Hello,
I posted this in the reloading forum, then thought about it, and decided I might get more small caliber experts to read it here. So I deleted it from the reloading forum.

This all started a couple days ago, when, on a whim, I decided to run a 223 case through a 17 Rem Fl die. What popped out was a nice little 17 case, with the shoulder seemingly in the same position as on a factory Rem case, just a noticeably shorter neck. My initial thought was that this would be just like a 38 case in a 357 chamber, but I decided to investigate further, as it was pointed out that the 17 runs at a much greater pressure than the 38.

My question is this. Will such a case be OK in a 17 Rem chamber? My concerns lie in the area of chamber damage. I have heard from one source that this will happen fairly quicly, with a ring being cut in the chamber where the short case ends, thereby allowing a "normal dimension" case when fired, to grow into the ring, causing extraction problems.

Another source tells me that this will only be a problem over the extreme long term, the barrel will be junk by the time that happens. Due to the fact that the bottleneck cases "grow" and the end of the case will be in different positions with each pass through.

Let me know, need all the advice I can get.

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Safety & Ethics,Accuracy, Velocity, Energy
Joe M

Joe
I form a lot of 17 REM brass from 223 cases, but i use the forming dies from RCBS.The forming takes 3 steps and you have to reem the inside of the necks.Even with the forming dies the cases are .005 thousands short.I tried the method that you tried and it seemed to push the shoulder back to far.I use once fired cases then full length resise.before forming. This method seems to work quite well.

Hello,
Well 5 thou short is not too bad. It is a lot better than the results I am getting with the FL sizer. What type of tool do you use to ID ream?

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Safety & Ethics,Accuracy, Velocity, Energy
Joe M

Joe
The reamer comes with the die set from RCBS, The whole set up costs about 170.00 and about a 6 week wait. Well worth it compared to the Remington brass.