A *little* wildcatting

[NoZombies]

A small project I've been working on.

Whadda you guys think? It's the one in the middle, flanked by a .44 mag and a .22LR, in case you couldn't tell.

The boolit is a 224-450 BTW.

[hickstick_10]

What kinda velocity you getting?

Is that based on a 38 special case?

[NoZombies]

Well, I'm only hoping for about 2200 FPS max, but I don't know yet, the gun hasn't been built yet!

It's based on the .32 S&W long cartridge.

I've got a barrel on the way, and I just need some shop space/time sometime soon...

[Mk42gunner]

I've seen and read of similar cases built on both the .32 S&W Short and Long. I believe they were called Honey Bee and Bumble Bee. It has been so long that I do not recallany ballistics, ifIever knew them.

Should be a fun project.

Robert

[82nd airborne]

What boolit is that?

[NoZombies]

Thanks! I've never heard the honeybee and bumblebee designations, I'll see if it leads me to any more info.

The boolit is an ideal 224-450 which is the same as a lyman 225450. I have no idea when they changed the nomenclature. Sadly, mine is only a 1 cavity. I'd love to find a 2 or 4 cavity, but the one 4 cavity I saw sold for close to $250. Waaaay to rich for my blood.

I'm hoping to see 2200 FPS with a 50 grain boolit, and maybe a bit more with a 40-45 grain. Basically, I want the cartridge to push to about the edge of where shooting cast is easy, and be efficient from subsonic to 2200+/- FPS.

The case is a little more capacious than the .22 squirrel (essentially a very much shortened hornet case with a K-hornet shoulder and body taper) and should probably do well in the same kind of arena.

Of course, all of this is wild speculation at this point.

[gnoahhh]

Now THAT I like! If you post progress reports, I'll follow them with keen interest.

[Nobade]

That round in a Remington 580 converted to centerfire is my idea of a neato squirrel rifle!

[rhbrink]

Well that must be the one you mentioned in the 22 postal. Tell us more do you have the reamer? How much powder does it hold? What kind of barrel,action, twist. After shooting a little with the 22 cast I can see that I have been missing something here it's just plain fun and can see me doing a lot more of this maybe even some day build a rifle just for 22 cast. I was kinda of thinking a little bigger case and would like to shoot a 60 to 65 grain boolit to 2200 fps but what twist? 1/9 seems too fast maybe not? Don't know but would have to have at least a 1/12 I think?

[NoZombies]

I'll keep you guys updated, right now, it looks like the case will hold about 9-12 grains, depending on powder. I don't have the reamer yet, but I've got it drawn up.

I think a 1:10" twist would be ideal, but due to budgetary constraints, I'll be using either a 1:14" or 1:12". And a small action Remington bolt gun. The action will either be a 580/590 series, or a 788, unless I find something else that will do better, and be cheaper.

The idea is to build an edible small game rifle that has more reach than my .32, but still won't cause unnecessary meat damage. The hope is that it'll be able to serve dual duty as a close range varmint caliber as well.

[NoZombies]

It looks like it will work in a Remington 580 action. Now to find a donor rifle.

I'll have to be careful about C.O.A.L. with this one if I want to be able to eject loaded rounds.

[Mk42gunner]

Sounds like it will be a reloadable .22 Mag +P. It should work okay for close range varmints; but might be a little energetic for edible game, unless head shots are made.

I think 540/580/590 series Remington would be perfect for this cartridge. A 788 would be awfully big.

Robert

[NoZombies]

The idea was that I'd be able to load it anything from subsonic to 2200+ FPS the full power loads would only be used for varmints, and slower (probably 1200-1400 FPS) loads for edible small game. Head shots would be the goal, but with the slower load, a body shot shouldn't be too destructive.

I'm looking forward to the NOE 225107 clone, as it should be just the ticket for everything from subsonic loads with the PB to the "barn burners" with GC and HP. Might even push that one to 2300 FPS...

I agree that the smaller 540-580-590 series of actions would be better suited, and that's what will probably happen, but I might be able to get a 788 locally for a song, and budget is as much of a concern as performance.

[Piedmont]

VERY interesting project. I've got one of those little 581s set aside for either turning into .22LR target rifle or a small centerfire. Looking forward to seeing yours come to fruition.

[NoZombies]

I picked up a really clean 592 at the show today for a very fair price, so I think that's the action I'll build on.

I've got some dies coming from another wildcatter to try out in a few weeks, and a barrel on it's way to me as well. Now I just need some shop time.... Oh how I need some shop time...

[seanhagerty]

I am very interested in your process of necking down the case. How did you resize it to .224 with out resizing the rest of the case? Did you have special dies made for this?

[NoZombies]

I am very interested in your process of necking down the case. How did you resize it to .224 with out resizing the rest of the case? Did you have special dies made for this?

