Thread: Case life and case weights.

Howdy. I load a fair bit of 22 Hornet. I bought a bulk lot of brass, reloads, and powder etc. including a box of Hornady Z-Max. A few years back now. I discovered pretty quickly that case capacity varies a lot. Have not got my notes in front of me but some cases will require compression of the same amount of powder that is not compressed in others. To the point e.g. where some cases cannot be max loaded with the Hornadys because you can't compress the powder enough to get the bullet in far enough to load in the mag. I had the experience of doubting my press and my calipers only to realise that the thin brass of the case mouth could not stop an overly compressed projectile from slowly creeping back out of the brass! No matter how hard you crimped it. And this was using published data for the given projectile and powder. The guy I bought the stuff from gave up and sold out of the calibre. I figured I could save the higher capacity cases for the Z-max and/or settle for a lesser charge and lower velocity. Its one of the few calibres I sort my brass for. The thicker brass crimps better of course. But different 22 Hornet brass not only varies significantly in brass thickness but also in case length. For all that I find it a wonderful little calibre to master reloading of and rewarding to shoot.