No Hornady bushing avail. How to measure 22 Hornet Headspace without this tool?

[Gabe22BR]

... all EXCEPT the diminutive 22 Hornet, which has no real shoulder - it just has a little place where body taper gets a tiny bit more tapered.

God, what has happened to this site??? The children and beginners are running it.

This is what I have been trying to tell him. This little cartridge doesn't have enough shoulder to use, and the RIM is what sets it.

I don't think he's handled one. I have over 500 of these things, and yes you lose some from sizing, I went to K hornet, which is better in my book, for saving cases when sizing.

 

[bigedp51]

... all EXCEPT the diminutive 22 Hornet, which has no real shoulder - it just has a little place where body taper gets a tiny bit more tapered.

God, what has happened to this site??? The children and beginners are running it.

This is what I have been trying to tell him. This little cartridge doesn't have enough shoulder to use, and the RIM is what sets it.

I don't think he's handled one. I have over 500 of these things, and yes you lose some from sizing, I went to K hornet, which is better in my book, for saving cases when sizing.

Gabe22BR

Below is the OP question.

I am starting to reload some of the 22 Hornet brass I have been saving. I bought a set of Forster dies (FL and seater) back when I bought my .223 dies. I just realized my Hornady headspace comparitor doesn't have a bushing for the 22 Hornet. What are you 22 hornet reloaders using to measure headspace?

The OP has a Forster FL die and I explained using the primer method to how find the amount of head clearance he has. This tells me he wants to partially full length resize his cases and not OVER resize the case and shorten its life. If he would have asked I would have told him to get a neck sizing die and not touch the body of the case at all. Many people just use a Lee collet die and some use Redding bushing neck dies.

European made 22 Hornets have tighter chambers and many American made rifles have looser chambers. And on top of this you have variations in resizing dies and a cartridge case that is very thinly constructed. Meaning you have to adjust your dies to your chamber and the vast majority of reloaders just neck size.

The main point here is to NOT over resize the cases and shorten case life. Gabe22BR if you are full length resizing your cases with the die making hard contact with the shell holder and press camming over YOU are not sizing your cases properly.

Bottom line you size the case to fit your chamber and not overwork the brass, and if you can't grasp this then you do not know much about reloading.

You keep making comments about being a School teacher or and Engineer or never reloading the 22 Hornet. And your wrong on all accounts and way off base, you also think you are the only one who knows how to reload a 22 Hornet.

CatShooter was right, we have children and beginners in this posting making comments about how to reload.

 

[Linko]

I just bought one of these tools from Larry willis. Between this tool and the method bigedp51 provided I should be now able to resize my fired cases just enough as to not over work the brass and have a nice chanber fit.

Thanks for the insigth CatShooter and others for this great information.

With all this said, I am really considering sending my Ruger 77/22 hornet off to Connecticut Precision Chambering and have it rechambered to K Hornet in the future.

 

[bigedp51]

Gabe22BR our resident 22 hornet expert doesn't see the big picture. :

Below SAAMI 22 Hornet cartridge and chamber dimensions.

http://www.saami.org/PubResources/CC_Drawings/Rifle/22%20Hornet.pdf

If the 22 Hornet rifle is at maximum headspace of .072 and your cases have thin rims .055 you can have .017 head clearance. Or the "air space" between the bolt face and the rear of the case and the case will stretch this far when fired. Meaning if you full length resize your 22 Hornet cases with the press reaching cam over your cases will not last long and result in case head separations.

For long case life neck size only and have .001 to .002 head clearance maximum for longer case life.

And the primer method of checking head clearance I posted earlier will tell you the amount of "air space" between the bolt face and the rear of the case.

On my Ruger No.3 in 22 Hornet I would seat the bullets long and jam them into the rifling to fire form them. This was easy with a single shot, and after this I would neck size only. And the same applies to the H&R 22 Hornet Handi-Rifle and as long as you load to reasonable pressures and not over stress the brass they should last more than a "few" reloadings.

And remember we live in a plus and minus manufacturing world and reloading dies, cartridge cases and chambers vary in dimensions.

 

[bigedp51]

Another PM from CatShooter

And CatShooter our resident expert accused me of being a school teacher, BUT what we really need here is a teacher who specializes in special education for people with learning disabilities. ;D

Edwardus, you are trying to teach a pig to sing.

He's a xpurt, cuz he knows a girll who's brother used to work in the tennis department at Dicks Sporting Goods, and he use to go to lunch with the guy from the gun department...

So there!!!

I mean headspace is such a simple subject to understand. :

 

['Freak]

I sized .22 Hornet using a RCBS full length die; all were fired in a T/C Contender. The FL die stayed backed away from the shell holder ~ half a turn up until I began to feel a definite increase in resistance to closing the action. From there, the die got turned in a tiny fraction more and tested again until most of the resistance was gone, I could barely feel still a touch of resistance on closing the action. Adjusted so, there was still a space left between the base of the die and the shell holder meaning that die would’ve shoved what ‘shoulder’ there is back too far to suit my T/C frame/barrel combination, by the amount of the space remaining, had I adjusted the FL die according to the fit-all near worthless manufacturer’s instructions.

 

[moorepower]

I set back 2 of my Hornets, a Sav 40 and a Ruger 77/17, and I set below sammi spec. I sorted all of my Hornet brass for rim thickness and designated all the thicker rims to the H&R's. Some have used scotch tape in layers as sort of a go/no go and it actually does not work too bad if you don't force it. Flame on!

 

[searcher]

In my .17 Hornady Hornet when adjusting die for headspace, I use the Hornaday Bullet Comparator with the .24 caliber insert. Works just fine.

 

[SmokinJoe]

All the previous not withstanding, the K-Hornet rarely needs to be FL sized. I use a Lee 22PPC collet sizer with good results. All I will contribute to the previous "discussion" is that a big reason to convert to K-Hornet is to be able to headspace on the shoulder because so many rifles have too much rim clearance built in & you can easily ruin your new brass while fireforming. What has worked well for me is to expand the neck to 6mm, then size it back to 22 so that you get a tight fit on the false shoulder when the bolt is closed. Hope this helps a little.