Making 17 remington fireball.

[BK7saum]

Just got finished reforming about 75 223 cases to 17 fireball. First I annealed the cases and ran them into a 221 fireball die with expander ball removed. Next step was to trim some of the neck and deburr. I then re-annealed the cases and expanded the cases necks prior to outside neck turning. The cases were neck turned them to 0.012" wall thickness and trimmed to 1.410".

The cases were then sized in a 17 fireball FL die. The resulting cases had a 0.014" wall thickness and shortened by about 0.010-0.012"

[Greg S]

I tried making 221 FB brass out of new Winchester brass and had a difficult time getting the the shoulder back the last .002-3 . Had a tight bolt on closing. I was gonna say Powder Valley has Lapua cases in stock but your making 17 FB so trimming and turning would still be required.

I don't know what is up with the majors not making factory brass available to the masses anymore. This practice will hurt them in the long run with the intro of new cartridges.

[BK7saum]

Greg S,

This was 2x fired Winchester brass. The annealing helps get the shoulder back as far as possible. Also sounds like your die might be a bit too deep. Ive had to take some metal off the bottom of more than one die before. About 0.026" on a 7mm SAUM die just to bump the shoulder.

And yes, factory brass is lacking. Of course, I'll gave better fitting brass for my rifle after this little project.

[maxreloader]

Ive had to take some metal off the bottom of more than one die before.

I have had the exact same problem/solution... RCBS was absolutely zero help in troubleshooting the situation.

[BK7saum]

I lost a few to creased necks and 1 collapsed case. Maybe 10% or less. Brass was range pickup, all winchester (same lot) so an approximate 10% loss was acceptable to me. Even the neck creased cases might have been salvageable as the crease was in the original shoulder. The new neck comes from the case body. I haven't gone back to check yet if any are usable. Once I got a routine down and annealed, I didn't lose any more cases. So theoretically next time I'll have an even lower %loss.