Reloading rimfire ammo

[Robson Valley]

Yeah and the dealers love it. You buy 2 cases of 5,000 .22cal LR and it's in the back door and out the front door, same day. No inventory.
I'm shutting down. Sold 18 flats (x250) trap loads. Was asked just yesterday if I'd sell my big trap clay thrower.
My kids are too far away and too busy, that's all we ever used it for. Might as well, I can get what I paid.

I want to see a functioning shot tower. They must be scattered all over England.
There are hundreds of millions of trap loads shot off every year, according to industry.
Don't know of any in Canada, working or moth-balled.

 

[mrostov]

You can use a shot dribbler instead of a shot tower. This is a homemade Russian shot dribbler.

 

[Janne]

Fantastic, thank you for posting this!
This is how people made shot in the old days!

 

[Robson Valley]

Thanks. Had no idea that such a thing existed. Looks to work very, very well!
Who cares if it isn't English. Did not seem to matter.

 

[gonzo_the_great]

I was given a few buckets of old wheel weights to smelt down. Lovely.
But when I tried a more recent bucket, all zinc and steel. So I now have a bucket of zink to offload.

Luckilly, our local range has a steel plate backstop. And that is a pretty good source of bullet metal. A mix of centrefire, watered down with rimfire and pellets.

We suffered the fallout from the US rimfire shortage, in the UK too. Supply is still a bit patchy.
But with the licensing system we have, it's difficult for most shootesr to have more than a few thousand rounds in the safe. So you have to buy month by month.

 

[Janne]

Get European made ammo. Higher quality.

 

[Robson Valley]

I liked the part where the Russian was melting and cleaning scrap. Not the first time.
Good use for an axe, right?

I don't believe that quality story. Best might be to look at what wins in competition. Top 5 shooters.
American CF match ammo costs an arm and a leg. But the powder (for example) is equal 1/10 gr.
Regular factory (say, Remington,) is normally almost 5% wide.

I hope mrostov has numbers to add.

 

[mrostov]

If the ammo is marked as match grade, most US and European ammo is pretty good. I teach on the local shooting sports program where the state of Texas supplies the kids with free .22LR ammo for use on the range and in competition, even if they bring their own rifle (we have some Anschutz rifles they can use if they don't have their own). We've shot a lot of match grade ammo and the largest amount of supposed 'match grade' we used which wasn't as good as it should have been was the Mexican made Aguila ammo. Remington ammo seems to have a bit of a limited shelf life on the priming. PMC seems to need a very firm firing pin strike on some lots. CCI ammo has been good, so has been Eley, and most of what we use now is Federal.

One of the problems with all grades of .22LR ammo is that even though the US and Europe both have predefined specs the actual end product can have a shocking amount of variation sometimes between manufacturers in bullet diameter.

Something you might find handy is the Acu'rzr tool made by a machinist named Paco Kelly. The tool resizes the bullet on .22LR ammo to a uniform spec. It also has pins that allow you to reshape a .22LR bullet.

http://www.pacotools.com/

BTW, it's a good thing that lead and ammo is so heavy. I live on the coast and at the last minute this past August they informed us that Hurricane Harvey, due to hit us head on, ground zero, was going to be a Cat 4, not a Cat 1 as we were previously told. So, it rapidly became an evacuation. I had a dozen steel, waterproof, US Army ammo cans filled with ammo. We loaded the truck, threw a tarp over it, then tossed the waterproof ammo cans full of ammo onto the top of the tarp to keep it in place. It worked in some pretty fierce winds.

 

[Robson Valley]

mrostov: thanks for your observations. Some of those brand names are distant echoes in my head!
Back in the day when I was decades younger and fit, I had to admit that carrying 2 x 5,000 cases of .22 LR was a struggle!

For Rapid Fire I was shooting RKW(?) .22 shorts. European ammo. Never, ever a dud.
North American .22 shorts were rare as hen's teeth.

 

[Janne]

We in the club find that the quality varies a lot between the US manufacturers, also varies between lots.

the European manufacturers are more consistent.
The Russian Tula is surprisingly good, consistent, but I personally do not like the steel casing and the smell of it.

My favourite is Finnish Lapua, then the Czech Sellier Bellot

Most Match ammo is good.

My post is about 9mm.

Wife uses up lots of .22lr, and she only buys Lapua Pistol King. High accurancy, consistent. OK, a bit pricier than standard rounds, but as .22lr are so much cheaper than the other ammo it really does not matter.

 

[Janne]

RWS, Robson V.
German.

 

[Alan De Enfield]

We in the club find that the quality varies a lot between the US manufacturers, also varies between lots.

the European manufacturers are more consistent.
The Russian Tula is surprisingly good, consistent, but I personally do not like the steel casing and the smell of it.

