The .220 Swift, chambered in one of the author’s Remington 40X rifles, is our fastest factory cartridge and an accurate one to boot.

Can you imagine how excited today’s varmint shooters would be if an ammunition company announced a cartridge capable of producing velocities 50 percent faster than anything else available?

That’s exactly what happened back in 1935 when Winchester introduced the .220 Swift. Loaded to a muzzle velocity of 4,110 fps with a 48-grain bullet, it was more than 1,400 fps faster than the .22 Hornet, which had been the fastest pure varmint cartridge available in factory-loaded form. When both cartridges were zeroed the same, a bullet fired from the .220 Swift shot as flat out to 400 yards as one fired from the .22 Hornet at 200 yards.

This meant a good marksman, shooting a rifle chambered for the exciting new cartridge, could plaster the crosshairs in his scope on the nose of a standing groundhog and place a bullet in its boiler room at any distance out to 400 long paces. It wasn’t short on killing power, either--delivering as much energy at 500 yards as the Hornet was capable of at 100.

Something else the .220 Swift had going for it was its introduction in the Winchester Model 54, which was by far the most accurate factory rifle available at the time. Rifles with barrels of both standard and heavy weights were offered, and to make sure the .220 Swift ran at top speed, all barrels were 26 inches long.

I have never owned a Model 54 in .220 Swift, but a friend with whom I used to shoot groundhogs did, and it was as accurate as my Winchester Model 70 in the same caliber. His rifle wore a 15X Lyman Super Targetspot scope, and the long-range accuracy of that rifle and its owner were legendary in my neck of the woods.

The .220 Swift has long enjoyed a reputation for excellent accuracy in good rifles, and it, along with a sharp-shouldered version of the same cartridge--called the .220 Arrow--were mildly popular among benchrest competitors during the 1940s.

The Swift’s ability to shoot bullets into small groups has not gone unnoticed by others, either. Years ago, Ruger factory technicians who tested rifles were required to keep accuracy records on all calibers; doing so revealed that rifles in .220 Swift had a slight accuracy edge over those in .22-250.

My own experience with various rifles in the two cartridges has been similar. Some of the rifles in .22-250 I have worked with through the years were incredibly accurate, but as a rule, those in .220 Swift had the edge. The difference was seldom great, but it was consistent enough to make the .220 Swift become my favorite long-range groundhog cartridge.

The first rifle I bought in .220 Swift was a slightly used Winchester Model 70, and while it was capable of shooting five bullets inside an inch at 100 yards, it was by no means the most accurate rifle I have owned in this caliber.

During the early 1970s, I purchased a Remington 40X-BR Heavy Varmint with 26-inch barrel in .222 Remington and, dissatisfied with its accuracy, I had gunsmith Harry Creighton of Nashville, Tennessee rechamber it and open up the bolt face for the .220 Swift. Harry’s speciality was varmint rifles, and local varmint shooters usually referred to him as “Mr. .220 Swift”--and for good reason.

The very first five-shot group I fired with the rifle after its rechamber job has always been easy to remember. The load I used was 39.0 grains of IMR-4064, under Sierra’s 50-grain bullet, and the group measured .444-inch.