Equipment & Gear > Guns and Ammo
Gots me a new/old rockchuck rifle coming
Kingofthemountain83:
Wow!!! Hope she's accurate!!!
JDHasty:
Should be. I have a BalVAR 24 to mount on it.
W/regard to the 17 caliber A&M barrel for a Stevens 44 1/2 I mentioned above. It got here and is actually chambered in 17 A&M Bee. That makes things considerably easier.
A&M in the 1950s-1970s was Atkinson and Marquardt in Prescott AZ. Paul Marquardt and Bill Atkinson. Smallbore rifles with cut rifled barrels signed William Atkinson were the hot ticket back then. They were up there with a couple others like Hart barrels that most top shooters were using.
A&M, and Paul Marquardt in particular was heavily involved in the 17 caliber scene back then and were tight with Vern O'Brien in Las Vegas. Vern O'Brien developed the 17 Mach IV that the 17 Fireball was ultimately based on. I remember reading about what they were up to in magazines in the school library when I was a kid.
So, this 17 A&M Bee is a 218 Bee case necked down, blown out and the shoulder moved forward to result in ~.018 inch neck. Almost a dead ringer for the 17 HeBee. Pretty much a chip shot to make from 218 Bee brass. The problem with that is there isn't any 218 Bee brass being sold as a component. I have a few bags of Winchester, but not near enough for a Bee or Hornet based varmint slayer. Starlinebrass however just cranked out a run of 32-20 Winchester brass.
That is going to involve making up some short necked 218 Bee brass by taking the 32-20 through a 25-20 die on the way there. I have a Redding 17 Ackley Bee form/trim die and a Bullberry Double End Die if I need it that should get that done. The cases will need to be annealed first thing, then again at the 218 Bee stage, The necks may need to be reamed and/or turned as well. The 17 Ackley Bee has a 20 degree shoulder and the 17 A&M Bee has a 23 degree shoulder and the A&M Bee has less taper. Should be close enough to work just fine.
Pretty boring stuff, but if anyone is interested let me know and I'll try and take photos and post about what I'm doing and why along the way.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[*] Previous page
Go to full version