.22 LR reloading

[Deltadart]

Is anyone here reloading the .22 LR cartridge? Seems a little silly, but having reloaded .22s is better than no .22s. They seem to be scarce in my area. I have the kit from .22LRreloader. Slow is the best way to describe this process. What I have found is, if you say I am going to sit down and reload .22s today it seems to take a lot of time and not a lot of production. When I do "run" the LRs I do that in conjunction with other the ammunition. Casting round balls or conicals, I add in the .22 40gr. Cleaning the brass with the .38s & .45s. The brass needs to be resized on a standard single stage press, a little slow, but no different than other cartridges. What the hell I started 5 decades ago with a Lyman 310. The most time consuming part is the priming in my opinion. The primer compound is a 4 part mix, you add a scoop of this and that, mix gently, then add a small amount to the case, a drop of acetone, and use a very small dowel to force the paste mix into the rim. To speed up that part of the process I came up with a "wheel" to do a hillbilly centrifuge. I am probably late to the party on this idea. It holds 30 rounds, I get 30 ready to go but use 2 or 3 drops of acetone to make a liquid not a paste. Put the cases in the wheel chuck into the drill press at 420rpm. Get the next 30 ready. It is a work in progress, but seems to work. When dry you add a grain or 1 1/2grs of pistol powder smokeless or BP. If anyone has suggestions I would appreciate those.

[ciwsguy]

Interesting setup you have there. 22 LR is plentiful here. No shortages. A box of 50 CCI Standard velocity goes for about 6$ here and is easy to find. A multitude of brands are available here and on-line. I personally wouldn’t consider reloading any rimfire with so much available commercially. Think I’d make a Day trip out of your area and head eastward looking for 22LR.

[Unclenick]

People are having fun reloading these. I considered trying it for fun, but the priming mix is corrosive, and I live where there is enough humidity to make rust happen. This forced me to realize that I don't really have any guns I would be willing to put at risk of rusting. So I would be buying myself a big cleaning chore on top of the time invested in making these things, so I let it pass. But then, I am fortunate to have enough 22 LR that I'm not driven by need, and I might feel differently if that were not so.

[rclark]

I gotta hand it to you for persevering and enjoying reloading .22LR ! I looked into a few years back, but .... My solution was to acquire some .32 H&R revolvers as my 'reloadable .22' and a bunch of brass. Then forget all about reloading .22s. Since then, I've acquired enough .22LR to keep me shooting for the rest of my life ... I .. hope..

[L. Boscoe]

Admire your persistence. With Norma selling 22 for $4.79/50, I would not
have the fortitude, although I do load about 4# of powder a year in other
calibers.

[Deltadart]

Our .22s come and go, if you are in the right spot at the right time then you buy. Just saw a brick for 52.00, an OK price for now so I picked it up but 2 years ago that same box was $18. However things are strange today I do not know what the future will bring. A few years ago, I had all the primers, percussion caps, and cartridges I wanted with no thought as to the difficulties of today. The rimfires are a challenge for sure, I am slowly building some stock as they become available. Actual cost for supplies is about 1 cent for the LRs, the time is much greater so I have to really think it out. The advantage of getting .22LRs into a viable system is to move to the .22 magnum with those proceedures. The time would be the same for either cartridge and with magnums going for more than $20 a box, it does make it a little more attractive. The .22WMR can become a mini .38-55. True the 4 part mix is corrosive, however when I stop shooting I start cleaning. A habit I developed shooting black powder.

[IMtheNRA]

If you're considering doing for fun, go for it.

Alternatively, .22 is widely available now online as well as most Walmarts around here. Back down to 7 cents for Federal Automatch bulk packs in Colorado.

[Rhodester]

Sure glad I live in O-H-I-O.
Plenty of .22 LR here.

[eflyguy]

Local WalMart had 84 boxes (yes, I counted) of CCI SV for $4.84 the other day, no limit.

[Jim Watson]

Reports of loading (not reloading, they use primed brass) .22 LR with black powder make interesting reading.

[Deltadart]

Jim, I am findine 3F lights up pretty well. Reloading .22 LRs is just one more bit of fun for me as I enjoy reloading to work up best loads. So now I reload from .22LR to 50-140. They are cheap in matrerial cost, about a penny a round, but when compared to a Dillion 550 for .38s, 44s, or 45s, very slow in time consumption. I just picked up another couple of bricks of .22s at the store so now I have plenty of factory stuff.

[P Flados]

I gave up shooting 22 rimfire years ago and got set up for small bullet - mouse fart loads in centerfire stuff. My lowest cost round is a 32 ACP with a tumble lube cast 55 gr for example. This round is fired in a 8" TC Contender stub tube barrel.

At the time I gave up on 22s, primers could be had at a reasonable cost, and overall cost was better than 22s.

With the recent spike in primer prices, I started reloading primers with the non-corrosive EPH-20/EPH-25 priming compounds. Guidance can be found at https://aardvarkreloading.com/labequipment.html

If you want to reload 22 LR, there is a EPH-0 version.

If you go with the EPH compounds, there is some initial set up cost, but the actual ingredients are not expensive. Around $75 or so of chemicals can yield up to 18,000 LRPs or 30,000 SPPs for example.

Based on my actual cost for materials, my 32 ACP loads run about $0.01 each. This is assuming $0.50 per pound for lead since I mostly use range pickup, but I also buy some. Most of my other mouse fart loads are under $0.02 each.

