22 Hornet to 17 Hornet

[Tilleyman]

Jingle
My pleasure... and congratulations, glad you found some of it useful!
Remember as a beginner in reloading you really have jumped in the deep end with case forming and annealng... these are quite advanced techniques!
So in ruining just 5 cases you are doing well
1.355" = 34.4mm
Yes follow published load data for the 25gr bullet, start low and work up in .2gr steps. I usually find an accuracy node around 5% under max load but of course all rifles are different.
Take it easy and try not to change more than one variable when working up a load...

[Trigger1212]

Dean,

I was thinking of using the S-die in the same way but had already ordered the Bullberry and it's now here. May still order the S-bushing as I will have a s - - t load of brass to form... I did just poke a fired Win 22 Hornet into the Bullberry 20 former end and it reduces it to .222, any reason you suggested the .226 S-Bushing? The neck on the fired win case measured .243 before forming. I'm going to order the busing tomorrow morning so hopefully you'll get this tonight yet.

Previously I had said I could not find 22 hornet privi brass anywhere so ended up purchasing 400 rounds of loaded privi 22 hornet ammo. No sooner does it get here than Graf & Son gets privi brass in... So now I'm going to order another 400 cases of virgin brass to start to work with and that will let me shoot off the 22 H through my CZ 527 Lux at my leisure. It's hell on grekles, I've got pine trees around the property and lot's of feathers floating around.

Got my 17HH ready to go, bedded it this weekend. Called the factory and asked them to send me another rear action screw steel stock sleeve. I then cut it to lenght for the front action screw, drilled the stock hole out on the drill press and used Acra-Glass to epoxy it in. CZ-USA sent it to me no charge. They should have it there in the first place, would only cost them a couple pennies. After both sleeves in place then bedded the tang and the front of the action and about the first inch and a half of the bbl. Also had to work on the trigger. This is my second CZ 527 so I'm familiar with them but this one was reallllly rough. Stoned it and honed it a bit and much better. Also going to try the Dyna-Tek Bore treatment, hoping to keep fouling to a minimum. Might not be an issue with the speed of this round but have heard that 17 can foul so thought it could not hurt.

[Dean2]

I used a 226 bushing because that is one of the 20 calibre bushings I had on hand for loading the 204 and 20 VT. I have from .224 to .227. Thus if you order 224 - 227 you can use them if you ever get a 20 cal to load for and you can load 20 VT using the same neck S die as the 17 FB.

As to using a piece of brass to wear the metal tit that is scratching, that metal is very hard and will never wear away from the brass running over it. Even with the grinder head it took quite a bit of rubbing to get rid of it completely.

[Trigger1212]

D2,
Thanks for the quick reply and figured that's what your answer would be but had to ask in case there was some other quirk I was not aware of.

[Jeremy(WI)]

I had an idea today to try fireforming PPU brass without annealing using trail boss powder since I have a couple 9oz containers of it. It worked great on the 3 I tried. The load was 7.5 Rem Primer, 2.8 gr of trail boss with a 20 gr Varmageddon tipped bullet. One container of trail boss should be good to fireform 1400 pieces of brass

[Trigger1212]

Man, these sites can be a PITA. Just got done typing a long update hit the post button and the dang thing said I was not logged in, which is BS, so lost the whole note. Too late to do it again tonight, will try again tomorrow.

[Dean2]

I have had this happen often enough that I either type the update in word and paste it into the site or a least select all the text and links, hit copy, then hit post. If it disappears you can just paste it back into the next window.

[Jingle]

Or simply log in when after you posted and the post will still be posted.

Its happened to me a few times, done writing a post and click submit post and your presented with the "not logged in" thing. I just log in when it promps me to and then the post gos through.

Hope that helps?

[hemiallen]

Usually if I get an error message, like the connection failed, I use the back button and see everything I typed, select and copy it, and try to submit again.

If it is an issue on my end I'll fix it and try the submitting the copied information later. My computer looses connection often and I usually have to disconnect from the connection, reconnect as soon as it allows me, and then I am back on. This has nothing to do with the website I am on, it's , I believe, my wireless router.

Allen

[Trigger1212]

17 Hornet – CZ 527 American

Well we are going to give this another try, this time I’m doing the word doc and cut and paste so hopefully no lost info.
Rifle – CZ 527 American with 22 inch bbl. Great piece, I currently have a “Lux” version also, in 22 Hornet. Wish the American had the longer bbl of the Lux, would look more balanced and squeeze a little more performance out of this neat round.
Trigger, love the single set, but as received this one was quite gritty, nothing I could not correct with some fine india stones, great now.
Magazine – this is the one area that I just don’t get with CZ, they have a mag box that could easily handle longer rounds, i.e. bullet seated out farther, but they put a spacer in the back of the box and the mag lips don’t go all the way to the rear of the mag limiting length. On the hornet I pulled the spacer out and cut a chunk out of one of my wife’s cutting boards and then epoxied a spacer on the back of the mag follower to allow it to operate smoothly and allow a longer loaded round. Anyone have any better suggestions?
Action – looove this little mauser! Only thing to watch is the safety, reversed operation from what American shooters are used to, just be aware of it while your building “muscle memory”.
Bedding – Needs improvement IMHO, just two little dabs of epoxy in the recoil shoulder. Contacted CZ and asked them to send me a replacement rear action screw steel sleeve. They did so with no questions asked. I then drilled out the front action screw hole in the stock, cut the sleeve to length and then epoxied front and rear in the stock, once dry I then bedded the tang and recoil shoulder area and the first 1.5 inch of the chamber.
Scope – Leupold VX3 4.5-14x40 AO with the range compensating top turret. First time I had one with this turret feature. Once I have the load finalized and the drops figured out I can send the data to Leupold and the will send me one turret customized to my load for FREE. If it works should be quite useful.
Bore – This is my first “17” and have heard about copper fouling issues (not necessarily with the 17 HH) so before even shooting it I scrubbed it out and then treated it with Bore Cote, will be interesting to see how the fouling goes.

