Developed by Mike Walker (at Remington), almost overnight, the 222 Remington took over the Benchrest game. After Walker shot his 722 in competition in 1950 and Remington later standardized the 222, every serious target shooter and varminter either owned a Triple-Deuce or wished they did. As the genius behind this cartridge, I suspect Walker realized poor case quality, at least partly, explained why benchrest shooters were plagued with unexplained, group-ruining fliers. Walker used existing 357 case manufacturing tooling to draw longer, rimless cases. He made some very wise, logical, and prescient choices in case design. These included modest case taper, a relatively sharp shoulder, and a long neck. Then, with new tooling to make the best, most concentric and otherwise uniform cases feasible with 1950s era machinery and technology, he produced the most concentric cases then available. Twenty years later, Dr. Louis Palmisano and Ferris Pindell realized case quality was still limiting benchrest rifle accuracy. They found cases that had extremely good concentricity to use as the basis for a new generation of even more accurate benchrest cartridges, when compared to the 222 Remington — the PPCs. Today, with the best components, a top-quality barrel, precise optics, and handloads tuned to the gun, Benchrest shooters routinely put ten shots inside 0.1-inch, on centers, at 100 yards; and, such groups at 200 yards are common! Nevertheless, with the best cases now made, the 222 holds its own in such competition. To say the 222 was a sensation dramatically understates the matter. A round based upon the family of rimmed cartridges that began with the 38 Short Colt back in the dark ages of cartridge development, took over the world for many types of sporting and competitive shooting. Soon thereafter, it became the basis for development of the 5.56 NATO and later became the basis for a host of wildcat and factory chamberings from 17- to 35-caliber. The heritage of this case dates to the 38 Colt cartridge of the 1860s and before that with the 1839 introduction of the 36 Colt Paterson cap-and-ball Revolver.