My thoughts on reloading the .22TCM
I came into an RIA .22TCM about 3 years ago, kept it and shot it for a while, then traded it to a fellow forum member that is local for a birth year Model 14-1. He had it and shot it a bit, picked up all the reloading gear and loaded for it for a few months. About a year ago, I came across his ad on FGT(or armslist, can’t remember) and bought it back from him along with powder, shells, primers, and dies. Only thing I needed was projectiles. I never got around to loading the round when I had my Lee equipment and for the past couple of months, I’ve been fully transitioning to my new Dillon equipment. I ordered 1200 TCM 40 grain HP bullets which came Thursday and yesterday I got the last piece I needed, which was the .22TCM powder funnel. The shell plate and locator pins are the same as the .223 kit that I already had. I put it all together this morning and adjusted everything to my satisfaction and began loading.
I find it to be a fairly easy round to load. I have to admit I was a little intimidated by everything I’ve heard about loading for the .22TCM. The Dillon powder funnel doesn’t flare the case like it does on other calibers, so I had to use my flaring die in station 1 in place of the sizing/decapping die. I deprime on a single stage Lee press with a universal decapping die and use an RCBS universal hand primer, so I really don’t need the sizer/decapper in that position. The Accurate TCM powder is extremely fine ball powder and meters very nicely. I started out weighing my first several drops, then every five, and finally every tenth for a while. Every drop was spot on with both my Dillon digital and RCBS beam scales. I set my COAL at 1.27” based on what I’ve read about the round and after loading and cycling a few magazines through the RIA 1911. Doing a visual check on the powder drop would be tricky, but I set up a borescope camera that has a birdseye view of station 3 before I set the bullet (I started a thread detailing the camera setup a couple weeks ago). One tricky thing I found was actually picking up the bullets from the bullet tray and setting them in place. They are very small and I’m used to setting at least a .32 projectile. The seating is easy and I applied a very slight crimp. I loaded slightly over 500 of them in less than three hours, and cheaply too. The bullets from Armscor are only about $.06 each and powder, brass, and primers came with the gun. I have plenty of H110 and W296 on hand when I run out of the TCM powder and a total of about 900 casings including what I saved from commercial ammo I bought for it. So it appears to be a very affordable cartridge to reload. I’m planning on a range trip tomorrow so I’ll have a report on that.
I’d love to hear some thoughts on the .22TCM from others that reload it.
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