.223 into .221 fireball

[waco]

hey guys!
.221 fireball brass has been hard to come by lately. i have around 300 rnds of .223 in the shop, but own no .223. fellow member cheshire dave is a machinist and is helping me modify some dies, and making some tooling to create fireballs out of the surplus LC .223. im pretty jazzed about getting more fireballs and making them ourselves.i will try to post some pics when i can of the process.
anyone else ever try this with good results?
anything we should look out for?
the brass will be sorted by weight and the necks all turned.
any thoughts are welcome!
thanks in advance brothers!
waco:drinks:
:castmine:

[high standard 40]

One thing to look out for when moving a shoulder back is the type of lube used. A thick application of lube can cause dents in the shoulder area. Imperial wax is probably a good idea. It wouild also be a good idea to mic the necks. LC brass is thicker than commercial and the necks may need turning. Trim to length slowly to avoid chatter. This is a process similar to all the 30 herretts I've made over the years. Time consuming but fun in a strange kind of way.

Charlie..........

[waco]

even if i get dents in the shoulder, wouldnt that be removed after fire forming?
waco

[JSH]

You are going to have your work cut out for you.
I made some 221 from some 223 brass a few years back, it is a chore and not sure it is worth the effort. Roughly here is what I did.
223 ran into a form and trim die for a 30x221. make them longer than you want.
anneal just past the shoulder
run 30x221 into reamer die. I used a 30 as that is what I had. A 7mm would work also I think.
Run into 221 FL die with NO decap or expander. Trim to the longest length you can get in the chamber.
Check neck wall thickness. I turned just enough to get a clean cut all the way around.
Cerrosafe or a chamber cast is in order to
You may think the anneallin to the shoulder is a bit out of line. Do one with no anneal and fire. The shoulder won't blow out. Even worse on milsurp cases. Only has to be done once.
I did anneal as first step after a while. Made jig to know how far down to go on the 223.
Reaming will solve Most donut issues and still leave plenty of meat to neck turn for a true equal wall thickness.
Here is the one glitch I ran into on case length. Some would grow, some would shrink when fire forming. Some would shrink and some would grow. I gave up and just trimmed them all to equal lengths and went on.
Milsurp 55FMJ worked well for fire forming. I would suspect a plane unchecked CB shoved into the lands would work as well.
My shoulders ended up a bit short so I seated the FF loads so the bullet was jammed into the lands so the brass would blow out and not stretch the web area.
It is a fun project but I really see no cost savings to be had after time and effort along with any funds spent.
One last note. A 256 die makes good intermediate die.
Jeff

[high standard 40]

even if i get dents in the shoulder, wouldnt that be removed after fire forming?
waco

I have seen some dents that would probably be more accurately called a crease. These will not be removed with fireforming.

[JSH]

To cure most creases/dents, don't lube any of the case that is going to have metal moving. Just the lower 1/3 should do it. The annealling will help a lot with getting the brass to move or flow nice.
If you have any problems give a holler. Heck, send me your brass and I will anneal and size and send it back to you. LOL, I am not talking 1k of them. I would do 100 and have them back to you pretty quick. All you would need to do is ream and neck turn.
Also, make sure and check case capacity against a factory case when you start using them. May/could be a small differnece.
Jeff

[Triggerhappy]

On a side note... I just ran across some .221 Fireball cases for sale about a week ago. Thought of buying them up for a 221/300 but didn't Are they that hard to come by or are you just enjoying the process? If they are getting hard to get I'll search for where I saw those cases and post a link here. If they're scarce I'll snatch some up too.

I want to build a 221/300 AR-15 top end this spring, after I get stocked up on primers and powder that is. Already bought some mags & frame kit etc. Just need to find the right barrel etc to get it all together. Would like to pay the tax and get a muffler too for subsonic loads but am a little worried about what Mr Obama is going to do. That also opens the door for searches anytime they want and I'm kind of against that. Anyway, I digress. If it's .221 Fireball brass you need let me know and I'll see if it's still around.

TH

[waco]

thanx guys!
if i do run into any problems the two of us cant solve, i will surly let you all know.
and yes triggerhappy....i might be interested in more fireball brass if you come across some.
the last time my local gunshop had some, they wanted $46 per hundred...ouch!
just thought if i could make them.......what the heck.
thanks again fellas
waco

[JSH]

TH, from my findings, you may be good to go with 223 brass for the30x221. Neck wall thickness could be an issue. depends on how it was chambered.
jeff

[Triggerhappy]

I've seen 300/221 or 300 Fireball brass made both ways, using .223 and .221. From what I've read the .221 does a better job but is much more expensive. So far I'm still deep in the learning curve so any insight would be appreciated.

Waco, Might check Midway for that brass. Seems like they had it in the last flier they sent out for something like $33 per C. I'll keep looking for that other source.