AMMO!
First adventure in fireforming, been loading for 35+ years so was quite interested to see how this was going to work out. Bought 400 loaded Privi 22 Hornet rounds planning to shoot them to get the brass. As soon as they showed up of course Graff & Son got inventory on virgin brass so I purchased 500 of those. Formed the brass with my Redding S-type dies, used .222 and .192 bushings. Only problem encountered was that I started process without champhering the inside/outside of the mouth. Highly recommend you do so before starting sizing operations. Trimmed all cases to 1.355 as per recommendations on this thread. After forming I moved to annealing, purchased an annealer from Bench Source, GREAT tool. Ran the first 500 rounds through and that was the only real hang up I had. I must have been remembering the only other time I annealed cases. Young teenager, read about annealing and KNEW that dad’s .222 brass need to be annealed (they really did) and had at it with a propane torch and pan of water, WAY to hot and ruined brass. SO as a result of that memory I went a little light on the annealing and then loaded 15 rounds, got 5 split shoulders out of that batch so got brave and re-annealed the whole batch to a full “dull red” and no more splits and shoulders fully filled out. Interesting tidbit is that the re-annealed cases ended up being shorter than the un-split rounds from the first batch. Stands to reason, shoulder fully pushed out, pulling neck down.
Forming load: INITIAL load - Hornady 20 gr bullet, AA1680 10.9 gr, Fed 205 small rifle primer. I checked the chamber length to lands with the Hornady chamber gague. Only going off memory so I might be wrong but I THINK it came out to 1.529”, looong. As stated earlier mag seating length is an issue so I just seated the bullet deep enough so it would juuust fit the magazine, never meastured it as they are just fire forming loads right? Another tidbit: when using the modified 17HH case with the chamber gague it uses a steel pin to push the bullet up into the lands. When you measure the overall length with your calipers you need to have this pin in place to hold the bullet in place. The problem is that the pin is round and pushed the caliper off to the side so you cannot get an accurate measurement. I corrected this my marking the area of the pin where the caliper will lay against it and then used a flat file to work it down to half it’s diameter. Litterally remove one half/side of the pin, not half the diameter, hope this makes sense, will try to take a pic later if you’re interested.
Results: Two very quick sessions, late in the afternoon, quite windy, gusting 7-15 mpg, getting dark. Did not have time to set up the Ohler 35P for speed as they were just fireforming loads right? Shoot them off to get to the “real” loads. First night shot 2 groups for a total of 15 rounds.
Laid rifle in bags pulled bolt, sighted down bore on cent of target (100 yds) and then adj cross hairs to center of target. First shot hit around 7 o’clock so that is where I shot the rest of the group, then adj sights to center the second group.
Group #1, 8 rounds, shot them quickly, single loaded, to “set/cure” the bore coat treatment. 1.004” wide x .427” high.
Group #2, 7 rounds, bbl getting warm, shot fast as loosing light. 1.003” wide x .911” high
Next day shot 3 more groups for a total of 15 more rounds. Conditions almost a duplicate of previous day. Used the same paper target so all firing data was on one target. Increased load to 11.1 gr of AA1680.
Group # 3, 5 shots, 1.05” wide x .28” high
Group #4, 5 shots, .370” wide x .606” high, (data reversed on target, dyslyxia kicked in!)
Group #5, 3 shots ( shot two grekles that were unfortunate enough to wander onto the range!) .25” wide x .587” high.
Summary:
Holy smokes this baby will shoot! My “whatever” fire forming loads are “shooters” and will be used as such. No wasted ammo here, pictures attached below. With proper fire fromed brass I’m sure it will shoot even better and I know I can improve my “bench technique” wich would also improve the performance. Used to shoot on the National USMC High Power rifle team and at one point was the inter-service, service rifle long range championship, so I am familiar with requirements to perform at higher levels. Only mentioning it as it’s nice to know that the person your reading knows what he is doing. Tillyman, will say that while on the team (mid-80s) shot with an Australian officer that was training with us, cannot remember his name but a real character. Always remember him calling our beer “horse piss” and would only drink Fosters (sp?)… like drinkin oil to me, I’m a light pilsner man myself!
Would very much like to thank Tillyman and Jeremy for providing the great info and encouragement to all those like me that were setting on the fence and not knowing if I could or would be willing to tackle this project. This is doable, fun and rewarding. Thanks!
Wade
Semper Fi!