So..... .17 cal cast

[uscra112]

uscraa112- could you give some spec's on the 228 Harwood. I shoot ground squirrels with a guy who knew him well but doesn't recall that round. Did he use a .228 dia bullet? Harwood was a big experimenter from what he's told me. thanks

Reuben Harwood was active in gunsmithing and gun writing ~1885 to maybe 1900. He died in 1911, so anybody who "knew him well" would be at least 130 years old today. His nom de plume was Iron Ramrod. There's as much as is known about him in an article by Jim Foral in the Spring 2020 issue of Black Powder Cartridge News. His "Hornet" was introduced 1894. It was a necked-down .25-20 Stevens case, looked for all the world like a 2R Lovell with a very long neck. He would rebarrel rifles, and provide dies, formed brass, and loaded ammunition from his shop in Somerville, Mass. As far as anyone knows the nominal round took a .228 bullet, (mine does) but as he offered to rechamber other .22s there could have been some with other diameters. Ideal made reloading tools, and Stevens catalogued it as an alternate chambering for a couple of years. Tom Rowe has told me that he has an Ideal tong tool so marked. Best guess is that 100-150 rifles might have been made. For the years since I bought it, (about 2016), I've believed I might have the only one still in existence, but in the last month a fellow ASSRA member has come up with the one that Grant described in Still More Single Shot Rifles. (It appears to slug .229.) If anyone knows of another I'm all ears.

[Tripplebeards]

I had 17 Rem limited run stainless 26” 700 about a decade or so ago. Came with a HS precision stock. After a bunch of load testing with 25 grain Bergers I could never get it to shoot tight enough groups and sent it down the road. Spent the profit on a POF P415 that shoots groups tighter at 300 yards then my 17 Rem did at 100. That looks like a fun project. Keep us posted.