Making 17 cal boolets out of 22LR

[RwBeV]

For the past year I have been playing with the idea of making 17 cal boolets out of 22lr cases. The idea started with making myself a 22 de-rimming die, I figured if I can squeeze 22 cases to 22cal then I should be able to squeeze them down to 20 and maybe 17. It worked great other than a full length 22 case swaged down to 17 is long enough to make a 45 grain 17 boolet. So after making a set of ring dies to take them down to 17 I made a set of stepped punches that would trim the cases to make a .540 and .635 jacket. The short jacket makes decent 20 to 23gr and the .635 makes 27 to 30gr pills, or at least that's all I tried so far. accuracy has been ok to good depending what 17 Im shooting them out of. I have been able to push all of them to over 4k with out a single lost boolet. I made my dies to fit an old SAS press that works pretty well for a 50 year old press.

Ring dies and punch's.


Jackets after cleaning in stainless media.



Bullets before cleaning.

I plan on making a punch to make 17 jackets long enough to make 37gr boolets to shoot out of my 8 twist 17/223AI and see if the will hold up to that RPM. I have used them on ground squirrel's with good results, they are very explosive way more than V-MAX's of the same weight and speed. The 20gr boolets shoot extremely well out of my 17 Ackley Bee. I have only shot one Coyote with the 30gr slugs it went in and made a heck of a hole. Not sure they would make a good fur boolet. If it ever warms up again around here I hope to do some more testing, at least with the 17's I have a set of 20 cal boolet dies on order with H-G that are supposed to be on there way. We will see?

Bob

[supe47]

Very nice. 4K in a 1-8 would be 360k rpm. Maybe the smaller diameter will allow them to survive. Keep us informed.

[wonderwolf]

Care to expand on the internal design of the ring dies?

[RwBeV]

The ring dies are in the center of the top picture, there just 5/8" O1 tool steel drilled and reamed then polished to the size of the jacket that I want with a slight chamfer to start the jacket. They fit into that large threaded piece at the top of the picture and are locked in with the smaller threaded plug to the right. The punches are made of the same material and are to the right of the ring dies, there just turned down and polished the step you see in the bottom one is what trims the jacket as it is pressed through the die. My old SAS press looks to be the for runner of the Mighty-Mite press, I built an adapter so the punches go in the ram and the dies are stationary.

Bob

Bob

[Bullshop]

Nice work!
I wonder if I might talk you into making a couple punches for me? Mine are the Corbin M type like yours.
What I need is a punch for the core seat and the point form. What I have are for making boat tails but I would like to make flat base as well.

[Cane_man]

fantastic work!

did you make the pointing die?

[RwBeV]

No the boolet dies are old SAS dies, they show a little wear around the point but it dosent seem to have any effect on the accuracy. I bought them from a fellow that bought them back in the 60's for a 17 Hornet that he had Ackley built. I also have a set of 22 cal dies for the same press.


Bob

[Utah Shooter]

Bullets before cleaning.

Bob

So those are the bullets "bills" dies made. He sure was impressed with them made out of Copper Jackets in his .17 wasn't he?

[RwBeV]

Yes sir those are the dies mister Boots sold me, what a gentleman. He spent hours with me on the phone getting me up and running. I hope he gets the chance to get out here and shoot some prairie dogs. I wish I could find a few more calibers that would fit that press.

Bob