fireforming 17 vr brass from 4.4X28

[foxhunter]

Paul Rodgers was kind enough to give me most if not all of his 4.4X28 brass, just to make sure I said thanks , I will say it again, thanks Paul.

the 17 vr is about 60 thousandths longer than the 4.4X28 and 60 thousandths
is just a little much headspace to be firing a cartridge to blow the shoulders forward, especially with this brass unless you do it right.

most of you old timers know about fireforming without bullets, both with and without cornmeal (ala varmint al's method). having never tried to fireform this case with bullseye and cornmeal it was a start low and work up a grain at a time. one grain of bullseye pushed the shoulder forward .010 of an inch, 2 gr pushed it forward by .020 and so on until I reached 6 gr's of bullseye and a case full of cornmeal, 6 gr's blew the shoulder forward .052 of an inch which is still short of a fully formed case by .004.
just out of curiosity no cornmeal was added to 6 gr's of bullseye powder, upon firing the shoulder was blown forward .052, same as the case topped off with cornmeal. it seems as though 6 gr's of bullseye almost filled the case to the shoulder area, there was very little cornmeal in the case to form the shoulder.


seeing as to how I have a couple hundred of these cases it was decided to try using a bullet to form the cases .052 forward at the shoulder. 10 gr of aa1680 with a 25 gr vmax sitting on top was the load of choice. this load gives about 3125 from a formed case. the bullet was seated square into the lands, lubed with imperial sizing wax and the case head firmly against the bolt face. upon firing the rifle acted normally and a fully formed case was ejected.

what conclusions can be extrapolated from this test? make corn bread from the corn meal instead of wasting it. you are just as well off firing a bullet to form the case and eliminating the other step, save your bullseye for your pistol.
the case could have been necked up to .20 caliber and re-necked back down to 17 leaving a false shoulder but split necks would have taken their toll on the cases, this is the toughest brass in the body area I have ever seen.

all thoughts are welcome.

[GLWenzl]

Your conclusions have been my lingering thoughts and I do like cornbread!

What do you mean by the toughest brass in the body area??? Is it just thicker??? And if so are there any thoughts on if tougher brass can withstand more pressure than others (in the body area) as it has never been a concern or even a thought in my mind??? I have however wanted to try the cornmeal deal just for the experience but doubt it happens anytime soon...

.052 is quite a bit, now ya have me wondering how far that is in relationship to where I was moving a shoulder on a 17 Jet case made from 22 Jet brass... I can see I'll be busy looking at that now....

Nice report Bob, thanks and thanks to Paul as well!

Sounds like a great project, this should be a super lil round on a great riffle!!! I'm excited about it!

[foxhunter]

strength , not the body. the damn stuff is so hard it can be a chore to resize and i am not about to try to anneal the case body. my eyes are just fine right where they are thank you. i have to assume the nylon coating is to assure the rounds eject effortlessly from the fn rifle/pistol.

sure wish they made these dies in carbide, would make life a lot easier.

like you Gary I to am looking forward to dinkering around with the new chambering, getting the bedding right and adjusting the trigger, the rifle has one very poor factory trigger but would be considered ok in a remington.

sent of a few cases to Alan in ga friend, seems he wants to decimate the pd population this spring.

here is a sight in chart for the lil round with a 20 gr vmax at 3500 fps, not exactly a mouse cartridge.

Range Drop
(yds) (in)
25 -0.4
50 0.4
75 1.1
100 1.5
125 1.7
150 1.6
175 1.3
200 0.6
225 -0.4
250 -1.8
275 -3.6
300 -5.9

[georgeld]

Very good report Bob, thanks for posting all your efforts.

Only time I tried the bullseye/cornmeal thing it pushed the primers about 1/3-1/2 way out, so gave that up before long and went to bullets and it worked better and formed 'em like they should too.

Plus, I didn't have the neighbors wondering what the hell George was doing shooting in his shop so much either.

Only time I ever had problems from doing that. When the cop came, told him I'd been running the rose bud and it makes a shot sound. Wanted to hear it, so I popped it a few times. They've never been back so far. I've fired the .38 and .40 a few times out there, but, have the doors and roof on the shop now where I didn't that other time. So far, I haven't fired off the .45 Colt out there yet. Nice quiet neighborhood til George get's to making racket out there. At least they all know where to send the inspectors/cops to look first.

Dirt floor, with concrete wall 6' high, steel plate against that and big hunk of sheet lead to fire into, or the floor. So not much danger, but, does get loud as H sometimes.

Really need to live in the country instead of middle of the block in town.

George