Fireforming 17 hornet with Unique?

[Toddlo]

Hi all,

I've typically fireformed my 17 hornet brass by loading a bullet and using my standard hunting load and primer, but I recently became aware of the cream of wheat method. I'd like to use up some of my Unique powder and save my bullets for hunting. I was considering using some paper towel for filler and a little wad of wax for my "bullet".

I've shot up to 5 grains of Unique in my 22 hornet with cast bullets so I thought I could start in that neighborhood and see how the shoulder forms and check for pressure signs.

Anyone here have experience fireforming the 17 hornet?

[ray h]

If you're referring to the 17 Ack Hornet as the 17 Hornet, there's several methods. I don't care to shoot cream of wheat or wax thru my good barrel, I used a short Green Mt barrel but any wore out barrel can be used as a forming barrel. at first I used Bullseye and a pea size wad of tissue. I then started expanding up the 22 hornet case with K&M expander in 25 and even 6.5 cal. This gives a pretty straight wall case. I use a set of Neal Jones forming bushing in a home made die body. Since my bushing have a 30* shoulder, I use the the go gage to set up the die for each step. If no go gage I'd used a fired case form your chamber as a gage. ALWAYS keep a final formed case for future reference in a file. The plus to expanding the 22 case up and then necking down, you can work up a load to form/hunt with and finish the fire forming in the field. Saves primers and powder. You'll probably find that forming load will be your final load or very close. I've formed over 3000 cases for the 17 AH, 20 AH and 22 KH on prairrie dogs with no case loss with this method. By expanding the up the case, it gives a larger and better shoulder to head space off of. Just necking down a 22 Hornet case gives a very small shoulder and little support to control head space. I use a lot of CZs and the firing pin can actually drive the case forward just a little giving excess head space and the miserable shiny mark above the web of the case. I prefer to use a near max load to fire form cases. Early on i was getting some neck splitting with light loads on various wildcats. I've done a bunch of small calibers over the years and they seem to require a little more attention to details than the larger calibers. Hope this helps some.

[Toddlo]

You are WAY more sophisticated than I am, I'm sort of a hack. Thanks for all of the cool ideas.

I have a new 17 Hornady Hornet in a Savage Model 25. Yesterday I tried using 3,4,5,6,7 grains of unique and some odd primers I had lying around with a little wax to hold everything in. I wasn't too concerned about the barrel, as wax alone shouldn't hurt it. But I will give it a thorough cleaning when done. The 7 grain load worked best. When I was done, I seated a bullet in the unprimed case and tried loading it in the rifle and it worked just fine. I think shooting in the field will finish the forming job.

[ray h]

The 17s are fun lot of guns. Interesting the very first lot of Hornadys 17 brass were straight walled, I have one in my junk box.. It's head stamped 17 hornady but looks like a 25 hornet. The first rifle that was used when they developed it was the Ruger 77-22Hor. I got to shoot it at prairie dogs with one of their engineers a year before they announced it. They have the brass problems that people were having sorted out now. I never had any of the problems a lot of people had so not sure what was going on with it. Glad you're forming cases though, that's the fun part in loading. If you decide to play with other cases get yourself a copy of RCBS Load, it's a simple to run program and can keep you entertained for days doing "what if's". The Quick Load and Design are much better but more money and much harder to use for a non computer savy old fart like me but I have them. Good luck

[scb]

I just hunt with my fire forming load.
129957

[Toddlo]

Nice group! I use Lil Gun and get very similar results, but haven't tried 4198 yet.

[Toddlo]

I've found that the fire-forming load I was hunting with would shoot .625" groups at 200yds. Hard to believe, but true. The issue is that it shoots about 2" lower than my already-formed loads.