222 Kilbourn neck sizing?

[bigwagon]

I picked up a nice pre-64 Winchester Model 70 that's been rechambered from 22 Hornet to K222 Kilbourn. From my research, it appears to be a standard 222 Remington with the shoulder bumped forward to about 40 degrees and a straight tapered case, similar to the Ackley Improved wildcats. I loaded up some 222 Rem cases and fire-formed about a dozen rounds using 45 and 52 grain bullets. With the 1-16 twist barrel it did not like the 52 gr HPBTs at all. They were key holing at 50 yards, but it grouped decently with the 45 gr Hornet bullets. I don't have dies so I need to cobble together a set to neck size the fired cases and seat bullets. I have a Lyman 310 222Rem seater that looks like it will work once I can find a sizing set up. None of my 223 dies will work because the body taper is too wide. A 22-250 die might work if I shortened it up. I'd like to try a Lee 222 Rem collet sizing die if I can find one, but I don't know if the case body will fit. Any other ideas?

[3leggedturtle]

Lee makes a 223 Ackley Improved die set. Worse case scenario you would have to take .060 to .070 off bottom of die. I have 223AI and have a set. Try some 50gr Spure points, they stabilized at 2400fos in a 1-16" Hornet barrel.

I also found out that 50gr Vmax bullets wouldnt stabilize in same 1-16" twist at 2500fps.

[bigwagon]

Thanks for the tip on the AI dies. I live nearby Lee so I will see if they have any in stock.

[bigwagon]

Looks like I might have solved my problem. I was digging through some old dies and found a Lee 222 Remington whack-a-mole style loader that I had leftover from a 222 rifle I sold about 25 years ago. The sizing chamber works just fine to resize the neck so long as I don't pound the case in all the way to the base (tried that and crushed the shoulder of one case). Leaving it short just up to the start of the rim cannelure sizes the neck about halfway down without bumping the shoulder.

[turtlezx]

35 to 45 gr bullet best bet with 1in 16 twist

[uscra112]

Had you not solved the problem, there's a way to make a neck sizer for almost anything using a Lee "Universal Expander" die body. Easy if you have a lathe.

The guys shooting the old .22-3000 Lovell wildcat got good results with Sisk bullets up to 52 grains out of 16 inch twist barrels.

[bigwagon]

Thanks for all the tips on bullet weights. I was able to use the dies I had to load up some fire-formed cases using the last small handful of 45gr Hornet bullets I had. Now my biggest problem is finding ANY bullets in stock!

[bigwagon]

A big shout out and Thank You to USCRA112 for hooking me up with some 45 gr. Hornet bullets! I loaded up another batch of brass using the fire-formed cases I had and got back to the range yesterday. It was a little windy, but at 100 yards with 24gr of IMR4320 I was getting groups just over 1MOA, so with some tuning, I think this rifle has a lot of potential.