Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles Making 17 Fireball brass from 223/5.56

I've looked a little into this and have some questions. I see you can run the brass through a 221 fireball form die, then through a 17 fireball form die. The cost of the pair of those is about $170. My question is, can you run them through a 221 fireball full length die with no expander/decapper, then through a 17 fireball full length die to achieve the same results? Trimming and neck turning seem to be required with either option.

Mule Deer discusses this in his recent book. Says it's not an easy task. My takeaway is that it's much, much easier to use 221 Fireball brass and run it through the 17 FB dies, necking it down. I will shy away from using 223 brass, although it sounds like your process is one that is workable.

A buddy used a 221 file-trim die to set the 223 brass back to make it into 221. He then reams the neck, or if he wants more precision, he uses a outside neck turner.

If making 17 FB the outside neck turning is used followed by the 17 FB seater die and then the FL die. If you start with actual 221 FB brass the necks usually don't need any neck turning.

Ill have look through my notes. I have done this the Expensive rout and the practical rout, both work equally well IMHO. If you can tolerate a short OAL by .030" or so the 221 fireball parent brass is the least time-consuming process. In terms of practicality Many claim the 221 Fireball brass origin which ends up a little short works equally well.

If you are dead set on making your brass .030" longer to achive full length brass then 223 parent brass is the way to go. Did I say time consuming. Tools I recommend for practical process are as follows.

221 fireball full length die set. RCBS or Redding recomended. Hornady will not work for the purpose intended here as the process utilizes the traditional bullet seater die for initial neck down step. The Hornady bullet seater with the guide sleeve does not lend itself to this process.

17 fireball full length die set. RCBS or Redding recomended for same reasons listed above.

Hack saw or if this is a high volume operation you may find a mini chop saw w fixture targeted to the 300 blackout crowd on E-bay.

Propane torch for annealing.

Neck turning tool with 17 & 22 cal mandrills

Imperial sizing wax

Flitz polishing compound recommended, not exactly required. Use the Flitz to polish the inside of your full length dies with a cordless drill and a appropriate sized bore brush.

standard ID ? OD deburring tools.

(Time) quite a lot of it / Good winter project if you are the type.

Did I mention this requires less than half the time if you start off with 221 FB brass?


Diffrent folks approach this task differently, most probably just walk away.

The guys over on Saubier.com got me going along with Varmint Al.s web page

http://www.saubier.com/forum.html search - forming 17 fireball from 223?

http://varmintal.com/arelo.htm#Polish

So by your explanation I could use 221 fireball and 17 fireball full length dies to convert 223 brass? Is it worth the hassle, or am I just better off buying already converted 223 brass to 17 fireball brass for $35 per 100?

I Have done the high planes Brass option and while the brass works quite well and will likely last a long time. Weather or not you would be happy with the brass they offer would depend on your expectations.

Pro's for High planes brass.

1. Most of the time consuming work is already done.

2. Most of the brass is high quality lake city brass of varying years.

3. If you weight sort, Neck turn and anneal this brass you may experience some very good results

4.) Fire forming loads can be very accurate.

Cons.

1. Brass still needs to be neck turned.

2 Brass still needs to be annealed IMHO 1 time B4 initial firing and again after Initial fire forming.

3. Brass varies in head stamp and weight and manufacturer. Mostly Lake city though.

4. Split necks are not un common out of the bag as they come from the vendor, greater than 1% split necks IME,

5. Extractor groove dinged up quite unfavorably on roughly 10% of this once fired 223 brass as seems to be the nature of cycling some loads through some AR-weapons.

6. Just be aware this brass has less case capacity than factory brass Thus back off 10% and work up goes double. Likely end up 1/2 to 1 grain lower than Max book load due to less case capacity. Just a byproduct of the thicker wall 223 brass.


Up to you to weigh out the BS and decide weather it is worth it to you.

I have tried pretty much everything and my sujjestion would be to pick up a set of full length dies and order 100 or more Lapua 221 fireball brass from Powder valley soon b4 their next price hike for yearly inflation.

If you do not already have a full length die set for 17 FB pick up a set second hand or order a new set.

You will likly experience issues with neck splits with any of the reformed brass if you do not properly anneal. On the other hand if you do a proper job of annealing your brass and keep your loads reasonable you should experience very long brass life.

Make sure you have some sizing wax to work with and give it a try.

If you are working with a factory chamber you may very well get by without neck turning the 221 FB parent brass. MD claimed he got by without neck turning Remington brass and I tend to belive him. Lapua brass may be a different story regarding neck dia. I was working with a tighter than factory chamber .292 if I recall correctly. so neck turning was required for my formed brass weather working with 221FB or the thicker Neck 223 parent case.

You just might want to study up on a bushing style neck die and or having a custom Lee collet die made up for reloading after your initial forming process.

The collet neck sizer die can save a lot of hastle and steps when reloading for one single bolt action rifle. If you are reloading for multiple rifles the neck die goes out the window.

Hope I am not throwing to much at you.

Looked over the reviews on the High Planes 17 FB brass and only 1 in 4 comment on neck turning. If you are working with a notoriously loose fit Factory chamber this stuff just may work without neck turning. Maybe this is why Remington does there chambers so large to accommodate thick necks that go hand in hand with 17FB brass formed from .223

If you do choose to give this stuff a try, just proceed with caution. Insure you have adequate neck clearance and I think I already mentioned start low on your powder charge.

