Replacing The slug in a .22LR

[dcroft38]

This is probably a stupid question, but since they are so easy to remove, I was wondering if anyone has ever done this....

Latch on to the slug in a .22LR bullet with a pair of vise grips. Then wiggle the bullet out. You can easily do it with your other hand bare. Take a Sierra Slug of about the same weight and work it into the casing. If you dump out the powder, you can very easily go around the rim with a pair of needle nose pliers and straighten out the crimp at the end of the shell. Then replace with a .22 cal poly tip slug.

Anyone ever do this, or am I the only one stupid enough to have done it? It worked, worked fine. The hardest part is reworking the rim of the shell so the slug seats perfectly straight. I imagine you could only shoot them in a single shot bolt action like one of mine due to the size difference. Not very accurate, but I never thought they would be.


The 1st time I ever attempted to do this, I bought .20cal slugs.... Grabbed the wrong box, I ended up making tiny little sabots out of heat shrink tubing, that once shrunk was a perfect .223 around the center of the slug. Those actually shot really well. Ended up giving the .20 cal slugs away.

Go ahead.... I know it was dumb.... Let me have it! I was just curious if anyone has ever tried anything remotely similar to this?

[50-170-700 sharps]

That's a good idea except... the 22 LR uses a heeled bullet, so your going to have to smash the base of your new bullet, which of course ruins accuracy, or use a undersized slug that doesn't fill the rifling. 22 Mag silhoutte shooters used to (they may still do this practice) pull the slugs and replace them with long range 224 bullets because the 22 mag uses the modern non-heeled bullet design that shares the same diameter as the 223, 22-250 etc.

[stubshaft]

I used to be one of the sillywett loaders that pulled boolits in the 22 mag. You could possible do it with the LR and use the 225107 if you sized it to .222" the GC shank could be used as a heel.

[uscra112]

I've heard of a rimfire single shot competition where the guys pull the factory bullet and breech-seat one of their own.

Each to his own.

[.22-10-45]

Hello, dcroft38...What does the fired case look like? That jacketed bullet is is way harder for rifling to engrave than the nearly pure lead the .22 L.R. was designed for. Could also be a stuck bullet in bore waiting to happen.

[dcroft38]

I negligected a very time consuming.. issue. In fact I'm about done with a prototype. I Have developed even more dangerous but better ways to do it. Take the 22 shell. empty, unfired. File down past the crimp. This gives you a straight shell. I like CCI Stingers. IF you really have the balls break out your Dremel. Now you use a regular drill to turn the bullet as you file off a straight, flat, heel. Be carefull..... You can rempve metal, but you can't add it back. Just turn the Slug around backwards in a drill..... tighten. It really hardly even scratches. You just want about 2, or 2.5 mm overhang....... now treat the drill like a lathe. File the tail down and measure with a micrometer until you can snugly fit the bullet into the shell. And there you go. One Big PAIN in the ***, but you now have a .22 projectile that is the same size as the shell. I'll try to post some pics tommorrow. The way i did it in the past was to use a .20cal and melt plastic , dipping like a candle to create and encasing sabot until it was .224. Then press it into a straightened .22 shell.

[dcroft38]

Fired cases generally look normal, but with a ton of residue

[dcroft38]

Got some new tools. FIRST AND FOREMOST. I know next to nothing about the mechanics of handloading. As far as If Im, using the right bullet, enough powder, too much powder... etc. But even though I found this .22 work pretty time consuming at first, it has gotten much easier now that i have a proven way to do it so that the bullet has a heel (sort of) and is sized up to the case.

Here's how. First I like to get the longest shell available. Now you'll have to buy a box of 22 ammo, just so you have brass and powder.(pointless, but stick with me. I'm a born tinker addict as well as inventor). Get some cheap $1.97 a box of 50 Federal ligtning loads from walmart . You can use the brass too. I like CCI Stingers and Rat shot.

I used CCI's .22LR Ratshot this time, that was $9.00 well spent! You crush the plastic, pour out the shot and then the remaining platic can be removed with tweezers. But the shell has a noticible crimp at the biz end that must be removed. Just like all .22 rimfire ammo to hold the bullet in. I was filing it down, but today I bought a tool for truing .223 brass, and a threaded rod from Ace so that when I stick the rod into the shell in lines up right. DO'nt make it too long!



This image is worth 1000 words. I had to cut a good portiion of the straigh bottom off the slug(Hope it doesnt mess up flight((prob will)) Then I chucked it up backwrds in the drill. Use a cloth, I didnt. and my proto is majorlly dented and scratched.
You can see the filed down ready to go slug next to the one from the box. It did drastically reduce weight. Next time, I'll remove less botttom. You can also see the cutting tool and how I rigged it to fit the shells....... Turn it abbout 10 times...... no more crimp!, then file, and make sure you didnt bend the mouth of the case.



