Forming .204 to .221

[pacificman]

I have a bunch of .204 Hornady brass and decided to run a piece through my .221 fireball die without the guts and works the same as if it were .223 brass. I suppose just about any brass with the same case head measurement could be formed for .221 or 20VT. I know that .223 is more available than the others but was curious if any body else uses any other brass besides the .223?
Guess I getting excited about the 20VT I'll be shooting soon... : ;D

 

[Bruce W]

I use Norma 222 with the redding case forming die. Trim the length then neck turn. Capacity is about 8% less than Rem 221 brass. Shot real good with Vit. 133 & sierra 53 gr match kings from a factory xp100.I use a Leo 12x rifle scope. Pistol sits in a wood stock with Harris bi-pod. Shot many .750 100 yrd groups with this set up

 

[pacificman]

I knew there was somebody using brass other than .223!... ;D Very accurate xp100 you have there man! I own an older Leupold straight 12 power that I had on my 22-250 whitch is still one of my favorites. I am just happy to know that we can form different brass to be able to shoot the 221 fireball, 20VT, 17MK etc. as it seems very hard to find brass, powder, etc. these days. I won't be using my .204 brass unless I absolutely have to as I have a bunch of .223.

 

[BigDMT]

It doesn't make sense financially to use 204 brass. You could sell the 204 Ruger brass for about $30 per hundred or so depending on if it's new or not and how many times it's been fired. So say 200 - 204 Ruger brass brings you $60...... Then you turn around and buy 500 223 brass. I just recently paid $60 (including shipping) for 500 Lake City 2009 brass de-primed and primer pockets swaged. Lake City is good brass for making 20VT too. The shoulders seem to fold a lot less than other makes.

So you can use 204 brass, but you are throwing away money in a sense when you can buy over twice the amount of 223 brass for what you can get from the 204 brass. I expect that's why nobody really uses anything else...

 

[pacificman]

You are right again BigDMT! My Son and his friends give me all of their .204 brass so I do have quite a bit but as you said it would be to my advantage to just use the .223. To tell you the truth I didn't really think about the price advantage till you mentioned it...I thank you for that. Guess it shows when something... (brass) is given to ya and you haven't had to pay or work for it. :

 

[BigDMT]

Well, even if it's given to you, a person can still turn 100 - 20VT brass into 200-300 20VT brass by taking a little time to sell the 204 brass and buy more 223. Might as well have as much brass as you can get, whether you're paying for it or not

Now here's the real kicker, if you ever want to sell some of your formed 20VT brass to fund something else, it's now worth more than what you sold the original 204 brass for! Winner winner chicken dinner