22 Primed Empty Brass is Available

[Nueces]

I put myself on the notification list for the empty cases and expected a long wait. Then heard here about the kits with the same cases along with the little CB slugs for a little more, so I ordered them. Just a few days later, I got the availability email for the cases alone and ordered more. This completes one of my longtime bucket list items. Thanks, John Boy, for the post; I would never have found these otherwise.

[John Boy]

Got mine: 2000 primed empties & the 2000 18gr Calibre peanuts
So far
*100 of the 18gr peanuts loaded with 1gr Bullseye
* 150 of 40 gr bullets with 2gr of Bullseye
Process:
* Winchester 209 empty tray - put in 50
* Ideal #5 micro adjustment charger set at powder charges (with the small brass drop tube)
* CH4D seat/crimp die for the final step
Perfect factory crimps with 0.987" COAL
Done, a litter under 25 minutes for 50 reloads

[Traffer]

This is the idea about crimping with a tubing cutter.this bullet was crimped first fairly shallow with a modified Lee Factory Crimp Die. Then I rolled it in this little tubing cutter to give it a nice sharp consistent crimp. Still not as sharp as the commercial ammo but not too bad. I have been trying to figure out a way to make a crimping tool that will do this. The cannelure tools are nearly able to be modified for this purpose. Here are some pictures of the two different types of crimp. (I have not yet made a tool to do the nice roll crimp that one was just an experiment with a little tubing cutter.

[Markopolo]

Sooooo did I see you guys using BP to load these as well as bullseye? Pretty much a case full sort of deal like most BP cart’s?

[shutinlead]

Traffer,
I like your suggestion of making a crimp roll for cannelure tool, I copied a cannelure tool years back, It'd be easy to adjust height and depth of the crimp. My brass came in last week and I spent a couple evenings modifying dies I did in the past for making the jacketed .223 from 22rf. Just finished a few rounds and headed for the range now. Made some 60's to try in the Ballard. everything was going good until the punch for the heel gave out, now it's back to the drawing board...

[Traffer]

Those 60's look strange on a long rifle case. But if you are using BP i guess you need the capacity. If I were going to try developing 60 grain bullets I would make a pinch trimmer for the LR cases making them more in the length range of a short. They would still hold 2 grains of smokeless. and with a fast pistol powder that is all you would need. OR you could make the heel length much longer. Normal heel is about .075" If you went to about .25" you could bury much of the bullet in the case. With a good deep hollow base it would hopefully expand to the diameter of the barrel. This is a picture I found online of how the hollow base obturates to form itself to the rifling in the barrel. Before I saw this pic I was skeptical that the hollow base actually did pack itself into the barrel like that. But the soft lead makes it possible.

[Traffer]

Come to think of it I have a bunch of 60 grain .25 caliber soft lead wad cutters that I could roll thinner and swage in a normal 22lr point die and modify a heel forming die to be about .300" to make a 60 grain that would seat down into a LR case to make a normal 1" oal cartridge with it. I'll give it a shot...

[shutinlead]

I only had 6 of the 60's swaged up - loaded with a grain and a half of bullseye, no crimp, smeared my lube for Black in the cannelure - didn't get any leading but the powder fouling was intense. Results out of my 1:9 twist Ballard were exceptional so far... less than 2" on the IPSC silly at a 100 yards. I think I'll make another heel forming punch and make the heel longer - .200? these were about .080 long, I'll shorten the point -was .400 going to .280. Traffer, what twist are you shooting these from? None of my 16 twist liked this bullet past 25 yards... I did short chamber the fast twist barrel and when I was seating these the rifling just started to grave the bullet so I'm going to keep the body the same length. I have a box of oiled sawdust so I'll try and recover some boolits on the next go.

[Traffer]

Unfortunately I'm not much of a shooter. I have health issues and can't seem to get out to the range. consequently haven't fired a gun in 2 years. I have cheapo 22's ...a Remington 514 and a new Savage Mark II FV? 1 in 16 twist unless there is something I don't know about the old Remington. I such a bad shot it really doesn't make any difference. lol. I just like to play with making this stuff. If I do come up with something that works I will send it to you.

[Traffer]

I found a trick that seemed to work for me (not a huge amount of testing) I also reload empty 22lr cases. Making primer for them and repriming them. I tried using some ground up aluminum ON the primer ...sprinkling it on the primer when it was still wet in the case. Before loading. Those cartridges fired with sparks shooting out the barrel. (the aluminum powder was run through a 70 mesh screen which is about .270mm) The barrel looked as if I had cleaned it after shooting with those. Others tried it and did not have so much luck but tttthas my stttory and I'm sticking to it. My theory is that the aluminum burning hot (and rather slowly with the relatively big 70 mesh chunks) helped the powder burn completely by continuing to fuel it with heat and fire all through the barrel. It may be bad for the barrel too. (I was using HS-6 which is very slow compared to bullseye) I used about 0.2 grain or less of aluminum.

