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Old October 27, 2010, 11:25 PM   #1
Ideal Tool
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Reloading Rimfires

Hello, guys. In the handloading forum, a new guy was asking about reloading .22 L.R. ctg. with Varmint Grenade bullets. Was told, and rightly so, it couldn't be done. This jogged my brain back about 40 years...Here's the rest of the story....I guess you could say it was my sisters fault, she worked downtown, and was always bringing me home books from the library, mostly American history, but then, as I was interested, firearms. I remember reading Phillip B. Sharpes GUIDE TO HANDLOADING cover to cover many times & I didn't even own a gun yet! Somewhere, and for the life of me I can't find it today, there was an article on how the American indians reloaded rimfire ammunition. It seems the U.S. army forbade traders to sell ammo to them in the early 1870"s. To get around this, they soaked match heads in hot water, & spread this into the hollow rims of their fired .44 Henry, .52-50 Spencer, .58 Musket, or whatever other rim-fire ammo they had. Then they charged with powder, & crammed in whatever type of projectile they had that would fit..In most cases probably a round lead ball. This intrigued me no end..I thought of nothing else for days. Finally, I just had to try it, to see for myself if it would work.
I hammered a nail flat & filed it to shape & bent it 90', this was held in vise while a fired .22 L.R. case was twirled on it to scrape rim recess clean. Strike-anywhere matches were let to soak in a dish of hot water, then the blue tips were scraped off. I turned up a tool with radiused end to force mixture into rim cavity, & cases were put in oven of old cast-iron wood stove we had out in barn to dry. Next I needed a bullet. In shop class, I turned up a tool-steel "bullet" a few thousands oversize to allow for lead shrinkage. Using aluminum, two blocks were milled square & dowelled together. A pilot hole right on center of parting line of blocks was drilled & into this 1/2 hole, the now hardened & polished bullet blank was placed. Using a two ton hyd. press, the blocks were pressed together. The result was a perfect cavity with a mirror finish. (I got the idea from the just on the market LEE mould, which used this 'coining" technique.) Bullets were cast from pure lead & lubed with a homemade mix of beeswax & vaseiline & pushed through a two piece sizer die I made. I had alot of mis-fires due to either a weak firing pin spring or work hardening of that once-fired brass. No problem, using a propane torch, cases were heated until bright orange..you could almost see through them! They were so soft, a thumbnail lightly pressed against the case mouth dented it! At the time, I thought this was good, since they duplicated the early soft copper cases! You could only get about two or three loadings...that rim got kind of crowded. The only powder I had was black, I soon tired of the mess in that little bore, & talked my sister into buying me a can of Unique...the old "U-Press-It" capped metal can...remember those? I fiqured since that powders granules were so much larger than factory .22 L.R., it must be slower, so I made up a scoop from an empty .22 L.R. case & filled it to the brim! It was compressed by bullets heel when seated! Now things were alot more lively! A nice crack, and now the rims got real fat..At the time I also thought this was good, since I could cram more priming mix in for more reliable ignition! Well, I had proved that reloading rimfires could very well have been done by the Native Americans.

Now let me say that this was where my guardian angle started to really earn his overtime!
Please, Please! guys, DO NOT try this at home, or anywhere else!....That orange anneal was WAY too hot!...Those fat rims...I was very lucky I didn't have a burst rim!
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Old October 27, 2010, 11:33 PM   #2
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Wow that seems like a lot of work. But I always thought it would be possible to reload rim fire ammo and now I understand how to do it. It seems like too much work for little reward. Thanks for the post it was interesting.
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Old October 28, 2010, 04:14 AM   #3
Bud Helms
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Moving to Handloading & Reloading.
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Old October 28, 2010, 07:36 AM   #4
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Curious... I thought those old "strike anywhere" matches had a piece of something on the tip ??? I distinctly remember what looked like a piece of grit at the tip of the match... & as a kid playing, I don't remember having very good luck striking those matches using the side of the head, or if that "grit piece" was removed from the match...

that doesn't mean the compound on the head of the match wouldn't work as a priming compound, but that grit must have played some part in striking the match... anyone else play with those matches???