My favourite is Finnish Lapua, then the Czech Sellier Bellot

Most Match ammo is good.

My post is about 9mm.

Wife uses up lots of .22lr, and she only buys Lapua Pistol King. High accurancy, consistent. OK, a bit pricier than standard rounds, but as .22lr are so much cheaper than the other ammo it really does not matter.

When you get up to 303" then Sellier & Bellot are the absolute worst rounds in the world (quality of cases). You are lucky to get 1 or two reloads before the cases split.
The Win & Rem are the next worse being 'built to a price' and manufactured to the 'downgraded American SAAMI specifications'.
The Crème de la crème in current production is Prvi partisan - I cannot load any more consistently than they supply as a 'factory standard' load. Having said that I am on my 10th + reload with their cases.

Being rimmed cartridges they headspace on the rim - there can easily be 5 or 6 thou difference between the rim thickness (and hence apparent headspace) between the Win and the Prvi cases.

SAMMI specs allow a 10 thou variance in rim thickness - for a 'tired rifle' working on the edge of tolerances that can be just enough to throw the headspace way over the top.

 

[Janne]

When I used to reload, I annealed the rim of .38 Spec and .44 Spec after 3 reloads, .357Mag +P and .44 Mag +P ever reload, 9mm every second reload.
I used GeCo shells mainly, but also whaever I found.
After annealing I sized the shells for length.
9mm were ex Swedish Army shells. It is a +P ammo, so the shells are a tad thicker I think.

The shells on the .357 and .44 Mag started splitting after around 10 reloads, so I threw them away after 8 reloads.

I used to shoot Silhuette/long range with the .357 Mag and .44 Mag Revolvers, hence the very, very hot loads!

For that I used a Ruger Security Six with a non fluted cylinder ( custom) and a Ruger Super Redhawk stock.
A friend destroyed his S&W mod. 19 with my ammo.

We have tried the Prvi ammo too, club members did not like it.
They shoot Amerikano guns, most have fancy custom jobbies. I use a CZ Czechmate, plus a CZ Shadow 2. Prvi was fine.

The only problem I have with those CZ guns is with some US made reloads, where the primer has not been seated properly ( bad cleaning of the de-primed shell?) as I have replaced my all my springs to slightly lighter ones.

 

[Klenchblaize]

If the ammo is marked as match grade, most US and European ammo is pretty good. I teach on the local shooting sports program where the state of Texas supplies the kids with free .22LR ammo for use on the range and in competition, even if they bring their own rifle (we have some Anschutz rifles they can use if they don't have their own). We've shot a lot of match grade ammo and the largest amount of supposed 'match grade' we used which wasn't as good as it should have been was the Mexican made Aguila ammo. Remington ammo seems to have a bit of a limited shelf life on the priming. PMC seems to need a very firm firing pin strike on some lots. CCI ammo has been good, so has been Eley, and most of what we use now is Federal.

One of the problems with all grades of .22LR ammo is that even though the US and Europe both have predefined specs the actual end product can have a shocking amount of variation sometimes between manufacturers in bullet diameter.

Something you might find handy is the Acu'rzr tool made by a machinist named Paco Kelly. The tool resizes the bullet on .22LR ammo to a uniform spec. It also has pins that allow you to reshape a .22LR bullet.

http://www.pacotools.com/

BTW, it's a good thing that lead and ammo is so heavy. I live on the coast and at the last minute this past August they informed us that Hurricane Harvey, due to hit us head on, ground zero, was going to be a Cat 4, not a Cat 1 as we were previously told. So, it rapidly became an evacuation. I had a dozen steel, waterproof, US Army ammo cans filled with ammo. We loaded the truck, threw a tarp over it, then tossed the waterproof ammo cans full of ammo onto the top of the tarp to keep it in place. It worked in some pretty fierce winds.

Great post as it's just saved writing exactly the same including finding the pacotools link!

The only think that would posess me to reload rimfire ammo is if I could produce match grade subsonic hunting rounds. What I've seen of the kit that started this thread suggests this would not be achievable but I'm happy to be proved wrong.

K

 

[Janne]

I have tried to load subsonic high precision rounds in all non magnum calibers I reloaded, but did not succeed.

I think the low speed makes it impossible? Nobody makes a subsonic Match ammo in any caliber I believe?
(might be wrong here, ages I looked for a subsonic round.)

In addition, subsonic means slow speed, and the energy of the round depends on the weight and speed.
So you will get low energy.

I remember that only by using different primers the final performance got changed.
By placing the primer compound in the .22 lr case in varying amount should change the end performance?