Linstrum
06-23-2007, 05:21 AM
Any .221 Fireball shooters among us?
Before I commence doing a lot of hard work standing in front of my lathe threading and chambering a rifle barrel for a rather obscure cartridge originally meant for the futuristic Remington XP-100 bolt action hunting pistol, I would like to find out if Fireball brass can be easily made using the 5.56/.223 Remington as the parent cartridge. After comparing the two, it would appear that it can be done no big problem, but I have had more than just occasional difficulties reloading the rather thin-walled .223 Remington cartridges because all it takes is a butterfly sneeze to telescope the cartridge neck down inside the shoulder region if the neck tension is a tad too tight when inserting the bullet. Even though the entire perimeter of the cartridge would be supported by the die, I can see that this could very well translate into the .223 cartridge shoulder caving in just as easily when running it into the Fireball die to set the shoulder back to form the 0.360" shorter cartridge. It may very well require the use of both the .222 Remington followed by the .30-.221 Fireball dies as less aggressive intermediate metal working steps. But I don't know.
The method to my madness is that not too long ago I bagged a brand new Clymer .221 Fireball finish reamer along with nine – yup, count ‘em! – nine new unchambered 17" 0.224 caliber x 9-inch rifling twist barrel blanks over on eBay. The barrels were being offered by the Montana Rifleman barrel factory and the guy I talked to there said they were surplus match grade that were originally meant for rebarreling the newer AR15/M16 that originally came with the high rate of twist rifling, so the replacement barrels are probably capable of pretty decent accuracy with the right weight boolit.
I did read up on .221 Fireball performance in my Lyman 46th as well as over at:
http://www.gunsandammomag.com/reloads/0505/
and the .221 Fireball is definitely no .223 Remington with 55 grain and heavier Red Coats, but in the 35-50 grain range, its performance is not all that far below the larger cartridge using the smaller weight Red Coats, getting the pointy little copper-clad pills out of a 22-inch barrel at 3500 fps with the right powder for the job. Of course with our “Beauties-Born-Of-The-Silver-Stream”
:castmine: :cbpour:
the .221 Fireball is quite comparable to the .223 Remington using 55 and 62+ grain boolits (even in short 10-inch TC Contender barrels) because of the 2000 - 2200 fps leading threshold we usually have to stay below to avoid problems.
Being near the small end of the .22 center-fire family of cartridges, it seems like it would be a fun little cartridge with Hornet-like performance using cast boolits out of a 17-inch barrel. PASTURE POODLES BEWARE!
Now, to find a .223 Remington reamer - - - I’ve got some New Mexico “coyodelers” that serenade the house I’d like to take care of next.
Before I commence doing a lot of hard work standing in front of my lathe threading and chambering a rifle barrel for a rather obscure cartridge originally meant for the futuristic Remington XP-100 bolt action hunting pistol, I would like to find out if Fireball brass can be easily made using the 5.56/.223 Remington as the parent cartridge. After comparing the two, it would appear that it can be done no big problem, but I have had more than just occasional difficulties reloading the rather thin-walled .223 Remington cartridges because all it takes is a butterfly sneeze to telescope the cartridge neck down inside the shoulder region if the neck tension is a tad too tight when inserting the bullet. Even though the entire perimeter of the cartridge would be supported by the die, I can see that this could very well translate into the .223 cartridge shoulder caving in just as easily when running it into the Fireball die to set the shoulder back to form the 0.360" shorter cartridge. It may very well require the use of both the .222 Remington followed by the .30-.221 Fireball dies as less aggressive intermediate metal working steps. But I don't know.
The method to my madness is that not too long ago I bagged a brand new Clymer .221 Fireball finish reamer along with nine – yup, count ‘em! – nine new unchambered 17" 0.224 caliber x 9-inch rifling twist barrel blanks over on eBay. The barrels were being offered by the Montana Rifleman barrel factory and the guy I talked to there said they were surplus match grade that were originally meant for rebarreling the newer AR15/M16 that originally came with the high rate of twist rifling, so the replacement barrels are probably capable of pretty decent accuracy with the right weight boolit.
I did read up on .221 Fireball performance in my Lyman 46th as well as over at:
http://www.gunsandammomag.com/reloads/0505/
and the .221 Fireball is definitely no .223 Remington with 55 grain and heavier Red Coats, but in the 35-50 grain range, its performance is not all that far below the larger cartridge using the smaller weight Red Coats, getting the pointy little copper-clad pills out of a 22-inch barrel at 3500 fps with the right powder for the job. Of course with our “Beauties-Born-Of-The-Silver-Stream”
:castmine: :cbpour:
the .221 Fireball is quite comparable to the .223 Remington using 55 and 62+ grain boolits (even in short 10-inch TC Contender barrels) because of the 2000 - 2200 fps leading threshold we usually have to stay below to avoid problems.
Being near the small end of the .22 center-fire family of cartridges, it seems like it would be a fun little cartridge with Hornet-like performance using cast boolits out of a 17-inch barrel. PASTURE POODLES BEWARE!
Now, to find a .223 Remington reamer - - - I’ve got some New Mexico “coyodelers” that serenade the house I’d like to take care of next.