BTW... I collect old black powder cartridge era guns, which I like to shoot pretty regularly & so far I have been limited to cartridges like 32 & 38 S&W ( center fire ) but it would be worth it for me, if I could find a source of priming compound, to be able to reload some of the big bore rim fire cartridges...

BTW #2 I've seen kits that include custom brass that fit a primer to the rim, & those custom cases are reloadable, however they are only of limited interest to me, because the cartridge must be indexed correctly in the chamber so that the hammer strikes on the primer, tougher to do on the revolvers I collect
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Old October 28, 2010, 11:07 AM   #5
Brian Pfleuger
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ideal Tool
I soon tired of the mess in that little bore, & talked my sister into buying me a can of Unique...the old "U-Press-It" capped metal can...remember those?

Like this? (Still goes BANG! just fine too!)

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Old October 28, 2010, 03:51 PM   #6
Ideal Tool
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Grit in match head

Hello, Magnum Wheel Man. Your right about grit in those strike anywhere match heads..I believe it's ground glass! Not something you would want blasting down your pet rimfire bore. But I understand that modern rim-fire priming..heck, centerfire for that matter is pretty gritty..I have heard there is glass in that stuff too?
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Old October 28, 2010, 04:34 PM   #7
c.j.sikes
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i have a sharps book and i rember reading the article. as i rember the indians used a black powder cap and drilled the case to make it fit then used clay to make the bullet mold. as best i can rember that is the way it went. cjs
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Old October 28, 2010, 06:05 PM   #8
Ideal Tool
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Hello, c.j. sikes, The use of a percussion cap was probably for the early center-fire inside primed cases used in the early 70's. The first .50-70 & .45-70 copper cases were primed this way. They looked like a rimfire case..no primer was visiable on outside, & had two deep crimps just above rim on either side of case to hold internal anvil. The Indians did remove this anvil & place percussion cap underneath & replace said anvil...sometimes using a small pebble for the purpose! The only way one could use a percussion cap for reloading RIMFIRE cases, is if you had one of the early Ballard dual ignition breech-block rifles. These were rimfire usually .44 or .38, with a pivoting blade on hammer nose. Breech-block, in addition to rimfire slot for firing pin, had a percussion nipple installed. By turning down nose piece, & punching small hole in center of fired case, you could charge cases with powder & bullet & flash from cap would set er' off...Out back of beyond, you couldn,t always find rimfire, but almost every outpost had powder, lead & caps.
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Old October 28, 2010, 06:40 PM   #9
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This is an awsome thread! I had no idea a rimfire could be reloaded. Seems like alot of work but it would be very satisfying to see if you could do it. Honestly I am not sure if I could do it. Anyways thanks for the good read!
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Old October 30, 2010, 02:12 PM   #10
-Doug-
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Reading about the "U-press-it" lid and seeing Peetzakilla's can got me wondering. Does anybody have an idea how old this can of Unique might be?
Oh, it still goes BANG! too.
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Old October 31, 2010, 07:50 PM   #11
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Up until a few months ago I had a complete set of World War II issues of the American Rifleman which I gave away. One of these wartime issues had a complete how-to-do-it article entitled Reloading Rimfire Cartridges or something like that. It provided detailed instructions for doing this which also included using strike anywhere matches for the priming compound. I thought this might enable me to fire my Civil War Spencer carbine but I never tried it out. It just seemed inherently dangerous. If anyone has a set of these magazines they can probably find the original article since it only covered a 4 year period.
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Old November 1, 2010, 04:50 PM   #12
Ideal Tool
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Reloading Rimfires?

Hello, Sid. If you still want to reload that Spencer carbine, without going to the trouble of fitting a replacement center-fire block to it, there IS a way. Dixie Gun Works sells empty brass spencer shells with an off-set .22 chamber. You use .22 short with bullet removed. This is the primer..spencer pin hits .22 rim. Load case with black powder & bullet. They make these things in .44 Henry also I think. Best of luck!
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