Thread: 22 Hornet - Over Length Fired Once Cases?

I have set myself the objective of reloading 1000 Hornet cases before I resume culling operations at the end of this month. When I finish the tray shown I'll be up to 400.

To achieve that goal I have been buying once fired brass from Forum members and TradeMe.

Last night I started on another box of Winchester Super-X with the following codes printed on the box, X22H1 A1D1BH31, which might provide a clue as to year of manufacture and model (old 223 or newer .224?). These cases have been primed by the previous owner, so I wasn't able to clean the flash hole or primer pocket.

I became aware of two interesting measurements.

The first; the cases had stretched in firing to: 1.409, 1.415, 1.418, 1.421 and, the longest 1.426!! The Reloading Bible state, Maximum Case Length 1.403, Case Trim Length 1.393, which means the longest case is a whopping 0.033 thousand over Trim Length. My question, how is it even possible for a case to grow that much inside the confines of the breech? What does it tell us about the state of the rifle? Or the quality, manufacturing tolerances of the brass?

Second thing; the diameter of the projectile seating hole (neck of the case) was too smaller diameter to fit the pilot of my RCBC case trimmer???? I actually ran the cases (after removing the de-prming pin) through my Redding full length resizing die, with case neck expanding ball, before they fitted the trimmer pilot??? What the heck!!!!???

Is the neck tightness due to these being old, very old, 223 Hornet cases, rather than 224?

I'm confident of receiving some knowledgeable responses from experienced reloaders.

FYI Those 50 cases are now trimmed to 1.393, deburred and chamfered inside and out and are ready to load.

What's your recommendation for an electric case trimming lathe?

I'm always looking to buy more once fired Hornet brass, if you have some please let me know.

Hugh Shields
Controlled Rabbit Culling
Mobile 021 9888 41

Do you have a high loss rate of brass?

my best guess is they were resized without a sizing ball in place...or resized in whackamole which doesnt have one.
plenty of older hornets around...growing a case like that could be done easily enough by say half dozen times loaded without trimming.
as for lectronig trimming..LEE set with cordless drill LOL.

Originally Posted by Jhon

Do you have a high loss rate of brass?

No. Some of my old brass dates back to 1987 - 1990s and may have been fired and loaded 3 or 4 times by a mate of mine way back then. Yes, some have split up near the neck. That's to be expected.

This is my strategy to mitigate lost brass: (1) Catch ejected, fired cases and put them in my pocket. If I'm static shooting from one place for a long time, I put down a big, commercial floor mat on the ground or bonnet. It's about 1.5 X 2m cos you can looses these little cases in the grass.

For Horhet the ADI Handloaders Guide specifics 10.5 - 11.5C grains of AR2207 behind a 40grn SPR SP for velocities of 2253 - 2488fps. I only load 10grns in the hope of maximizing case life. I hope that by loading a light load I might get 10 - 12 - 15 reloads from one case. 15 might be over optimistic. It would be interesting to know from other Hornet reloaders how many reloads they are getting from one case, at what powder and projectile weights.

By contrast, if I loaded HOT Compressed loads I would expect 3 - 5 reloads only.

I found 2207 too slow. I have been using 11.2gr of Lil Gun with a 40gr Sierra bullet and SPP for 3,100ft/sec. This was the most accurate load. After accuracy testing I checked for longevity: fired the same charge/bullet/etc in a single case 20 times and the case still had more life left in it (but the neck certainly needed annealing). Rifle: BRNO 465. I have not tested Hodgdon CFE BLK which gets a lot of internet love for high and consistent velocity.

@SmokeyJason

Originally Posted by Micky Duck

@SmokeyJason

Thou shall not use my name etc.
Yes Master?

Yes Master!

Originally Posted by SmokeyJason

Thou shall not use my name etc.
Yes Master?

see velocity with Lilgun....... you best find some...somewhere LOL

I use lil gun or win 296 shoots well in mine

To reiterate the point, these can not be had in australia, I even joined a local forum and begged for some but no joy at all.
As has been stated 2207 is pedestrian in the hornet, so much so that I've gobbled up a L461 in 222 because I can get the 2207 here, and it's custom made for the deuce.
Should be here by the end of the month and look forward to hurling the 33gr hammers at 3500 or north.
Anyone here in Oz want to buy a 465 hornet, send me a message. I do have another which I'll hang onto for fun.

Greetings,
The principal problem I had with Hornet cases years ago were neck cracks from brass that was too hard. In my case this was old brass but it can be caused by too many handloads. Annealing every few loads would help with this. I do this with a candle much to the horror of some Forum members. With the right technique I have had good results from this. With the amount of stretching I would also be concerned with incipient head separation so the cases should be checked with a bent paper clip for a groove on the inside of the case just above the head. These are made more likely by FL sizing with the die down hard on the shell holder. The die needs to be backed out until the cases just chamber freely. None of this stuff is all that difficult but without attention to detail case life for the Hornet can be very short.
Regards Grandpamac.

I had 3 hornets but one is a k now. The k runs lil gun and 35 vmax. I have a krico thats running lil gun and some 40gn win half jacketed pills. Also have a browning and thats also running lil gun and 40gn speers

Originally Posted by grandpamac

Greetings,
The principal problem I had with Hornet cases years ago were neck cracks from brass that was too hard. In my case this was old brass but it can be caused by too many handloads. Annealing every few loads would help with this. I do this with a candle much to the horror of some Forum members. With the right technique I have had good results from this. With the amount of stretching I would also be concerned with incipient head separation so the cases should be checked with a bent paper clip for a groove on the inside of the case just above the head. These are made more likely by FL sizing with the die down hard on the shell holder. The die needs to be backed out until the cases just chamber freely. None of this stuff is all that difficult but without attention to detail case life for the Hornet can be very short.
Regards Grandpamac.

Not hot enough. Will do SFA.

Originally Posted by Hugh Shields

No. Some of my old brass dates back to 1987 - 1990s and may have been fired and loaded 3 or 4 times by a mate of mine way back then. Yes, some have split up near the neck. That's to be expected.

This is my strategy to mitigate lost brass: (1) Catch ejected, fired cases and put them in my pocket. If I'm static shooting from one place for a long time, I put down a big, commercial floor mat on the ground or bonnet. It's about 1.5 X 2m cos you can looses these little cases in the grass.

For Horhet the ADI Handloaders Guide specifics 10.5 - 11.5C grains of AR2207 behind a 40grn SPR SP for velocities of 2253 - 2488fps. I only load 10grns in the hope of maximizing case life. I hope that by loading a light load I might get 10 - 12 - 15 reloads from one case. 15 might be over optimistic. It would be interesting to know from other Hornet reloaders how many reloads they are getting from one case, at what powder and projectile weights.

By contrast, if I loaded HOT Compressed loads I would expect 3 - 5 reloads only.

Sounds like you need a velcro attached mesh brass catcher bag that velcro's over the ejection port and catches your empties...