[Traffer]

@shutinlead...
Here is my first attempt at making some deep heeled bullets that will fit into a 22lr case with pictures of the specifications. The heel diameter is .2055". I use this ogive now because I believe it is more aerodynamic than the stepped ogive. The heel length (what fits inside the case is .282" long. The bullet when seated leaves .311" length of room inside the case. I believe that works out to about 52% or original capacity which would hold about 2 grains of HS-6 (don't know the corresponding volume of bullseye but it is plenty room for even an overload.) I would load this with about 1.gn of HS-6 to start. I would not load this with more than .6 gn of bullesye to start with.

[gnoahhh]

Has anybody tried breech seating? I too bought a pile of those latest primed cases from FedArms with that in mind. I made a breech seating tool, a simple pusher designed to seat the bullet with its base .020 ahead of the case mouth. The guinea pig will be my Winchester-Miroku Low Wall single shot.

I fortuitously own an old Ideal 225438 mold whose front bands are skimpy in diameter (.218") with rear band at .225"- kind of a ready made tapered design. Weird. That will be the initial test bullet, cast 1-40 tin/lead (the pot is heating up right now) with hopes that it won't require too much effort to breech seat them with my simple seater. Perhaps I'll need to cook up a tool with leverage. I'll try them un-checked, but I suspect that checking them might provide more uniform bases and be better for accuracy.

My question is mainly to those who have gone this route: are there any pitfalls with what I described? I hate to re-invent the wheel if I don't have to.

Powder will be measured with small dippers made from spent .22 brass. I want to be able to do this at the range. Initial testing planned with Bullseye starting at .75 grains and working up in increments. I haven't ruled out black powder but I have no FFFFg.

Anybody have a solution for a tiny funnel for these cases?

And lastly, ideas for keeping the powder from spilling when inserting into the chamber? I don't want to tilt the rifle if possible, and I'm aware of the risks attributed to card wads being pushed down on top of the powder. Some kind of soft plug that'll stay put in the case mouth would be ideal.

[Chev. William]

Try '20lb' paper punched disks set in with a Dowel punch to hold the Propellant in the Case. If you really want to experiment, forst Soak the Paper sheet in a super saturated mix of Potassium Nitrate in Water, then Thoroughly dry the paper before Punching the disks.

The Potassium Nitrate will provide combustion Oxygen to the Paper disk and should have the disk completely Consumed before anything leaves the Barrel.

As a side note: I used to use cardboard disks to seal Black Powder into preloaded 44-40 and 45 blank cartridges ,sealed with Permatex Gasket Cement for 'Saluting Rounds' and it worked very well to keep the powder Dry in wet weather use.

Chev. William

[Markopolo]

Gnoahhh I would use a cut soda can and make a simple funnel in the same way that you roll up a piece of paper into a funnel. Or you could use a 17hmr case cutoff and the flared on the cut portion with a copper flaring tool.. and I believe that fffg should work for BP.. but I can’t verify that.

[Traffer]

Gnoahhh I would use a cut soda can and make a simple funnel in the same way that you roll up a piece of paper into a funnel. Or you could use a 17hmr case cutoff and the flared on the cut portion with a copper flaring tool.. and I believe that fffg should work for BP.. but I can’t verify that.

Yes I make funnels out of 17 cal cases for reloading 22lr. I also necked down 223 cases. Here are some pics: (the one on the left has a small case soldered to a larger case.)

[shutinlead]

Traffer,
I modified my heel punch, from the damaged one anyway, made it to form a heel that was about .300 long, tried them, then went to a .200 long but now I'm back to an .080" long heel. The longer heel made the bullet unstable every time. I made a few nose punches from .200 to .500 long, if the nose comes out bore riding at about .217 diameter it seemed to stabilize quite well. First couple punches I machined to size then heat treated without a lot of success... I made a holder for a high speed grinder, found a few small mounted stones in my mess then I was able to rough machine the punches, heat treat, finish grind and things were more agreeable, I don't have any pictures of the current bullets, this is a picture of the long heel stuff I tried. On my next batch, the step to the ogive or a gradual transition didn't seem to matter much, calculated BC from data collected off LabRadar results were minuscule. It'll be a few weeks now before I get back to shooting these a little more - I'll try and remember to post how it works.

[Traffer]

Traffer,
I modified my heel punch, from the damaged one anyway, made it to form a heel that was about .300 long, tried them, then went to a .200 long but now I'm back to an .080" long heel. The longer heel made the bullet unstable every time. I made a few nose punches from .200 to .500 long, if the nose comes out bore riding at about .217 diameter it seemed to stabilize quite well. First couple punches I machined to size then heat treated without a lot of success... I made a holder for a high speed grinder, found a few small mounted stones in my mess then I was able to rough machine the punches, heat treat, finish grind and things were more agreeable, I don't have any pictures of the current bullets, this is a picture of the long heel stuff I tried. On my next batch, the step to the ogive or a gradual transition didn't seem to matter much, calculated BC from data collected off LabRadar results were minuscule. It'll be a few weeks now before I get back to shooting these a little more - I'll try and remember to post how it works.

Thanks for the info. You just saved me a lot of time and energy making dies and molds for that setup.