The gunsmith ran the reamer for my 22BRX in about .030" too far (.150" when it should have been .120"). I have formed some brass to fit ,but the necks will only be about .170" long. What is the shortest necks you would prefer? With the way its throated ,the bullet will not be anywhere near the neck/shoulder junction, its only sitting in the neck about .100" which is OK as its single loaded only.
What is the shortest necks you have successfully used? Is .170" too short?

The only thing "wrong" with a neck that short is that there is no room left to "chase the throat" as the barrel begins to wear. A .170 should provide sufficient neck tension. Most people would consider a one caliber neck ( in your case .224) to be kind of the minimum, but that is why it is call a wildcat.

My gibbs all have .250 necks. In your case, if this won't work, why not set the barrel back a turn? Mark

I could take the barrel back to get it set back a bit more ,but I have a very good reason not to. Laziness. I have formed 30 cases to try as it is. When I get my next good barrel rechamberd ,I will make sure it is reamed how I want it. The necks are going to look wierd how they are ,but I was wondering how short people have had necks before which still worked.

The other option is to use a neck reamer and ream to the proper length.

I'm not familiar with that chambering, so have a few questions. Is this a single shot or repeater? Is it a bench rest gun, or a field gun?

I have seen chamberings with incredibly short necks, like the 6.5mm bellm which has something like a .15" neck. It seems to work well enough, and certainly gets all the possible case capacity out of the 5.56X50 case.

Anyhoo, I'd say .17" is enough for a 22, especially in a single shot application. Since the gunsmith boogered it up, I'd say shoot it to see if you can get the bullets close enough to the lands for good groups. If it won't shoot, take it back to the smith and have him set it back a thread and cut the chamber the way you wanted it originally. He boogered it, so he shouldn't charge you to fix it.

Think of it as trying to test an even different wildcat for free

I've always heard that one caliber was a good minimum for proper alignment of the bullet in the case. It sounds logical & I would go w/ that. In your case, longer then would be better.

Paul H. The gun is a single shot target gun for F class. The BRX is mearly a BR reamer run in .100" deep. I asked him to run it in .120" deep ,but it seems he put it in .150". How it is now ,the base of the bullet (a custom 80gn flat base or 90gn VLD) sits just above the neck shoulder junction when pushed hard into the lands.
As I like to play and fiddle ,I have made up 30 cases to use in F clas club days to see how it goes.