Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Re-chamber 222 to 223 Question

Or do it like it should have been done in the first place, the 5.6x50R Magnum a .224 cartridge designed for a break action rifle.

It works well, sorry this only has one shotgun barrel.

That's one cartridge I would like to mess with.


Krico supposedly made some rifles that made it to the U.S.. Cases are gold plated Hen's teeth and Hornady dies suck, but I still think (dream) of making one on a Rem action or clone.

I toyed with the idea of suggesting that, but I thought it might overcomplicate things. I have a single shot in that chambering, and I do like it quite a lot. Here in Oz I can get S&B and RWS factory ammunition, and RWS brass.It has worked well for me on game up to feral pigs, even with the S&B 50 gn SP factory load, and a bloke I know has dropped a number of fallow deer with his, using 63 gn Sierras.

You'd easily tell the ammunition apart from your .223 of course, especially as it has a rim. The same would apply to another option which would need no more than modifying the extractor, and that is our .222 Rimmed. Brass for the latter might be a bit hard to get in the US, though I believe it can be had. It would be easy enough to resize and trim RWS 5.6x50R brass to suit too.

Alternatively, you could just pay attention to segregating your ammunition, and use the gun as-is.

dan,

I was thinking the 5.6x50 magnum, not rimmed, which is way more difficult to procure than the 222 rimmed here.


Midway stocks the 222 rimmed, maybe even the 5.6 x 50 R. The rimless version of the 5.6 x 50 is just plain difficult to get in the U.S.. Huntington's has it, perhaps. But it might be cheaper to just shoot a 416 Rigby...

There is no ammo 5.6x50R available but I have been able to get brass, RWS and S&B off the internet, single shot break actions don't go through a lot of brass. Dies were off the shelf from Hornady and C&H carries them also. Hornady has load data.

I had a combo gun in 222 Rem/12ga and seriously looked into 222 Rimmed but the only factory brass was Bertram and I've had poor luck with their stuff in my 6.5x58R Sauer. Brass can be made from 357 Max but it is a lot of work.

I only ever neck size, so when I got my 5.6x50R I simply used the .222 dies I already had on hand, and they work fine.

I used Bertram's brass in my .222 Rimmed. I'd have to concede that it didn't seem quite up there with premium brands like RWS. I think that if I was to have a .222 Rimmed again I'd use RWS brass, sized and trimmed. It is admittedly pricey, and the initial preparation would involve some work, but once you'd made 50 or 100 pieces you'd be set for a long time as long as you didn't make a habit of losing cases, didn't load them up to the ragged edge and annealed the necks every now and then.

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