Fire forming .223 Rem brass into .177 Rem

[ColJ]

Hi all, I'm a newbie here.
Hoping for some advice on the subject.
ie a good meathod for this small calibre, annealing tips, loads to use,any links if this has been discussed before etc.
the reasons I'd like to give this a go is its hard to get brass, it's costly, and if I can recycle something that someone else is going to discard all the better!
Cheers,
Col.

[Harper]

Hey Col,

Not sure if you just skipped a few steps in a brief version of your question there or if you've got a few things mixed up so lets make that clear first.

(Very basic explanations here, more to it in a lot of instances but just follow the principles)

You can neck cases up with a reloading die. e.g. put a .243 Win case through a .308 Win die and it increases the neck size so the case becomes a .308 Win case.

And you can neck cases down... Put a .308 Win case through a .243 Win die and it becomes a .243 case.

Fireforming a case is to increase the case size to match a larger chamber. Usually for reasons like increasing the shoulder angle to increase the capacity of the case.

Fireforming 6mmBR case into 6mm Dasher is a good example.

samhallhg08.jpg (31.27 KiB) Viewed 7690 times

As you can see in the photo above the cartridges are the same except the shoulder of the 6mmBR case is lower than the 6mm Dasher case.

You fire the 6mmBR cartridge in a 6mm Dasher rifle and the pressure expands the case to match the Dasher chamber size.

Bit of a start to finish series here (just look at the cases, ignore the one bullet).

fireform.jpg (54.21 KiB) Viewed 7690 times

So that's fire forming.

You can not fire form a case to decrease any of it's dimensions. A .223 Rem wouldn't chamber in a .17 Rem rifle, and if somehow you forced it closed and fired the thing the projectile would jam and the whole thing would go bang in a lose your fingers kind of way.

Back to your question.

I haven't done it but looking at the case dimensions you could neck down .223 Rem cases into .17 Rem ones. (Someone jump in if wrong there)

Here are the cases side by side.

223-vs-17.jpg (22.22 KiB) Viewed 7690 times

It's quite a downsize and you might find you'd crumple the shoulders slightly when you size them. Also, case length of the .223 Rem is 45mm while the .17 Rem is 45.6mm so the necked down cases would also be slightly shorter.

Once you sized them down and loaded them though, then you would shoot them and that fireforming would reshape any crumpled shoulders and stretch the necks so you've had some good brass after that initial firing.

Clear as mud?

[brett1868]

I think the context used for fire forming is to size the case to the chamber post conversion. In this context you can use a .223 case to make .17 Remington BUT it'll be a fraction short in length as it's not the original parent case. Best case to use for forming .17 Remington is the .204 Rugar I believe as they came from the same parent, the 222 Magnum. Blowing out the shoulder is another phrase I've heard quoted by Weatherby for forming cases.
I recently donated a sealed 100 pack of genuine .17 Remington cases to a relative who had been reforming .223 but had issues with necks splitting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_forming

[<<Genesis93>>]

Bentaz, the 223 to 222 will no doubt be do-able but the shoulder is 4mm difference so anneal / multi passes /trim perhaps.... easier to take your old triple deuce to Mr Smith and get him to send a reamer down its guts....

OP, the 17Rem might need a bit more brass than the 223Rem has available, to achieve minimum case dims....as I understand its a 222Rem Mag descendant which is itself the 223Rem plus .66mm at the Shoulder / 0.74mm at the neck / 2.29 case length..

What rifle are we talking about??? Loads; I'd start with ADI data online

[ColJ]

Thanks fellas, I e been having necks split after two to three reloads with rem factory brass. A gunsmith suggested that I should try necking down .223 brass as anything to do with .17 rem is hard to get and costly when you can!
I be also been told that the only difference between the two is the barrel so if I wanted a .223 I could just have the barrel changed. So......
I tried full length sizing a.223 case today and it was a fail
I'd put up a pic of it but don't know how!