If you have any fired factory brass from your rifle you can measure the necks with a 0 to 1" micrometer to get a good idea of your chamber neck diameter. I would not settle for less than .002" clearance in this case. Measure loaded rounds front and back of neck to verify the neck diameter of your loaded rounds.
Would not hurt to start of with a IMR trail-boss load (low pressure) to fire form your initial test run. measure your neck diameter b4 firing and after. This should give a good idea of your actual clearance. The trail boss fire-forming loads can be very accurate, quiet and as effective as a 17 hornet round perhaps a bit more. Trail boss is very safe and the only powder I may feel very comfortable recomending to use for reduced loads.

If you want to get the most from any formed brass be it High planes or brass you have formed from 223 or 221 FB brass Annealing is more than highly recommended. I like to use a propane torch a cordless drill and a 3/8 socket. Aprox 7 seconds focusing the tip of the flame on the shoulder neck junction while spinning in the cordless drill should do.
Read up on annealing brass varmint Al's website and or MD has a section where he uses a candle as the heat source. You do not want to over do this either. An exadurated example of overdoing it might be 20 seconds in the flame will turn your brass cherry red. This will deplete the zink as I understand things, sure to shorten your brass life and subject you to zink poisening.

Annealing is easy to do right and easy to do wrong. Do a little research and I am sure you will get it right. Truly worth the time. I strive to anneal at least every 5 firings. Some bench-rest guys anneal every firing for consistent neck tension and increased brass life.

Lots of good information here. Thanks for sharing Hunterapp...

Some where in all this forming and trimming you are going to need a form die of some sort. You can not neck directly from .221 to .17. You will need to go about .20 in between, or you will crush the necks.

CORRECT- RCBS or Redding bullet seater with guts removed has accomplished this intermediat task amazingly well for many.

that would be my route.

I've decided to take on this little project because I did a little trading and ended up with a 17fireball. Not saying I'm doing it right but it's working so far. I'm cutting the 223 at the shoulder as I would for 300BO then I annealed the area that will be the neck and shoulder, then resized it in full length dies to 300BO then 221 then 17FB the cases look good but I'll have to turn the necks. My RCBS turner came today and it fits my redding trimmer, I'm still waiting on the 17 reamer/pilot to get here. I tried different brands of brass, it looks like if I use Win. I might get away with not turning the necks but all the other brands turn out to thick (FC,LC,Rem.) After turning I guess I'll anneal it again.
Hunterapp, thanks for all the info you shared!

Good notes so far. It will be WORK to make Fireball brass out of anything. Turning, annealing, defect losses....
I've only done Fireballing of 223/5.56 brass, got a great Campfire deal on some factory rejects from a NATO maker. There was annealing, necking, reaming, turning, trimming but at the time, I really, really wanted some Fireball brass with a different headstamp.
I scored some old 221 FB dies at a gun show, sizing was utterly brutal with massive amounts of case lube. But in the end, it all worked out fine. The brass shoots and seems to be holding up.
If anything, you can use the work to educate yourself on what brass cases really want from you.

Well, I just finished 150pcs of 17FB brass. I ended up making it from once fired Remington 223 range brass. I lost about 10% during the process. Part of this was probably due to the fact that some of the range brass was damaged/dented. It was time consuming but not too bad. The brass looks good and chambers fine. time will tell how it holds up. My hopes are that the Remington brass I made will shoot the same as the factory remington FB brass with the same load.
Thanks to everyone that posted info on how to do this,
Will

Thanks for the report, wile.
That's a pretty good success rate for the amount of metal being moved around.
When I did my Fireball conversions, I prototyped the process with a batch of Federal 223 cases I wouldn't moan too much about losing. The loss rate was pretty high, not just up front on the heavy metal end, but also at the final stages and even after initial firing. Lots of cracked necks, even with two annealings. I would say that 50 percent of all cases were lost after the first firing, and I'm not sure about the "survivors."
Because the rounds fire in the group even when they crack and die, I'm going to keep shooting the Federal batch for a couple of cycles.
The milsurp rejects (so damaged they were unshootable as .223) did much better, overall about an 85 percent survival to first chamber and fire, only about a 5 percent loss on firing.
Not sure if I want to do this again, but it was a pretty good off-seasons, bored-out-of-my-tree kind of learning experience.

Wow: Dave that seems to be a very high loss rate Sure you may do better with some fine tuning of your process. I have done a lot of this brass from various sources. Lapua 223 brass has been my favorite choice thus far in terms of overall quality. Hornady lube or imperial sizing wax are your friend when necking down brass.

Lapua 221 fireball brass is way simpler and quality is still very good. Only issue with the 221 parent case is the OAL comes up a little short. If you really dislike trimming this may not be such a bad thing.

Shorter brass was more of an issue with my factory chambers. the custom chamber seems to work very well with the shorter brass.

Mind me asking what you are using for lube on your brass? Also int may not be such a bad thing.rested in knowing more about your annealing process?

Dave, I tried LC, Rem, Fed, and Win brass and Federal seemed to be the hardest to resize and had a much higher rate of necks splitting.

Hunter, I used Hornaday lube.

I have a 221fb also so I guess I'd have a hard time using that brass :), and my rifle is factory chambered, and I had a bunch of remington range brass that was free.

I annealed the brass with a propane torch by spinning it in a deep well socket in my battery drill for 6-7 seconds then dropped it on a damp towel. I did this right after cutting it and before sizing it in the 300bo die. I haven't annealed the finished brass again but I'm guessing that I should before loading it the first time?

Any info you have to share would be appreciated.
Will

I should say; any more info you share is appreciated, you shared a ton already. I probably wouldn't have tried it without reading all this first or, if I had the outcome wouldn't have been good.
Thanks!

feel free to experiment with small lots 3 to 10 rounds. If I recall correctly my better experience resulted when I annealed after neck turning at the 221 stage (not B4), then I neck turned one final time at the 17 FB stage and then annealed again.

If the brass is to soft she tends to be more prone to crushing, when necking down.