I've been trying to form my own .17 Rem cases from .204 Norma brass. I have the Redding die to supposedly resize to .17, but I have not yet had any success.
I run the 204s through the Redding die and that seems to work quite well. This drops the shoulder and the case dimesnsions are as the .17 but with larger, longer neck.
When I then try to run through the .17 FL die, it works for the first 6mm and then crushes the neck. I have tried trimming to the .17 neck length (+20 thou') but this continues to happen.


Any ideas please???

could it be that the extra case neck length is hitting a "step" in the sizer die and buckling the case area behind it? I have experienced that with several cartridges in the past. They cut a "step" and then the threaded part for the decapping rod begins.

Rich
DRSS
Knowledge not shared is knowledge lost...

The "20 thou" could be your problem. I seem to recal that the 17 Rem is based on the 223 case and the 204 is based on the 222 Mag which is a longer case. Maybe you need to trim more before you use the 17 die.

The 17 Rem is based on the 222 Rem Mag shortened about .085 and necked to .17. You might need one of the neat little double-ended neck sizing dies from Bullberry. Doing this die and then going to the FL 17 Rem die should work. I made a lot of 17 Rem from 223 back in the old days and never had any problems except the neck was a bit short. It still shot. As the 17 Rem brass is easy to get and relatively inexpensive--I would just get the right stuff to begin with.
Aloha, Mark