Good information Paul. Thanks for posting that.
I can get OTC 80gn projectiles but they are usually have a long boattail and longer nose on them. Using the Winchester .243 80gn projectile I can keep thing fairly short so to speak.
I will need to measure the twist on my .223 barrel. If that proves good then I will try to get this to work in my rifle and a mates .22/250 as well. It should prove to be a better deer projectile.....
My other problem could be the magazine space in my L461.

I agree that it should be a "better" deer projectile than most of the 80-grain .22 bullets. QL doesn't list a specific length for the .243 Winchester 80-grain bullet. If you have one in hand, I would appreciate it if you would measure it and let me know what that length is. The Hornady .22-caliber A-Max is 1.16" long. The .243 should start out shorter than that, but after squeezing, it will get a little longer. The good news is that jacketed bullets seem to 'compress' quite a bit instead of elongating. I've got some .243 bullets, but if I remember correctly, they are XLCs (coated "X" bullets) which makes them 'solids'. Pretty much "unsqueezable" beyond about 5 thousandths.

Paul

My 6mm 80 gn projectiles measure in at 21mm long.

Today I tried to size a .264 120gn Hp through a .257 sizer. No go at all with my little press.
It was worth the experiment using the equipment I had on hand before I laid out extra money. Maybe with a larger press?

QuoteNo go at all with my little press.

Sumpin's not right... You should be able to do that swaging on that press.

Did you try the "little bites" process? We're only talking about 0.007" here. I am going to try it on a Lee Hand Press. I don't know of a press with less strength than that press. If I can do it on the Lee, you can do it on the Partner.

I'll be bock.

Paul

22H, Someone gave me a .452,300rf mold, it was bad, the bullets came out .450 one way and .457 the other.
I made a reamer and reamed it out  to .460 and turned a gas check shank on it, with the gas check and lube it came out 320gr.
I sent some to a friend in Florida who hunts with a .45-70, he took a deer and a hog last year, both dropped at the shot.

Paul. I measured the length of an 80 gr. Rem. "Power Lokt" 243 bullet & it measures .832 in. I don't have an 80 gr. 224 bullet in hand right now but a 90 gr. 224 Sierra MatchKing measures 1.170 in length. I may be wrong but I think the 80 gr. MatchKing is about the same length without going to the trouble of digging them out. It doesn't make sense to make an 80 gr. & a 90 gr. 224 bullet using diffrent jacket lengths. Anyhoo, I'm trying to figure out why you think a sized down 243, 80 gr. bullet would be a better choice for deer in a 22 cal. rifle. It would defnitely be considerably shorter because of the bullet profile. I have no trouble stabilizing an 80 gr. MatchKing in a 9 inch twist at a MV of 3654 FPS. Accuracy is better than I can shoot any more. If I jump the velocity to 3750 FPS, accuracy is erratic along with pressure. .....Paul H

The reason the swaged .243 bullet might be better than the .22 bullet of the same weight is that the .243 jacket would be thicker due to the swaging-and-not-lengthening, and maybe it even starts out thicker. Also, I think 22Hornet is liking the .243 Winchester might be a better design than an .22 HP.

I don't think the issue is stabilizing an 80-grain .22 in a 1:9 twist. It's stabilizing an 80-grain .22 in a 1:14 twist.

Paul

Quote from: gitano;109505The reason the swaged .243 bullet might be better than the .22 bullet of the same weight is that the .243 jacket would be thicker due to the swaging-and-not-lengthening, and maybe it even starts out thicker. Also, I think 22Hornet is liking the .243 Winchester might be a better design than an .22 HP.
 
I don't think the issue is stabilizing an 80-grain .22 in a 1:9 twist. It's stabilizing an 80-grain .22 in a 1:14 twist.
 
Paul

Spot on Paul. And I have a few of the 6mm 80gner's laying around doing nothing. Thought I might try sizing them down to see if I can get them to work. No other reason....

I did try sizing down in small steps, Maybe I am being too carefull with the press? I will have to try it again.

I just crunched some more numbers, and here are the results of that effort:

Here's a table of the results:


There are two hollow points, two Flex Tips, and two cast lead. There are three starting diameters: .451", .452", and.458". If you look at them in similar pairs, you can see that the lead stretches the most relative to it's diameter. In other words, the farther you have to squeeze it, the more it is going to lengthen proportionately. The HPs 'grow' the least relative to the total amount of squeezing, and the Flex Tips are in the middle. The most significant variable in determining how much a bullet will grow is how far you have to squeeze it. The smaller you want it, the longer it will get. That might appear obvious, but the real change may not be clear as stated in words. Let me put it this way: If you have to diminish the caliber by 0.010", a lead bullet might lengthen by 0.015" or 0.0015" of length per 0.001" of diameter. However, if you diminish the caliber by 0.020", a lead bullet might lengthen to 0.020" or 0.0020" of length per 0.001" of diameter. Meaning, that the greater the squeeze, the greater the stretch RELATIVE TO WHERE YOU START.

Assuming the Winchester bullet behaves the same as a Flex Tip, (which it probably doesn't exactly), squeezing it from .243 to .224 would be 0.019". You could expect it to go from being 0.832" long to being about 0.882" (grow by 0.050"). That's still considerably smaller than the 80-grain .223 bullet.

Paul

Anyway, you can look at the numbers for yourself.

Paul, a hollow point jacketed bullet will naturally shorten less than the others because the lead doesn't fill the jacket to the tip. The lead is simply moved into this vacant space. The length of the jacket will remain practically the same. Remington "Power Lokt" bullets aren't actually hollow points but open tips. The "jacket' appears to be copper plating. There is nothing hollow about them. They don't hold together at high RPM's either. It would appear they discentigrate at something like 4,300 FPS in a 10 in. twist barrel. This ciphers out to approximately 310,000 RPM. .....Paul H

Quotethey discentigrate at something like 4,300 FPS in a 10 in. twist barrel.

I'm just guessing here, but I doubt that is going to be a problem for 22 Hornet. :)

Paul