Well, I had another project going on in front of making up the 200 virgin Winchester 218 Bee brass and 500 Starlinebrass 32-20 Winchester brass into 17 Ackley Bee cases. That project involved making 600 rimmed 243 cases from 444 Marlin brass. That delay ended up being a good problem to have in the long run because Hornady started shipping 218 Bee brass a couple weeks ago.
So, the five bags of 32-20 Winchester brass go back into the crap that might come in handy someday pile and that saved me a LOT of time and effort.
Both the 500 Starlinebrass and 200 Winchester 218 Bee cases went through the Redding form die and RCBS FL sizer without losing a one. That don’t happen often. Here’s a trick for anyone who wants to try something like this. Put the parent cases into a gallon zip loc bag and hit them with Hornady One Shot Case lube a few times shaking them up to bring new ones to the top between sprays. That takes care of the inside of the case neck when it comes time to drag the expander back through it. You still need to use Imperial Size Die Lube on the outside while forming though. I could run 200/hour through my annealer and it took longer to anneal them after they were formed than to form them.
The necks look kind of cruddy, that’s because I’m lazy and didn’t tumble them to get the lube off before annealing them. They are looking pretty good though.
We are getting right at 3,600 fps out of our CZs and Contender Carbines in 17 Hornet with 20 Gr V-max. The 17 Ackley Bee should be good for that with a 25 grain bullet or 4K with the 20s.
The fore end is for another thing I have going on. I cut a deal on a nice 17 A&M Bee barrel for a Stevens 44 1/2. That barrel would have been made by Bill Atkinson who had an outstanding reputation as a barrel maker. His barrels were recognized as among the top barrels back then. He suffered an injury and could no longer make barrels and went to work for his good friend Bill Ruger managing the Prescott operation.
The fore end didn’t look like much when I got it. Linseed oil never really dries w/o a bit of Japanese Drier added to it and I think that is what had befallen it. It was almost black from oxidized linseed oil and probably crud that had adhered to it. It cleaned up nicely though. It had a little chip, I was able to do a bit with it, but the stock is so thin right there that I’m reluctant to do any more. The perfect is the enemy of the good in too many cases like this and it looks OK at this point.
The 17 A&M Bee is nothing more than a blown out 17 Ackley Bee, if the barrel would spin on either of my 44 1/2 frames I could fire one and get a case to have a die reamer ground from. It doesn’t and would have to be fitted to one of my actions. I have a line on a 44 1/2 action and butt stock I’m am going to take a look at it. I’ll probably get it and fit the barrel to it if it doesn’t spin right on and order an extractor from CPA to fit the Bee rim.
