a few cartridges can go up to 4,500 fps. To this day, no rifle cartridges managed to breach 5,000 fps. I suspect that it wouldn’t happen unless we’ve developed new bullet or gunpowder technology, or that we use something else other than gunpowder and bullets.
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1. The .220 Swift
Winchester came up with the .220 Swift by trimming down the neck of the 6mm Lee Navy. Not many people know of this cartridge since it only served briefly in the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps with its straight-pull M 1895 rifle. Neither the gun nor its cartridge found success and they were ditched in favor of the .30/40 Krag-Jorgensen, which u nfortunately did not remain in service for long either.
The case is definitely large for a .22 centerfire and it is also semi-rimmed. To produce the Swift, Winchester had to design bullets that can withstand extreme speed, which is harder than you may think. I’ve seen the lead cores of some Swifts melting into liquid moments before hitting the target. Sometimes, the bullets would vaporize soon after leaving the barrel. That’s the kind of stress bullets are subjected to at such extreme speeds.
In addition, the speed also causes significant wear on the barrel itself. To fix this problem, Winchester turned to stainless, but then found out that it’s not possible to blue stainless steel. So they opted to iron-plate the tubes first, then blue them.
Unfortunately, the Swift was not well-received. You can thank certain gun writers for that since they labeled it as unnatural, creepy, and even dangerous. They went on to talk nonsense about it. Despite the tarnished reputation by the media, the Swift managed to survive for the simple fact that it is very accurate, fun to shoot, and does not have any more problems than other cartridges.
A 50-grain bullet can reach 3,900 fps. A 40-grain might be able to reach 4,300. If you want to down a big game in a shot without feeling much in the way of recoil, I believe 60-70-grain bullets will suffice.
2. The .257 Weatherby Magnum
This cartridge is also an ancient round, similar to the Swift. Despite its age, it has been holding up pretty well. It was designed by Roy Weatherby in 1944 and was put up for sale just a year later. Among the entire line from Roy, this one is his favorite. When people called upon to cite the virtues of hypervelocity, Roy pointed to this cartridge.
The .257 Weatherby Magnum is based on the H&H Super 30 and it is normal for all Weatherby Magnums to have very little body taper, a sharp and radiused shoulder, and plenty of powder capacity. This cartridge definitely packs a punch. Back then, Weatherby rifles used to have 24-inch barrels and with 87-grain Hornady bullets, you can expect the velocity around 3,750 fps.
If you’re thinking that this is too much for varmints, then you would be right. This would pulverize small critters. So, the .257 is best used on big game at long range where this cartridge excels. I have the best experience using 115- and 120-grain Nosler Partitions, which have a velocity in the neighborhood of 3,400 fps. Despite the velocity, the recoil is surprisingly light, especially when you think how much powder is in there. That said, the noise would be severe and the barrel life would be quite short.
3. The .30/378 Weatherby
So far, I’ve been discussing cartridges that fire only light bullets. This one deals in slugs that are 180-200 grains or more. The start of its career is quite strange as well. It all started in 1959 when the Army asked Roy Weatherby to put together a single rifle/cartridge combination so they could test the effect of hyper-velocity metal fragments on armor to mimic exploded artillery rounds.
Weatherby came up with a smoothbore rifle and he necked down his .378 round to .30 caliber. With these, he managed to achieve 5,000 fps. Of course, words of this terrifying firepower got out and the .30/378 immediately became popular. In 1996, Weatherby made it a production cartridge and it is one of his most popular rounds to date. He loads a wide variety of ammo for it. The 165-grain Barnes copper bullet can reach the velocity of 3,450 fps and the 220-grain Hornady ELD-X could reach up to 3,050 fps.
Of course, this amount of firepower is only suitable for the big game at extreme distances. Prudent hunters would choose to go with the heaviest slug possible since it would retain the most velocity over the distance. Weatherby puts a 26-inch barrel to its rifles in this caliber, so you can’t go any shorter than that. Also, you must use a brake.
Also, only use this cartridge when your target is at least 400 yards away. The further the better. Any closer than that and the damage would be horrendous. Ear protection is a must, even when hunting. The barrel life is also short, with some shooters reporting that theirs lasted as little as 600 rounds.
4. The .224 Clark
If you look at pure performance, this cartridge shouldn’t be on this list since its velocity is only 3,550 fps. However, I feel it wouldn’t do it justice considering that the Clark was designed in the early 60s. It managed to achieve that velocity with 80-grain bullets, so this is a cartridge that is at least five decades ahead of modern long-range loads such as the .224 Valkyrie. The Valkyrie achieved the same speed with 90-grainers.
The .224 Clark was the masterpiece made by a gunsmith named Kenneth Clark from Moderna, California. He figured out that initial velocity isn’t everything, but rather the retained speed downrange. He knew this half a century before everyone else. So now, you have .223 shooters who are required to use 77-grain bullets for mid-range targets at around 600 yards.
Clark then selected the .257 Roberts case, blew it out, and gave it a 30-degree shoulder. He then designed his own 80- and 82-grain bullets. The best rate of twist was 1-9, which is incredibly fast. Understandably, this puts a lot of stress on the slugs. To fix this problem, Clark built them strong and came up with a double jacket for heavier slugs, because he knew that people would use this for the big game.
The .224 Clark worked well, but it never became that popular and it eats through barrels quickly as well. Nonetheless, it is definitely a cartridge that is way ahead of its time and is worth mentioning in this list.
5. The .22 Eargesplitten Loudenboomer
If you want to go hard, then this is the best option for you. The .22 EL was created in the 1960s by a gunsmith named P.O. Ackley. His goal was to create a cartridge that can achieve 5,000 fps. It was the apocalyptic .378 Weatherby Magnum necked down to .224, with pretty much no other changes made.
Then, Ackley shipped the .22 EL rifle off to Bob Hutton who operated Hutton’s Rifle Range in Topanga, California. He did all the rifle testing for Guns & Ammo magazine in the 60s. Bob’s range was located in a box canyon, so he could make as much noise as he wanted. He would definitely be called in for questioning nowadays if someone hears the ruckus he was causing. With 50-grain bullets, Bob managed to hit 4,600 fps, but could not quite breach that 5,000 fps barrier. It is possible that we could make it using ultra-slow powders today.
