Ok...
17 Hornady hornet brass £ 35 for 50 , therefore £ 70 per 100
22 hornet Privi brass. £ 21 per 100
shop bought ammo :- £ 25 for 25 ( £ 1 per rnd )
A tween die - £ 30 ( lowest quoted cost )
powder - say £ 45 tub , = 7000 gr @ roughly 10gr per rnd = 6.5p each rnd
bullet heads - say £ 21 per 100 = 21 per rnd
primers £4 per 100 = 4p per rnd
Therefore :-
100 shop bought factory rnds = £ 100
100 made brass rnds = £ 82.50 ( minus the tween die = £ 52.50 )
200 shop bought factory rnds = £ 200
200 made brass rnds. = £ 135.50 ( minus the tween die £ 105.50 )
Now, is that a great saving ???!?!?!?
There are 2 options that work really well, to start the neck off, giving great results time & time again:-
1 - a tween die to reduce the neck to .20 & get the start of the shoulder in the correct place
2 - some use the seating die to start the neck, can't be done in all seating dies though.
There are 6 steps to making the brass ( that work & produce great results ) :-
take .22 hornet brass & Neck down to .20
Then, run through the 17 hornet full lenght die
cut to 1.355
anneal shoulder & neck
fireform
trim to correct size 1.345 - 1.350 ( both work fine ).
22 hornet privi brass has the same wall thickness of the factory Hornady,
it also has a larger flash hole, & a larger capacity after fireforming, 13.85gr as opposed to 13.4 gr
Muir, I don't doubt what you have said, but there is a wealth of info on this , & all the issues that ppl have had trying to make the brass...
I offer only my own experience & information that has come from a group of 17 hornet & small cal shooters that have done a lot more in depth testing than me ... See here :-
Saubier.com ( a sticky in the small cal reloading section in discussions board )
Yes, those cases were annealed before sizing...
You can't stick a 22 hornet brass in the 17 hornet die... Without a lot of loss or damage,
as the shoulders & cases lenght are very different.
cheers
al.