I have though about reloading 22 LR, but getting a good bullet mold and getting a good crimp (both needed for accuracy) sounded very tricky. As is, I am very happy with the performance of my centerfire mouse fart loads using reloaded primers.

[Deltadart]

P Flados, Thank you very much for this information. I too had gone a similar route. I started downloading all sorts of cartridges to subsonic and mouse fart levels when primers were very plentiful. However as we all know that too has changed. I shoot a fair amount of muzzleloaders and have made a lot of primers for those firearms for a while now. They are cheap, easy, and reliable. The .22s are really no different than any other reloading operation. Most people don't consider them since they have always been plentiful and cheap. You could load up the magazine throw it in the 1022 and dump it in few seconds, repeat. Don't even pick up the brass, perhaps sweep it up if at a range. The issues with rimfire is available equipment. NOE makes a good mold but they are out of stock. .223-38-RN-CCI looks good if you can find one. The mold from .22LRreloader is the small size and produces two bullets but one is 40 gr the other is 25. I am not that sure about those bullets being that good. The mold handle does have the built in crimp for the LR cartridge. Also important is cleaning residue from the rim, I have a Harbor Freight ultra sonic unit that I throw them in with a little Dawn soap and run for a couple cycles. Then toss them in the Lyman vibrator cleaner. They come out looking pretty good. Then prime with the 4 part compound mixed up and add a tiny bit of that to the case. I made a dipper from a large rifle primer. Add 3 drops of acetone and put in that wheel. The instructions with the kit say one drop and then force the paste into the rim, the additonal acetone makes it more of a slurry which will flow into the rim when they are turning. However .22s are becoming available again in many stores, at reasonable prices (relative) so the "need" to reload them is going away. It is just a fun project to see what kind of load you can work up, like all reloading.

[RoyceP]

The local Bass Pro shop has an ammo aisle with nothing but 22 LR, 9MM and .223 ammo piled as high as me. It's all pretty cheap too. I don't see any reason to reload rimfire when you can buy it so cheap.

[Ricklin]

One thought came to me with regard to priming mixture. I would try a rammer that is sized to create a little hydraulic pressure, since the cases are sized, that task should be pretty easy.

Properly sized this should work faster than what you are doing.

[Deltadart]

Ricklin, Thanks for the thought, I will make one and give it a try.

[stagpanther]

oops

[Ricklin]

I don't think hydraulic pressure could cause ignition, but caution is always the watchword.
Hydraulic pressure is not the "sharp" sort of blow that causes ignition. Def. worth experimenting with. Basically the whole procedure is rather that anyway.

[Unclenick]

Two other thoughts: One is that with black powder, you get a somewhat lower corrosion risk, as the thick fouling tends to suspend the potassium chloride (KCl) particles in it. It should make cleaning more reliable, as anything that gets the BP fouling out will then carry most of the KCl with it.

Another is that I am reminded of the match ammunition that Federal made 30 years ago. To improve ignition dynamics, they borrowed a technique I've seen credited to the Russians, which is to put a dimple in the middle of the bottom of the case to better direct the priming flame forward. The dimples look like someone tried to fire the case with a small centerfire firing pin. Small indentation right in the middle. You can just make it out in the image of the first post in this thread at rimfirecentral.com. Such a dimple, I expect, would further help you spin the mix out into the rim. It may also make ironing out a rimfire firing pin indentation difficult, but there's nothing to say you need to take the dimple as far as Federal did. Indeed, a very shallow indentation without support inside the case would make a slope that would help direct the priming mix. Anyway, something to think about.

[Deltadart]

Unclenick, thank you for the information. The dimple in the case head is a new one on me, but it does make sense. I think you are correct it might make spinning the mix into the rim more efficient, would also cause the BP to settle a little more to the rim for improved ignition. Certainly, will not hurt anything. I will be casting a few different round balls, & .38-55s this weekend, so I can easily include this as an additional activity. I have not tried to remove the previous indent from the firing pin on previous shots as yet and am not sure it would be necessary or even know how to do that. I just index the cartridge to 90 or 180 degrees from the dents. I only use a case 3 or maybe 4 times before scrapping it. Then stop by the range and pick up another pile for free so the supply there is very good.

[Jim Watson]

I am findine 3F lights up pretty well.

The guys on Castboolits and Shiloh boards got clear down to 4F and Swiss Null B.

[Deltadart]

Jim, 4F would habe been my choice but I no longer have a flinter, so I am using my 3F Swiss, 3F T7, and P. I wish I still had my pan charger, might have been perfect.

[rodfac]

Rclark:

My solution was to acquire some .32 H&R revolvers as my 'reloadable .22' and a bunch of brass. Then forget all about reloading .22s. Since then, I've acquired enough .22LR to keep me shooting for the rest of my life ...

Plus one!! Best regards, Rod

[zeke]

This falls into the category of glad someone is doing it, cause ya never know. Got laughed at for reloading Berdan primed 308, then two more shortages happened.

Just glad someone else is doing it

[FITASC]

Sounds like something to do when you have absolutely nothing better to do with your time. Rimfire ammo is plentiful, and while not as cheap as 4-6 years ago, is at every inline and local retailer. I'd rather shoot it than waste time reloading it.