On Fri, 28 Aug 2015 12:08:12 -0700, wrote:

As anyone who shoots knows, it has become pretty hard to get .22 ammo.
Especially CB shorts and longs. And then when you do find some it is
of limited amount and exorbitant cost. So as I was trying to fall
asleep after waking from a hot flash in the middle of the night it
occurred to me that I could make my own .22 centerfire brass, cast my
own bullets, and use off the shelf primers. Checking yesterday for
primer availability I found several sellers with small pistol primers
in stock at less than $30.00 per 1000. That's less than 3 cents per
primer, about what I used to pay before this ammo buying panic and
subsequent gouging started. This morning I examined the bolt on my
Remington model 514 and determined it would be pretty easy to make a
new bolt for centerfire ammo. And most of the parts from the existing
could be used in the new one. I would need to machine cases from solid
brass, but I have a lathe with a bar feed setup that could make them
really fast. Each case would require two operations so I could run the
second operation while the lathe was doing the first operation. I have
never really reloaded ammo before though I did reload a few rounds 45
years ago when a friend's dad showed me how his reloading setup
worked. He let me load a few rounds but I may as well have never done
it before because it was so long ago. But from reading about it online
it appears that spent brass cases can usually be used 4 or 5 times,
and some times even more depending on how light or heavy the load is.
I have lots of pure lead and making a mold would be pretty easy. But
would a machined case be as durable as a formed case? And since the
smallest primers I can find are .175" O.D. and .22 brass is .224" O.D.
there would only be a .0245 wall thickness between the primer and the
case outside. Then again, since the case is trapped in the chamber
maybe that's not a problem. And I would be using black powder or
black powder substitute, not smokeless powder, since my aim is to make
low power quiet ammo for target practice. I have a small revolver and
two rifles that I could convert to centerfire without too much work.
So, am I nut to consider this?
Thanks,
Eric

You probably will get a flood of responses, so I'll pipe up once and
then retreat. g

1) John Browning designed the .25 ACP around the smallest-diameter
cartridge (base diameter .278 in.) that he felt would be safe with a
small-pistol primer. The cartridge is semi-rimmed; tricky but not
impossible to extract with a simple extractor.

2) Performance is similar to a .22 LR; slightly better in very short
barrels, slightly less in longer barrels.

3) Machined brass is not as strong as formed brass, so you need
thicker walls if you machine it. 'Better to use existing commercial
brass.

4) If you get fancy and decide to neck it down to .22, watch out.
You'd be getting into some tricky engineering territory, where
pressures build up in a hurry, depending on what powder you use.

5) Black powder is a mess in small calibers. My friend built a .28
cal. muzzleloader years ago, when Douglas still made the barrels, and
had to swab the bore after every shot, because of bore fouling. The
experts here can give you better suggestions but more likely you'd
want to use a pinch of Red Dot or something similar and more modern (I
use Red Dot in my light loads).

6) With very light loads, the brass can go on and on for a very long
time. However, if you go *really* light, you're going to have big
variations in velocity, and can even wind up with bullets that lodge
in the barrel. Don't go too light.

Back around 1990 I designed a wildcat based on the .32 S&W long,
necked down to .20 cal. That's when I learned about pressures and thin
pistol brass. I made a cherry for it on my lathe but I never finished
the gun, which was to be built on a replica Farquharson falling-block
action that I still have. When I learned about how much potential
trouble I was buying myself I backed out.

Unless you want a new, very involved hobby, stay away from designing
wildcats. .22 rimfire can't be that hard to get. Some cartridge makers
stopped making longs years ago because they're unbalanced and
generally give poor accuracy. If you want quiet, buy some classy .22
LR match ammo. You can watch the bullet go downrange and you may have
to look to see if the gun fired. g But it will drive tacks in a good
target gun.

--
Ed Huntress