20 Ackley hornet

[chuckshooter]

I'm looking for a little info on the 20 ackley hornet. does anyone have one and had to go thru this? here's my questions.
Redding has dies for a 20 ackley hornet available, do those dies resize brass to match a chamber cut with a reamer that todd shows in his book? how are you making the brass? standard 22 hornet brass necked down? is there also a 20k hornet and a 20 hornet?
thanks for any help

[william t. oviatt]

Oh Little Grasshopper,

Welcome..... You have arrived at the best place to ask such a question.

Patience and this thread will burst with information from those Oh So Willing to help you down the Path of a 20 AH build!

In my opinion, tho I do not have one, the 20 AH is the perfect cartridge to show off the potential of a 32 grain 20 cal bullet!

Others that have built one will chime in here and give you the advice on the dies and chambering....

I would recommend the CZ Hornet rifle as a basis rifle to build on. They are great little Mauser actions and the magazine will feed the 20AH well.

Browning A-bolt is another good Hornet rifle, if you can find one.

Welcome and enjoy.....Buy your Wife something nice and get your $s together, cause both will need attention when you enter here!

Bill

[chuckshooter]

thanks Bill
I should have mentioned it will be built on a martini cadet action, I prefer the 20 ackley bee or rimmed vartarg for those little 32's but this one is not for me. at least not yet. I have never been happy with my 22k hornet and may re barrel it to the 20 ackley hornet if this goes well.
Jim

[chuckshooter]

I've spent a little time in your neck of the woods wandering around the winds looking for Goldens. I always stop at the Gannett grill and have one of the best burgers in the country

[william t. oviatt]

Well, Dang CS!!!!

Next time in our area call me....we love the Gannet Grill burgers too!!!!
Ate there Last night and then went to see the new John Wick 2 movie!
Maximum body-count movie!!!!

I have a 24 Calhoon Hornet that is quite good with the 55 grain Nolser bullets
Hard to beat any cartridge base upon the Hornet case.

Bill

P.S.
We have stopped and eaten at several quaint and very good restaurants in Auburn....just a couple months ago, in fact. You're in an area of California that is still appealing to me.
i go through there several times a year! Love those hills and the oak trees (quercus lobata)....

[montdoug]

Howdy chuckshooter! Nuthin a guy likes talking about more then the last project he finished LOL. As you have so rightly surmised the.20 Ackley Hornet is a hoot! A "Big League Hoot" as our new President might say.
I caught the bug for one from friend and Purchase Mentor extraordinaire, Ray H. He was singing it's praise after taking his newly minted .20 Ackley on a Gopher Safari in Oregon. Short Version in my case is With a Pac-Nor Super-Match 3 groove finished at 23 inches, in my rifle while fire-forming cases 13.3 grains of my lot of AA1680 is getting 3,200+ish with the 32 grain V-Max in WW brass. Formed I got to what I considered an easy max of 13.5 at 3,300+FPS. 13.6 put me close to 3,350ish so at the top end a little gets ya a lot, start low and work up slow.
I bought the reamer here off the site and when I contacted Pacific Tool the "young" lady sent me an email of this reamer print but I wasn't sure whether she knew "come from sic-em" so I wouldn't swear to it. She did say they had beau-coups .20 Ackley Hornet reamer prints so being's how I sent fired cases to Whidden Dies to have chamber specific dies made for it it didn't really matter to me. Here's the print at any rate.



Mine got a real workout this summer, it is a true overachiever and has a permanent home now!
With your name being what it is I thought ya might like this pic, it's first chuck hunt.



This is it's first P-Doggie of it's young life, the first of many I might add.



This picture has a heck of a fine day's memory behind it. The lady of the house and I were smucking gophers on a wholesale basis, she mostly wouldn't let go of the CZ HMR she's so fond of but I was forming a bunch of brass with the recently returned .20 Ackley Hornet. The shooting was fast and furious so there were beau-coups gopher bodies laying all over the pasture in front of us that slowly angled up to the top of a knoll about 350 to 375ish yards out. Here's what I posted the day it happened to save my miserable two fingered typing.

"Finally the end of the day bonus! We got gopher carcasses laying everywhere and every bird around from a huge Golden Eagle (impressive!) to crows, ravens and magpies galore dining on our leavings when about two hundred thirty-five yards out I see a bonafide streaker! A young Badger had scomped on to one of the gophers and was hotfooting it off and kinda towards me. About 235 yards out, (I'm not sure it was really aware we were the enemy???), I was trying to get onto it as it was haul'n gopher "so to speak" so I yelled and it stopped in it's tracks, bad plan!! I gassed it lengthwise and it dead stopped, not a twitch! I walked up to it for a photo op and it musta just clamped down on that gopher when I terminated it's lease, "Really"!! I moved it over a bit for a better picture and it still had a death grip on that gopher, literally!



Well CS, you can tell I got cabin fever and to much coffee this morning (sorry this is so long!). You can also probably tell that the .20 Ackley Hornet has made my favorites list and as soon as the snow melts and the mud dries out me and it'er gonna be spreading rodents.
Trust me, you'll love it!

[chuckshooter]

thanks Montdoug
that print is the same specs as the one in kindlers book. now I just need to call redding in the morning and ask for their specs on the dies. I did have good luck with Whidden making me my 20 ackley/killer bee dies, so that is always an option.

[montdoug]

CS I just reread your original post.
Big difference between a ".20 Hornet" and a .20 K-Hornet / .20 Ackley Hornet.The Ackley or the K have a shoulder formed into them and a straight .20 Hornet to my understanding (never seen one), is just a .22 Hornet case necked down to .20 caliber with no other changes. As with any wildcat everyone that has a reamer made might well tweak it a bit from the next guy's. That's what made my decision to have dies made specific to the chamber cut by the reamer I had in hand. All that said, the reamer print the "YOUNG" girl from Pacific sent me had a different name on it then Todd's but it is the same print as Todd's from "Terrific Twenty's" as far as I can tell but it does have a different print number. Only question I have on the one out of the book is it says on the print it was designed by Todd Kindler but it's called a .20 Ackley Hornet? A bit confusing at least to me, but it sure shoots like a house-a-fire !!

I musta been typing at the same time you were, I'm just slow.

[chuckshooter]

I spent 15 minutes trying to figure out how to post pictures and was unsuccessful.... I was comparing my 22k hornet print to the 20 ah and my 22k bushing die might work for forming (with a smaller bushing of course)

[B23]

Just curious here but why would anyone do a .20 K or Ackley Hornet over a .20 Hornady Hornet??

There is so minimal difference in case capacity between them and with the Hornady Hornet it would be a straight necking up from .17 to .20 with ZERO fireforming.