I recently bought a rifle chambered in 230 Ackley. The rifle came with brass, loaded ammo, size and seat die, about a 1000 .227-.228 bullets and.... the mystery dies.
The two dies are extremely similar to the RCBS Primer pocket swaging dies with a die body and a punch that extends almost to the end of the die in the center. Both punch tips are flat. But there are also two sleeves that have a sliding fit, each into one of the dies. The OD of the sleeve matches the ID of the die and the ID of the sleeve matches the OD of the internal punch. One of the sleeves has an ogive on the inside and the other seems to be a flat bottom. Both ID's on the sleeves are .228 diameter. Each sleeve has a hole in the bottom (for ejection?) and they fit into a standard shell holder slot in the ram. There is another piece that is a small homemade arm with a pin that appears to fit into the primer seating arm position on a rockchucker. I think this is the ejection pin for the sleeves but the pin will not fit into the holes in the sleeves. (might not have been fitted yet)

I think that the die with the ogive is a bump die to bring .224 bullets up to .228 and that the other might be a core seat die.

The whole package was purchased in Roseburg Oregon. Any information about these dies would be appreciated. I'll be watching this post closely for answers or suggestions.
Thank you.
Joe
jcunclejoe@aol.com

I suspect what you have is an original set of Ackley-made dies for forming .228" diameter bullets for his heavy-bullet .228 cartridges. Some of those cartridges even involved swedging a belt onto the exterior bottom of the cases, which takes an additional, different set of dies again.

As you probably know, Ackley's original shop before he moved to Trinidad, Colorado and then to the Salt Lake City, Utah area, was in Roseburg, Oregon. If you obtained the dies from one of the Webers (Rod or Avann), or Diamond Dan, then I can almost guarantee you they were Ackley dies. Avann's father (Rod's grandfather) was a barrel-maker in the original Ackley shop here in Roseburg.

I bought the rifle on consignment at the Roseburg gun shop, so I do not know who owned it before.
Thanks, I had forgotten that Ackley hailed from Roseburg.
Joe

Joe - Both Rod & Avann have regular dealings with Roseburg Gun Shop. Rod is also the manager of the gun area of "Associated Buyers" in Roseburg. I'll be seeing one or the other of them within a couple of weeks, I'm sure. Seems to me I remember Van (Avann) telling me about that rifle. (I believe it belonged to him...his was a heavy barreled rig; barrel made from a truck axle during early WW II, which was bored, rifled, contoured, stress relieved. But that's all from an imperfect memory. I know it shot like a house-afire, we used to hunt gray-diggers together.)

If you want me to, when I see him, I'll ask him about it. (When you decide you want to sell it, if ever, send me a pm, please.)

You may already have this info, but if not, here goes....I culled these words by hizzoner hisself, P.O. Ackley, from my library...



"The .228 as I originally made it was nothing more or less than the .22 Neidner. At the time I had never seen the .22 Neidner and simply necked down the .257 case, but I later found the .22 Neidner was a 7 mm. case necked to .22, which made the cartridges identical except for the bullets. I used the 90 grain, and he used the 70 gr.

"Subsequent experimentation has shown that the bullet over 75 grs. is not too practical, and it is better to increase the bore diameter after that. The .228 probably offers more difficulties than any other Wildcat because when I developed it I had both Barnes and Sisk make bullets, all of which were heavy jacketed and with long streamline points, made expressly for big game.

"These six and eight-ogive bullets required a twist of nine and eleven inches, but as soon as many customers get one of these rifles they immediately start using ordinary .22 High-power bullets or 63 gr. Sisk designed for the .22 High-power, and none of these bullets will stand the RPM's imparted to them by the short twist. Trouble results immediately, and is always laid to the gun. Now I refuse to make a .228 unless it is clear in the customer's mind that he must use the right bullets."

"The .228 bullets as made by Barnes are Spitzer type with soft points with 6-caliber ogive. The Sisk has about 8-caliber ogive and a very small hollow point. Both have tubing jackets and will not blow up under any normal conditions. Note: These are big game bullets,primarily, and are made to stand very high velocities.

"We have conducted quite a few interesting experiments on such things. I doubt very much if the trouble is due to the lead (core) melting. If you spin a small lead wheel fast enough it will fly apart because the tensile strength of lead is insufficient to hold it together after a certain number of RPM's are reached".



I included all that quoted material above to let you know that your dies may not be dies for bumping up smaller bullets, but for making bullets with copper tubing jackets. If so, the items you think are ejection punches may in fact be punches just the diameter of the inside of the proper copper tubing Barnes and Sisk used for bullet jackets in the .228. If so, the function of those "punches" might be to hold the core in place during nose forming, after which the punch would be removed and the base of the bullet swedged closed.

Best of luck with it anyway. Next time you are over here in old "Rosebud" (Roseburg), if you want, send me a PM and I'll met you at Roseburg Gun Shop and take a look at your dies to see if I can tell you more.

Best wishes,

AC