Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles 22 hornet to 17 hornet

I've been promised some 22 hornet brass forming into 17 hornet.

I'm told that all I need is a "tween die" to take it from 22cal to 20cal before resizing in my 17 hornet dies.

Not wanting to pay the asking price for said "tween die" (far too much IMO) I've acquired some 7/8 bar stock and some lock nuts to fit for a fraction of the cost. In theory all I have to do now is drill a 20cal hole in it.

What I need to know is the shape of the 20cal hole. Does the case stand up to just the neck being swaged or does the case have to be supported as well?

Maybe not explaing myself properly but those that know will know what I'm on about. I will experiment to find the answer but for the sake of all those poor crushed little cases will someone help me out?

Paul

There is a thread that covers all you wish to know and more over on Saubier forums 20 pages long or more with spread sheets case cross sections a guy from Australia was the best contributor to the information here and I can not recommend this thread enough. I went the non tigtass route. So I am not sure I can relate well to what you are looking to do.


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Reload this Page 22 Hornet to 17 Hornet

I can only guess you are wishing to thread the OD of your 7/8 bar stock to 7/8-14. & in the same chucking drill a very precisely centered hole thru aprox half of the diff. larger than the finished .017 cal neck did you are seeking. Suppose aprox. .215 thru hole.

Now if you can bore or form the 30 deg sholder angle and polish a light radius for the transition you may be well on your way.

Even with the purchased dies I found it advantageous to diligently polish the dies with polishing compound to ease the flow of material. Varmint Al turned me on to the advantages of the additional polishing.

PPU brass worked out to be my favorite brass for this task,

Annealing after forming & B4 - fire-forming was key to preventing split necks. those who anealed B4 forming experienced crushed cases. I found this to be a fun project when 17 hornet brass & ammo was not available. Today I feel you would be money ahead to purchase 17 H H ammo when a good sale is found & reload from there.

Wish you well with your endeavor.

In my experience whether the case needs to be supported during neck-down depends on the brass used. Thicker brass can often be done in one pass, while thinner brass may fold up--though not necessarily every case, or even most cases.

I generally just use Hornady .17 brass, because it's cheap and easily available here, but did some experimenting back when it wasn't always available. I found that by removing the stem from my seating die it could be used as an intermediate neck-sizing die, taking .22 Hornet cases down to about .20 caliber, where they could then be run into the .17 Hornet sizing die. It often helps to chamfer the outside of the .22 Hornet neck beforehand, to provide a little angle when running it into the seating die.

Thanks guys. Some good stuff there.

I have tried to register on Saubier but still waiting for an activation email after some time. Will revisit for another read.

Hunter; I already have the right threaded barstock. I have three feet of it in 7/8-14 UNF. Have a couple of half nuts for locking on the way. Have a small hobby lathe for drilling and can maybe grind something for the shoulder angle. Was thinking of it being easier to just swage the neck but logic is telling me to support the case.

Regarding the economy, The cheapest 22 Hornet cases over here are PPU @ £20 something /100 but no-one has any. Henry Krank is saying July. The 17 Hornet Hornady cases that I'm using now cost me £78 something/100 + shipping and I have read many times that H brass has primer pocket issues although I've only had one loose primer in once fired brass. Been promised some once fired 22 Hornet brass. Don't know the brand or the price but it'll be as close to free as I can get it.

Mule Deer; Have read that before about using the seating die. Will certainly look at that when I get the brass. Will be making sure all is well polished. My Lee 17 dies might be in for a polish as well or someone gave me the wrong case lube.

It's too bad you can't get the Hornady cases at prices like we pay. We can usually get 50 for $20 to $25, and they're everywhere.

While some had primer pocket issues, in my experience it was early on, and mostly in cases used in factory ammunition. SOME factory-ammo cases had very shallow primer pockets, to the point where standard small-rifle primers would only seat about 2/3 of the way. None of the factory ammo I've bought had these pockets, but a batch of once-fired brass I bought from somebody did. I had to use a primer pocket uniforming tool on around 200 of them to make them usable. The fired primers were still in the brass, so obviously they guy I bought them from had no idea the pockets were shallow--and I bought two batches from him--the other with normal primer pockets. The major mystery, however, is where Hornady got the "shallow" primers to use in the cases with shallow pockets?

I have heard from others that the PPU .22 Hornet cases are heavy enough to neck down with no collapsing problems, but haven't tried any myself.