I Did It!

[David R]

After messing around with my savage 222 over 20 ga, I think I finally got it to shoot cast. I tried 225646 and that was a wast of time. Minute of paper. I then traded for a Lyman 45 gr roundnose gas check mold. I tried sizing them to .225, the biggest die I have. I can load these boolits with just the gas check in the case and still not touch the rifling. I load them so the first band is outside the case. Occasionally it would put 5 in an inch, then other times it would put 10 in 3" at 50 yards, sometimes 3" at 25 yards. Not good enough for me. I wanted a slow boolit for squirrels and rabbits. I tried starting load of unique and 2400. The unique showed the most promise by far. I then chronyed (?) them. 155 ES with a real high SD. I tried a few types of fillers with a loss in accuracy every time. RP 71/2 BR pirmers helped with ES. I then tried sized and lubed boolits with Lee Liquid Ear wax. It seemed to shoot better. I would get a nice tight group with 4 or 5 out of 10, the rest all over the place. Then I tried unsized gas checked boolits. Walla! ES went down from the high 50s to the low 30s. Groups were more consistant, but still fliers. Yesterday I tried 6 grains of unique, my standard. I then loaded 7grains and 8. The six did the usual 2" or so with a flier way out there 3" away. 7 grains was all over the taraget. 8 grains went into 1.25" with 5 of them in less than 3/8". One "two holer" just above the little group and 3 more make it 1 1/4". I am going to load up all my 222 brass with 8 grains of unique and see how they perform in the real world.

[Willbird]

I have such a 222/20 gauge myself, Mine has excessive headspace as many did, you have to fireform the brass then not push the shoulders back.

I have been meaning to make it a 223/20gauge and try to get a nicer throat too.

if you want to know true evil fire some 3" 20 gauge slugs in that puppy....with that stock design it makes a 3-1/2" 12 gauge seem like a 410

Bill

[David R]

Will,

That was my next attempt to get this thing to shoot was ream it out to 223. I compared the shells and I would only gain a part of an inch. I don't know if this would be enough.

I read here some place to measure the inside of a fired case. Mine came out .231! My boolits drop at .228, so unsized they should be filling the bore. I also have noticed my primers are not all being hit centered. This could kill accuracy alone if the case is not in the same place. I have been neck sizing the brass since I bought the gun. Its the only 222 I have.

I think the 8 grains of unique gives the boolit a good whack in the rear to make it fit the rifling. This barrel is terrible and that is one of lthe things that held me up from reaming it to a 223. What if I go through all that and it still doesn't shoot? SOOO this is why I am so glad I finally got it. I had started out making the boolits out of pure linotype because they fill out so nice. Now using the BruceB (my hero) method, I can get the mold hot enough to make them out of #2 alloy like the rest of my boolits. The first ones might have been too hard.

One more silly thing. The base of the boolit is so big, I can't put the gas checks on with my fingers so........ I take a steel ruler from a tri square, put the gas check and boolit on the end of the ruler. I push the ram of my 450 down onto the boolit. When I raise the handle, the boolit sticks in the top punch. I then line up the gas check EXACTLY under the boolit and press it on. I then pull away the ruler and push the boolet and gas check into the sizer die with the check seater in place.

Thats alotta work for one stickin 45 grain 22 boolit. I then coat em with LLA, load em and shoot em. It takes about an hour to do 150 boolits.

[David R]

OK, so I took a handfull of gas checks, put em on the bottom of a coffee can, heated them up till they were red. I let them cool and they go right on the boolits! I crimped them on and they stay. What a time saver for me!

I learned more here in a few months than I did in years!

Happily shooting my 222
David

[Johnch]

I have a few years old 223 / 12 gau
I have a RCBS 55 gr 22 cal mold

After reading this thread , I am planing on casting a few
And loading them up

I used to use this bullet in another 233 loaded to 1250 fps for hunting tree rats

Johnch