Author Topic: brass forming 17AH from 19 calhoon (Read 773 times)

TCAS · « **on:** January 18, 2005, 07:23:19 AM »

Can you form 17AH from 19 calhoon hornet just using the full length 17ah die?

?? The 19 calhoon brass is very cheap and would avoid the cost of forming dies.

Tom

Catfish · « **Reply #1 on:** January 18, 2005, 03:12:56 PM »

I form all of my .17 AH brass from .22 Hornet brass and you don`t need any extra dies to do it. Just put a thin coat of lube on the cast neck and run it through the seating die befor you run it through the sizeing die. I load on a 550 Dillon so I just run mine through the seating die and then run them through in the normal manner. I like to load them fairly heavy for the fire forming and work up a load that is accurate for fire forming and use them for hunting. My .17 AH loves the 19 gr. Calhoon bullets with 10.4 gr. of H-4227 and a CCI 200 or a Rem 6 1/2 primer. This is max load in my gun so start lower and work up. I`ve never tried any other powders in my gun. I started with 4227 and as I up my powder charge my groups kept getteing smaller and at 10.6 I started seeing bad presure signs so I dropped to 10.4 and was getting 1/4 moa groups so I never tried anything else. You will see presure increases with 1/10 gr increases so work up slowly this one goes from safe to sorry in less than 1 gr. of powder.

TCAS · « **Reply #2 on:** January 20, 2005, 12:04:32 PM »

Do you have to anneal the brass, I was told the brass will get hard if only the FL die is used.? Thanks for the good detail.

Tom

Catfish · « **Reply #3 on:** January 22, 2005, 01:37:41 PM »

You would probibly be better off if you had never heard of anneling. Do Not annel hornet brass. It is to thin and is way to soft if you annel it. The only time I ever found any advantage to anneling brass was bact in the 1960 when I was forming used mil. -06 brass into .270 win. brass. If you never loaded wildcats befor the .17 AH is really not a good one to start with as presure jumps so much with such a small increase in powder, but it is one of my favorite rounds and if your very carefull you`ll probibly live through it. The biggest problem I have with any of these boards is that you have no idea how much knowledge the person asking the question has. One other thing, dies are expencive for this round. RCBS dies are abt. $ 95 and Redding are abt. $ 105. It is one probibly the best varmint round for areas with alot of people, it`s not to loud, it shoots very flat, and there`s not much chance of a rickochet.