I'm about to take my Wife out for dinner, but I'll reply back later tonight or sometime tomorrow with an explanation of my hobbled together methods, thoughts on theory, and some photos of the process.

[scrapcan]

watching intently also.

[Bullshop]

I think now you guys are beginning to understand why I have such praise for the 22 CCM.
You are looking at about the same performance I get from my Cooper mod 38. A very useful performance level indeed. I have found it to be absolutely perfect as a fox gun killing with authority and not causing excessive hide damage.
A box of 50 rounds even at today's retail prices for components cost about $1.75 if you use gas checks. I have had two molds modified to be PB and even at near top velocities they do very well. With my top end loads it gets 1000 shots per lb. of powder.
I have a subsonic load that uses only .7gn powder so gets 10,000 shots from a pound of powder. Whats not to like?
The 22's are just plain fun and thats why I started the 22's only postal match , just for fun. You are right in the same performance range as the Cooper gets about 2100 fps with a 52gn boolit with about 7gn H-110 or Lil-gun.
I also have a revolver made up on a Ruger single six. The Ruger can get up to about 1500 fps with the same boolit. I have killed several hogs with the Ruger and each one has had its legs just simply buckle under them and drop on thier belly.
I finished off a moose with it. Approached from behind and shot down through the top of the head I found the boolit in the tongue when we had it for dinner. Perty good penetration for a lil 22!

[NoZombies]

I'll go into the reasons I decided to build this cartridge later, for now, I'll explain how I made up a few dummy rounds, using none of the right tools for the job.

I don't have a chamber reamer yet, and I haven't test fired the cartridge, so no need to ask those questions, as I'll update you as soon as I can on those fronts.

I started talking to a wildcatter who's been at it for more years than I've been alive, and I asked about this concept I had for the .22/32. He had actually built the same thing as his very first wildcat some 50+ years ago, so I think the nostalgia got to him, and he's been helping me with advice and pointers. He's asked to remain anonymous, so I won't mention who he is.

We started talking about how dies could be made cheaply, and it got me thinking about the dies and things I already had.

The 222 dies for the 310 tool are short enough that I could get the 32 case into the die and have it hit the shoulder way before the case was all the way into the die, so I figured I'd try it.





The result was far from what I'd hoped for, and it crushed the case before it even started forming the neck... Hmmm. I got to wondering what dies I had that I could cut down to neck the case in steps. I started looking at cheap 270 dies on ebay, and thinking from there, but then, when I was loading some hornet ammo, it dawned on me.

The hornet has a smaller body base diameter, (not the rim, that's not important) and I was betting I could step down using the hornet sizer.

I was wrong. The radius on the mouth of the hornet die was still too small for the .32 case to enter, but then I realized I might be able to do something about the diameter of the mouth of the .32 case.

So I put a heavy crimp on the case to see if that would help.




While I was getting the sizer die out of it's box, I realized the seating die had a larger base opening. So I screwed that into the little lee hand press I was using for the project, and sure enough, I could neck the case down a small step with the seater die. After the seater, I installed the sizer, and got the neck down a little more. Now the outside diameter of the case was down from .340 to about .298, so I was half-way there.






After getting the cases to this point, they weren't all concentric (I made up about a dozen dummy cartridges) and putting them back into the .222 die wasn't gonna help that, since the .222 body diameter was so much larger.

This was where I was stuck for a little bit, I could get maybe one of 5 to be fairly centered by just trying to eyeball it and line things up, but I wasn't happy destroying so many cases, just to have a handful to play with, so I went to the small parts bins at ACE hardware, and found some nylon bushings that where slightly smaller than 1/2" O.D. and .324 I.D. neither of those dimensions would work, but they were closer than anything else I had available, so I bought them, I think they were $0.60 for a pair.

I don't have a place for my lathe right now, so I couldn't turn the bushings properly, so instead I used a .339 chucking reamer to bore through the hole, and then spun the bushings using a drill, and a shaft I made from deep seating a .30 caliber bullet into a .32 case. I put a drop of superglue to hold the bushing, and then ran the drill, pressing a pocketknife blade to it like a wood lathe chisel until it was the right diameter. I was planning to make 2, but there was no way I was gonna spend that much time doing that little work again.




Now the bushing holds the case centered in the .222 die, and I can run the cases into the seating die to get the final neck outside diameter of .255 (conveniently, perfect for cast boolits BTW) But the problem was that because the case directly behind the shoulder wasn't being supported, it was bulging, making it impossible to get the bushing off.

Solution? Run the case into the .32 long sizing die. It irons the shoulder out, and I can remove the bushing.

Now all the case needs is a little trim, and to be annealed, and it's ready to load!


I wouldn't want to do this for the project when the gun's done, but to have a few dummy cartridges to play with, it was worth it.