TH

[JSH]

I read a lot also on the 300 whisper aka 30x221 being the greatest thing since sliced bread. A lot of articles I read by different folks all pushed the 221 brass. I have heard/read that they hardly ever loose a case when forming. I did mine in 2-3 steps still lost more than I liked. A fellow shooter told me he would looose 15-20 in lots of 100. That is way more than I want to toss in forming.
My best brass came from 222 when I was fooling with this cartridge. Neck wall thickness came out perfect.
As a side note. The batches of ammo a friend of mine got from SSK, the designer of this case, was all made from milsurp brass, for his AR.
Jeff

[VA Jim]

Widener's has some 221 brass in stock. I just recieved 300 last week.
http://www.wideners.com/itemdetail.cfm?item_id=941&dir=278|282|287|383
It's the best price I've found too. At that price it's not worth it to me to make them.
Jim

[waco]

thanx for the heads up jim......now if i can just convice the wife!:drinks:
:castmine:

[NoDakJak]

About 25 years ago I converted several hundred 223 cases into 222 cases and a few into 221 cases. It was a fun project and I learned a lot but I don't want to do it again unless 222 and 221 brass goes out of production. Think of the processes and labor involved. You need to run the shoulders back without buckleing the case or putting creases in them. Then you need to trim and ream them. It is imperative that you anneal them or you will loose most of them by the tie they have been loaded two or three times. Do it though! You will enjoy it and that is what this hobby is all about. The worst mess that i ever got into was back in the mid sixties when I converted 550, 308 Blank cases into 243 brass. I had to make a special punch to open the crimp and then use a crochet hook to pull out the wadd and then remove the powder. I then ran several dozen thru a RCBS 25 Souper Case forming die and then full length sizing die with the depriming punch stem removed. I finally chopped the case back and then learned that the ID was way too small for any of my inside reamers. Into the trash with them. Back to square one! Remove powder, cut off neck, chamfer and then ream with a 308 reamer on a Forster tool. Size in 25 Souper die, again in 243 full length die and then inside ream with a 243 reamer. These inside reamers were really very unsatisfactory as all of the necks ended up thicker on one side than the other. I was a real greenhorn to handloading at tht time and knew nothing of annealing. As a result, I lost just about fifty % of these cases to neck splits the first time that I fired them. Ah well! Live and learn! It was a lot of hard work and lessons learned but I enjoyed it so press on young man. Your enthusiasiam is what keeps this hobby alive. Neil

[waco]

thank you neil........i will:)

[kir_kenix]

I have made a ton of .222 cases out of .223 and some .221 as well. Its a complete pain in the butt if you ask me to go from .223 to .221. Most of my cases that survived the transformation only lasted 2 firings or so before the case necks split. Case capacity seems reduced over "real" .221 brass. This is very labor intensive, but I had fun messing around with it. Not something I would want to do for high quantity shooting.

Fwiw, .222 on the other hand is easily made if you have a trim die and ream the extra materal out of the neck.

[wiljen]

Midway shows Remington 221 cases in stock. Not sure how long they'll last with all the 300-221 ARs out there these days.

[Gun-adian]

I formed a bunch .221 Rem. from commercial .223 brass using a Redding form die. After trimming to length they were full length resized and then fireformed in my TC Contender.

I can't confirm how many loads I can get out of the reformed brass because I was able to find 300 rounds of new stuff. That's all I've been using now.

[JSH]

Most of the loads for 221 are not even close to compressed, so I never saw an issue with milsurp brass. Still one should start low and work up.
"Fwiw, .222 on the other hand is easily made if you have a trim die and ream the extra materal out of the neck. "

You said you only got to firings out of this brass. The reaming could have been the reason, also I didn't see any where that you annealed, another probable cause.
Reaming will leave unequal neck wall thickness, not good for brass life nor accuracy.

I forget what magazine it was in when I was a kid, but Steve Herret necked a 44 mag down to 22 on a bet. He got it done and had to anneal at almost every step. Case life was very short, I think he had to go through about 5 dies. This article will give a lot of insight into forming brass.
It suprises me how many guys are afraid to anneal brass. With as "frugal" a bunch we have here I bet only a small percentage anneal on a regular basis.

waco, get some decent range brass and get it clean as NEW virgin. Anneal it back to the lower part of the shoulder on the 221. Lube the web area, maybe 3/4" above the rim and nothing else. Have decap assembley out of the 221 die. Run the 223 up into the die, steady pressure, not brute force is the key. One has to do this by feel.
Kinda like MaeWest comment to WC Fields about doing her best work in the dark.
I think you will be suprised with the out come.
If you trim to rough length before running into the 221, you will want a die toget it started or the casewill more than liklet colapse into itself. The neck of the 223 will guide when full length.
Once again on the lube and dent thing. You don't want ANY lube where brass will be moving/flowing. Same applies as if FL sizing and you get dents in the shoulder. It doesn't take much to dent. If you feel you have to lube, just a dusting of graphite will be enough. The graphite will show up as a black thin crust though.
Jeff

[kir_kenix]

I anealed the .221, but the fireball brass still didn't survive very long...maybe I should have anealed twice, and turned the necks...but that seems like even more work.

Never have had a problem with the .222, just trimmed, reamed out the doughnut (one rifle has a fairly tight neck the requred me to turn the first 1/2 of the neck of converted mil brass), and loaded her up. Some of that brass must be in its 5th or 6th firing.

I'm not saying that very usable .221 brass can't be made from comercial .223 brass....It's just a complete pain and Its not worth my time. I still enjoy messing around with that sort of thing from time to time, but I wouldn't want to rely on it for my whole stock of brass, especially if it was for an auto-loader.