[ColJ]

What loads? - I was referring to weather the loads would need to be reduced to fire form but have since seen that there are some different methods for this too

[brett1868]

My cousin uses an ancient Simplex press he bought maybe 40 yrs ago and just neck sizes the .223 down to .17 Remington. Fires a case forming load then trims and prepares as per usual. Thinking I should have auctioned off the 100 pack of new cases I gave him a few months back, think I paid $40 as they were old stock found during a cleanup.

[ColJ]

I've been quoted $180 recently!!! Does your cuz aniel first as I did. All that happened was the neck pushed back into the shoulder

[Gwion]

Over annealed???

Have tried annealing you factory brass after the first firing to stop neck splits?

[Harper]

I think the context used for fire forming is to size the case to the chamber post conversion.

Yeah, made clear in later replies by OP.

Just wasn't said initially and from a new member never hurts to be clear.

Soz to Col then for the long winded post of stuff you already knew

[ColJ]

All good- still read it all as you never know it all!
I'd post a pic of the cases that I've annealed if someone can tell me how?

[ColJ]

I'd never annealed before, I reload for my 30-06 and get about 6-7 full length reloads so didnt think it was worth the time. With the .17 brass that hasn't split I've annealed them and have a neck die on order so I hope to get more life out of them
Brett- could you ask your cuz how many loads he gets?

[Tiiger]

All good- still read it all as you never know it all!
I'd post a pic of the cases that I've annealed if someone can tell me how?

How-to post here: viewtopic.php?f=27&t=1011

[ColJ]

So the.223 is on the right, the.17 on the left and in the middle is the "resized" case.

image.jpg (1.28 MiB) Viewed 7560 times

Thanks for that Tiger!

[brett1868]

ColJ
I just got off the phone to the cuz and I found out the following, 223 necked down will be about 30-40 thou short but shouldn't cause any issues with throat erosion. He anneals the necks after resizing and gets from 8-20 loads through them but some split the neck after a couple reloads and others seem to last many reloads. He had a high failure rate necking .204 down as the shoulder was collapsing, he thinks if he trims to length first the results may improve. He uses a moderate load on 25gr projectiles with a velocity around the 3700fps mark to preserve barrel life. His rifle is probably 35yrs old and still nails foxes between the eyes out past 200 yards, the weird thing is he cant group better then 1 moa on paper yet nails everything with fur between the eyes.

Hope this helped, sorry for the delay I've had a nasty week at work
Brett

[ColJ]

Thanks Brett. Looks like I'll have to try again after I get some more brass as I annealed all the cases I had
My 700 Rem groups around 1 moa with hornady hollow points but clover leafs with their ballistic tips ( both 25 grn) with 23.5 grns of ADR 2209.
I'll update after I get some more brass

[Khan]

Looking at that squashed case it's a big step down for once pass.

It's a whole other bit of gear and work to be done but I wonder about turning the neck first to remove some material first and make downsizing easier.

[ColJ]

Thanks bentaz but I'm like a dog with a bone so I'm going to keep trying!
Khan: would turning em down get me back to a short case life?

[Khan]

Khan: would turning em down get me back to a short case life?

I don't know how familiar you are with it but if you want a good read on neck-turning check out here: Neck Turning Basics. Short version as it relates to what you're trying to do and what I was thinking though is this:

Neck turning isn't intended as prep work for necking down cartridges but a side benefit could be helpful in what you're trying to do.

As you know brass isn't perfect, it's made to certain tolerances and a margin of error. For the most part necks are excessively thick and/or uneven.

Neck turning is about removing the excess material and uniforming the necks. Uniform necks means consistent neck tension which means more consistent/accurate loads.

In your case of necking down cases, obviously when you are trying to turn a big neck into a smaller neck you're compressing the brass. If there is too much brass to compress into the space of the desired neck size something else has to give e.g. the shoulders crumple instead.

If you turned the necks first you'd be removing excess brass. Less to brass to compress = more success, less crumbled shoulders.

Have a look about 3/4 down the page of the link above, that'll give you an idea of how much you might be removing.

How turning the necks effects your case life comes down to your rifle chamber. If the chamber is cut tight and there is little room for the neck to expand when fired brass life will be good.

If the chamber is cut a bit more generously and there is more room for the neck to expand that may shorten the life. That's the case for all brass really though.

Get what I'm thinking?