17 FireBall ~ How I formed my own cases

[map55b]

Here is what I did. I used a chamber reamer to make five dies that head spaced (more or less) on a case in a shell holder. The raw material for the dies was a piece of 7/8-14 threaded rod (3' for ~$28), this saved a bunch of time since I didn't have to thread the stock. I then drilled the chambered dies out in roughly .020" steps. This gave me a set of forming dies that basically keeps the should where it should be and cost near nothing to make (except time, but I don't charge myself much).

I then performed the following steps:

1. Cut 223 case at the shoulder
2. Trim all case to same length, squaring the mouth and then deburr
3. Run case into each of the five forming dies
4. Runt he case into a small base 223 to shrink the body (probably not needed)
5. Run the case into the 17 FireBall
6. Inside neck ream (I made a guide that fits into the depcaper that holder a .168 chucking reamer

As long as the I start with a good square case mouth I have zero loss. I haven't fired these, but I have popped a few primers, I confident the shoulder will blow out. What do you think?

[l h jenkins]

I think load it up and fire for effect.

[Dframe]

What he said! Load em up and make some fire.

[10 ga]

It's all a guess until the trigger is pulled. Now a pic of what you get after the 1st fireform. And how good do those 1st fireforms shoot? Any dead groundhogs to show?

[BK7saum]

Good job. I was looking to get a form die or two to go from 223 to 17 fireball. Then just decided to give it a go with dies on hand.

Started with 2x fired winchester brass. Annealed the brass and ran them into a 221 fireball FL die. Then cut them long, squared the case mouth and annealed again. Expanded with expander mandrel and necked turned to 0.012". Sized them in my 17 fireball FL die and trimmed to length. Case necks are now 0.014".

Haven't shot any yet. About a 2-4% loss initially, but once I got the procedure down, I have only had a couple of losses from neck imperfections causing creases.

[Iowa Fox]

Nice job on those dies