Glad to see I'm not the only one in hot pursuit of this, truly!
Thanks for the effort and the posting of information. I just placed an order with RCC for some additional brass to explore the higher velocity realm. If you could expand a little for us, what are the final dims for your brass and the bullet as well.
Thanks,
Dan
Thanks Dan! I wish I'd heard out your project earlier, we probably could have shared notes!
My final case dimensions are .625 length, straight no taper case diameter of .247-.248 and a rim diameter of .275-.278 and rim thickness of .043. The rim is dimensionally interchangeable with the .22LR rim, and the extractor relief above the rim is at .228 diameter. I may end up beveling the front of the rim slightly to help rim release in repeaters, at the moment it can be a little sticky depending on feed angle. Average case capacity is 3.91 grains of water. I made or modified most of the tools to make the brass and load the cartridge myself, and if there's any interest, I'd be happy to share photos of them, though they're pretty utilitarian and ugly for the most part.
I've been loading 1.1 grains of titegroup under an ideal 224107 bullet at 37 grains sized .2245 running without a gas check for average velocities of 940 FPS from the 16.25" contender barrel. The powder burns faster than a lot of RF powders apparently, and has reduced uncorking pressure compared to many subsonic .22 loads, meaning even without the suppressor it's pretty quiet, and with the can, it's so quiet I've shot it out of the window while doing teleconferences on speaker phone and no-one noticed.
I've made up some super prepped brass as well, using reamers to control the powder capacity and bullet seating depth down to the tightest tolerences I can measure. I prep the brass after it's been fired, and so far I only haven't had to resize any of it. The inside is reamed to accept the .224 diameter section of the bullet to a specific depth with only thumb seating pressure, similar to the old "everlasting" cartridges. I haven't tried them in the revolver yet, but the recoil is low enough I'm hoping they won't shift forward in the cylinder when the gun is fired, though that remains to be seen. In the contender, I've been seeing ES's in the single digits with the prepped brass and weight sorted bullets.
I'm very interested in seeing your results with the RCC brass, I believe they lathe turn everything on Swiss screw machines correct? What velocities are you hoping to achieve? Would you mind sharing what the cost of brass is likely to be?
I'm sure it's been mentioned, but what's the finished diameter of the heel on your bullet, and will that requirement be effected by the RCC brass?