Since the Ratloads already carry a "Cap" load, I didnt won't to overdo the powder.
I emptied a Federal Lightening out and it weighed about 3 gr. I used about 2/3's of it, and then pressed in the bullet.

Reloaded .22 rimfire with a bad *** bullet(I hope) no crimping needed... it fits my rifle and my pistol very nicely No bullet touching the rifling..... Here's the 1st proto..... It's a bit beat up, I admit, got in a bit of a hurry....... but it's just an example and a place to start.

[dcroft38]

It fires .. well, good. No major malfunctions, didnt blow up. Shot a can dead center at 5o yards. So I guess the slug flies ok... more testing needed I'm sure. I'm going to up the powder load a tiny bit. Because my original intent was to create the baddest .22 rimfire I could. I want one that will penetrate a skull and do major damage on exit.

Clearly, these varmit rounds arent the ones for that. Will try a more solid HP next.

Any comments? Questions about if I'm clinically insane? Anything?

Can someone kinda guide me as to max powder weight and bullet size, etc. I can use for these .22 LR rimfire handloads I'm donig? I met a very knowledgable man in the store today that hit me with SO much info... I'm still trying to process it.

I agree in the end, this will probably show that it's a waste of time.... but I am a DIE HARD DIY'r and just love to see what my creations can do. You should see some of the crazy Airgun ammo I made for my super powerful PCP and break barrell rfles!

[Silver Eagle]

Sounds very interesting! Please post followups with more details.
I, for one would be interested in the Airgun ammo info as well.

Silver Eagle

BTW: Welcome to the Forum!

[dcroft38]

Thanks for the comment Siler Eagle. Thought th thread died.

Just wanted to say... I have made about 45 - 50 of these little bullets and have gotten it down to a science. Final bullet weight = 29gr, I only use CCI Rat shot shells to reload, and another bit of powder from CHeap federal Lighting bullets. Not sure about the amount. I have a small spoon that measures the perfect amount. The bullet on the left fits my pistol mag and cycles like a champ!

I'm not sure about Muzzle velocity yet. But They are consistent, and If I had to guess, compared to All manufactured ammo, They seem to be the straigtest, fastest, and most powerful ammo I've ever shot for a .22lr.

I have taken a product used in a lot of targets to stop bullets, but made to use in the electrical field called Duct Seal. Two punds of it makes about a 3 to 4 inch thick ball. I use that ball to shoot bullets into to test penetration and bullet deformation, fragmentatation, etc. No market loaded ammo (.22lr) can penetrate the ball. Even at the muzzle. Mine will penetrate it from 7 feet away and blows a ping pong sized ball out the back. The only way I can get it to stop them is I had to buy another pound, and make a 6 inch ball. That stopped the bullet about 1 inch or less from the end. my god these varmit loads just rip apart and tear this stuff to shreds!

If you don't believe me. Send me your address. I'll make you a few when ihave time, and send them to you. But I wish I had an "easy" way to make these fast, I've cut the production time to about 20 minutes per bullet. At 1st, I was spending over an hour or 2 On just 1 bullet!.

Anyway, I'm getting faster, and havent gotten tired of makng them yet. But it is getting a bit expensive! Rat Shot loads ain't cheap! But I'm convinced it has something to do with the capload already in them, the bullet, and the extra powder.

[Mk42gunner]

I am suprised that you are getting jacketed bullets designed for centerfire velocities to expand, even with cutting them down in weight.

As long as you do it safely, I have no problem with it. This however concerns me:

Final bullet weight = 29gr, I only use CCI Rat shot shells to reload, and another bit of powder from CHeap federal Lighting bullets. Not sure about the amount. I have a small spoon that measures the perfect amount

If you can weigh the bullets after your modificatins, you can weigh the powder charge.

Robert

[uscra112]

Rimfire brass is far too thin to stand the pressures needed to shoot jacketed bullets to any useful velocity. Even just re-using the powder charge from the "rat-shot" cartridge may be too much, given the much higher force needed to engrave a jacketed bullet, especially if said bullet is .224" diameter being swaged into a .2225" groove barrel. Burst rims and a face full of gas and bits of brass are highly probable.

I have never before given such advice on this forum, but IMHO this is a "do not try this at home" idea.

[nanuk]

two comments:

try a cast boolit with a GC shank and use that as a heeled boolit

if you have the length, could you not just ream the chamber to .22MagRF?

[w30wcf]

dcroft38,

Nice work! Interesting.

I have removed bullets from .22 LR cartridges but for the purpose of reloading them with black powder. I made an expander button to remove the crimp and flare the case mouth slightly.

At first, I used cast bullets made from a 225438 mold (45 grs.) The gas check heel was a tight fit into the case neck. I seated the bullets in a .228 H&I die than ran them through a .225" die to bring the flared portion back to the correct diameter.







