Hornet ream to K success

[tturner53]

I mentioned this in another post but wanted to add some info.I got the K Hornet reamer available here and went at my newish Hornet barrel. I was a little timid about cutting on a perfectly good barrel but now that it's done all I can say is "Hey, that was easy." There's no mystery or great secret to it. The FAQs have instructions which are pretty simple to follow. I went with the spark plug socket handle method figuring it'd have less possibility of torquing off to one side while turning. It must have taken 1,000 turns,(I stopped counting), cleaning the reamer every few turns, and using lots of oil. I had the barrel lug in a vise, vertical, so the oil just ran out the muzzle into a tub. Easy sschmeezy. Then off to the range, fired a box of PPU Hornet factory loads and voila! perfectly formed K brass was born. The master plan is to launch a 62 gr. cast bullet at the highest possible (safe) velocity, starting with Lil Gun.   If you're thinking of reaming your Hornet go for it, it's easy. Thanks to Tim and Greybeard for the good deal on the reamer. Oh, I ended up just putting the spark plug socket right on the back end of the reamer, works fine.

[SEK_22Hornet]

Boy, that sounds familiar - I did the same thing last week - right down to the spark plug socket right on the reamer.  I'm curious how the PPU brass works out - I have a box or two of factory loads that I was thinking about runing through my new K Hornet. I ran some S&B through it the other day and ran into a problem with the decapping pin being too large on my Redding dies.  Have you reloaded any of the PPU yet?  Just wondering if it had the small  flash hole too. I ended up using a Lyman .223 die to deprime my brass - it had a pin that barely fit the flash hole.

[tturner53]

Haven't reloaded the PPU now K Hornet brass yet. I did stop by Sportsman's Warehouse on the way home from the range and picked up a Lee decapping die for $15. Tried it on both K and standard PPU empties and it works like a charm. Fast easy way to deprime without sizing. The hope is I will have what the Cast Bullet Association guys call a ' CBC', cast bullet chamber I think it means. The idea is to be able to seat a new bullet in your fired case and have it stay put enough to withstand chambering. I was careful to orient the PPU ammo when loading it in my H&R today. If this all comes together the end result should be a very close fit of case and bullet to the rifle's chamber/throat and hopefully shrink groups. My bullets are a good .225 and slightly sticky. Jacketed bullets at .224 might not work this way. It's all theory so far, based on stuff I've read about other's work. First problem I've run into is the long bullet getting pushed back on chambering a dummy round. leaves the base/gas check hanging into the case below the neck.

[tturner53]

First range report: I loaded up 10 rounds of the newly formed PPU K Hornet brass. By the way, I noticed one factory round split during fire forming. Rest look ok. Anyway, the short version is it's a mild success, a beginning. 75 yds. benched, 62 grain NOE cast bullet with a gas check, .225". 10.2 gr. of Lil Gun, CCI small rifle primers. I just primed the cases,, no sizing. No K dies yet. About a 4" group at 75 yds., and very flat primers. Gonna back off the charge a bit, it was a guess. Maybe next time. The 62s did stabilize just fine with the 9" twist, nice round holes. When I'm done messing with the home made bullets I'll try some jacketed loads, see what I really have. Any good K Hornet recipes out there? I'm thinking of using the little H&R on ground squirrels next year. I am still amazed at how smooth and concentric the new chamber is, all with a hand powered tool! I'm thinking I need to ease up the throat a touch, allow a little longer OAL. Do they make a reamer for that?

[quickdtoo]

I'm thinking I need to ease up the throat a touch, allow a little longer OAL. Do they make a reamer for that?

Yupper, 4D has it. 

Tim

http://www.4-dproducts.com/display.php?group=Throaters

[rdlange]

Easy, but it just took me way longer that the maxi or Casull.  Had to go slower because of the smallness which was harder to see in the final twists.  Now I gotta send my dies to Lee for a mod to K.

If I can do it anyone can.  And the sparkplug socket works fine as recommended. 

Thanks all...