Making .223 Bullets from .22lr casings

[kwood]

Anyone tried this out?
Seems really cool. I could see this as being a good potential coyote round

[youtube]bkAU5ekbPLA[/youtube]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkAU5ekbPLA

 

[FKIM01]

Can't say I have, but if someone is interested, I have a fairly large collection of .22 brass.

 

[xM3RC1L3SS1x]

What will they think of next?!

 

[Leo]

I played with that in the early 1970's. The outfit that produced my dies sold out to a company called corbin, who would not honor my warranty for a broken pointer punch. Other than .22-250 the .222 Remington is all you saw many people shooting as far as .22 varmint calibers.

Making the bullets is a LOT of work. You still have to buy (or make) the lead wire that you make the core from. You have to cut, measure and weigh each core. For the best consistancy, soak the .22 shells in muratic acid to make sure they are really clean, rinse them and make sure they are completely dry. Weigh them to match them as close as possible. Start swaging them through the first die to iron the rims out. Inspect each one for cracks. Switch the die insert and swage the lead core into the case. In another step, point them and trim as necessary, Swage to final diameter. Seperate them by weight. You now have bullets. They will shoot. The weakness is that the perfect concentricity and uniformity of jacket thickness is not found in .22 case, because they do not have to be for good .22 ammo.

I broke an RCBS rockchucker doing this. I made plinker quality bullets that would not group as well as a Speer or Sierra hunting bullet, which was mostly what was available for Varmint calibers. I was able to get a few really tight groups, but most groups had a flier to two. After breaking my rockchucker, and seeing how the bullets grouped in my 22-250 sporter and my .222 Remingtom target rifle, I sold the dies and used the money to buy factory bullets.

It is was kind of fun, but it was a LOT of work for less than the finest bullets. I can see that developing and fine tuning homebrew bullets could be another whole hobby, but I just do not have the time. Good Luck

 

[HoosierCub]

Using Brass 22 cartridge cases are far inferior to the proper Copper jacket alloy.
Bore cleaning and or damage makes this even less worthwhile.

 

[BE Mike]

Looks like what is old is new again. Joyce Hornady and Vernon Speer started doing this after WWII and their companies have been growing ever since.

 

[Disposable Heart]

Using Brass 22 cartridge cases are far inferior to the proper Copper jacket alloy.
Bore cleaning and or damage makes this even less worthwhile.

I had a Corbin swager at one point and while I could not tell any inordinate bore wear, the cleaning was FAR more intensive compared to standard jacketing...

It seems fun, but with lead spool pricing and amortizing $5 per hour labor (hey, I come cheap!), I could buy projectiles cheaper (even today). Also, accuracy was just not there, even when I uniformed the .22 brass by headstamp, even the rifle they were shot from! So, all in all, fun project, would be great if you "knew a guy" for the lead wire, but outside of that, kind of a waste of time and took almost an hour to set up properly to feed, constant issues locking up, and for minimal results. There is a reason companies have swaging machines and component sourcing custom made for them...

That being said, I would love to have had one during this last panic: I could have sold .224" components, 52 gr open tips for $20-25 per 100 and people would have been gobbling them up. I saw factory components going for horrific pricing (75 gr Prvi OTM .224" component bullets, not loaded ammo, some tard at the gunshow was selling them for $50 per 100 and some goon was trying to buy every baggie he had on the table).

 

[Disposable Heart]

On a side note: I used a nickel casing from a .22 Stinger, made a component bullet, then used a CCI primer (nickel colored) and an ol' Federal TRU casing (nickel) to make an all "silver" round. Fired it. Never knew there was such a thing called nickel fouling. Never knew that would ruin an AR barrel trying to get rid of it... Not all projects are good ideas... next project, turning down Nylon 66 rod into component bullets and insert lead weight... Oh wait, I tried that already...

 

[wolfman]

There used to be a guy on Cast Boolits that sold the equipment. I don't know if he is still on there, but here is the link to the site.
Cast Boolits
I think he also has the equipment to make 9mm, .40 s&w, and .45acp bullets.