Recently I had a mold made that is a copy of the 40 gr. LR bullet.

Your posts have gotten me to think about casting some hard bullets to see how the penetration might increase......

w30wcf

[dcroft38]

Thanks for all the comments guys. I waited for a few days and didnt get any responses so
I just started to experiment with lil bits of powder. I didnt get decent results until about
the 5th bullet I made. Then I couldnt get any to stabalize until I'd shot about 15 .
I just kept adding tiny bits of powder until I was able to get them to fly straight.

I Need to post a video...

As far as the amount of powder, I tried to weigh it and can't even get it to register on my
scales. Which is pretty weird because it's almost half the powder of the Federal Lightning loads.

The bullets don't expand so much as rip apart into about 3 to 5 pieces. I've never recoverd an
intact jacketed bullet. Just the fragmetns. They seem to start ripping apart about an inch or more into the
duct seal.

I have shot atleast 50 of these. And that's 50 after I got the charge right, and was able to get them to
fly straight. Now I'm starting to worry that I've just been lucky... But 50 times?
I don't know..... Are you saying that there is a chance that the jacketed bullets can damage the .22
barrel? Or that I can't get enough "power" out of a .22lr to engrave the copper witht he rifling there fore
the bullet will never fly right or might get stuck?

Well... I've shot plenty of them. And as i said before, once I got the bullets the correct size, and
the charge right, I was able to shoot and hit a can, multiple cans at 50 yards. I use an old savage
single shot bolt action rifle. And I've used a Star Model F Target pistol. The pistol doesn't work as well
It jams after a few shots, but the short bullets that are the same size as a .22lr will eject and feed
back into the chamber at least 3 times before I have a problem. WHich is why I stopped using the star to
test.

I Don't just take a bullet out of the box and shove it into a shell and start shooting. There is an extensive
process to get it to work right. And if they aren't EAXCTLY right. They will jam as i load and push the
bolt closed. Any that have not fit perfectly I've never tried to fire. I have made plenty of these, then
threw them away, because They didnt fit smooth. Believe me... If it doesnt feel perfect to me, I don't push
my luck.

Read a few posts back to see how I construct them. I cut the bullets down, cut the crimp out of the shell, ream it
and bevel the outside. Then I cut the heel to about .2005, leaving a little shelf that is exactly the same
size as a store bought .22lr. That way the bullet and shell match perfectly. If I even notice the tiniest
difference in size. Like When I push a bullet into the case, even if it slides right in, sometimes (before
I started using a micrometer) I'd see the shell bulge slightly around the heel. These are rejects.

They must be perfect or I don't shoot them. But I'm begining to think.... was it just luck?
Can't be. And Why would they fly straight If not getting engraved with the barrel rifling?

[kcajeel]

Why don't you try to breech seat them? That might work. A report back on that would make an interesting read.

[hicard]

Wow, you guys have too much time on your hands.

[Bwana]

Here is a post of mine from April 2010:

I have used 40 and 45 gr 22 jacketed bullets and sized down 35 gr XTX 25auto bullets in a marlin 22lr bolt gun. The bullets are pulled from CCI Stinger rounds (cases are stronger). Powder dumped. You are now into load development. I used powders from 1680 to AA-7. The powder is contained in the case by a paper disc cut with a paper punch.
The bullets are sized down so the front section is bore riding. The position of the diameter change is placed so that it is against the rifling when the case is loaded behind it.
These loads shot 1/2 inch groups at fifty yds. The pressure ring method was used to good effect in determining pressure levels. Only one blown case out of several hundred.
Five grains of H-108 behind a 40 gr bullet for 1800fps. 5.5 grains of H-110 behind 50 gr bullet for 1700fps.
It was a interesting project.

[dcroft38]

Wow, I envy all the knowledge you guys have! but... I want be doing this anymore..

As far as the jacketed .22lr's I've been making... Well I've had to stop that foolishness, and I'll tell you why. After repeated firing of the jacketed
bullets through the barrel of my old Savage .22, the barrel became fouled. Or more directly, the choke was messed up, apparently. I noticed
as i started shooting store bought ammo again, that my accuracy was getting bad, and the bullets were covered w/copper. The ones that I shot
into the Duct seal in an effort to diagnose the problem. Turns out, This gun (probably all .22lr's) wasn't ever meant to shoot this hard of a
material and on examination to the bore... Almost all the rifling is gone! I can almost fit a bullet into the muzzle now, when before I could
hardly get one half way inside. It's my fault for messing around with tried and true ballistics. She was a good Rifle.I was warned, albeit a little to late, but I think on a subconscious level, I knew netter. My grandfather left me that rifle. Live and learn.

I may now try to make my own molds. Maybe mold some that are shaped like the jacketed loads. I also noticed that some of the .22 shells were splitting after being fired.

Back to the drawing board.