I just had a protracted e-mail conversation with the Lee customer support rep. I e-mailed them about the decapper pin in my brand new 22 Hornet dies being too small and it was hard to get the bullets started after resizing. I told him I was having to use the decapper out of my .223 dies to get them to start. Long story short on this. He told me that I was using bullets that were to big for my loads. He said that Lee 22 hornet dies come with a .222 decapper pin because 22 hornets use .223 dia. bullets and that all Lee dies come with the decapper pin .001 smaller than the bullets they are designed for. I told him that all modern 22 Hornet rifles come with .224 grove dia. barrels and have for some time and most people use .224 bullets for their Hornet loads. I also referd him to page #181 of "Modern Reloading" by Richard Lee. There it shows using .224 dia bullets for the Hornet. His only response back was "Then I am assuming we are still making the Decapping rods to be used with the older version of the rifle. Sorry for any confusion". I have been using some of the Lee products since 1984. This is only the second time, I have had a problem with Lee products and they made that one good. You would think by now they would have addressed this contradiction. I think the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing at Lee. Rant over.

It sounds like Customer Service was full of Bull Service! As you pointed out 22 Hornet, like all American made 22 Center Fire rifles made since World War II, are .224 diameter.

Did he offer to send you the correct decapping/expanding stem? If not call back and tell them you want the correct part, The one you paid for!

Now tell us about that rifle! I'm down to 2 Hornets, one is a 10" Contender barrel and the other is a pre 1961 Savage 340. The Savage out shoots any other Hornet I have ever owned (except the 2 other 340's I let get away). Pre 1968 340's don't have a serial number, but a letter date code and I never looked mine up.

For factory ammo I bought a 400 hundred rounds of Hornady's Varmint Express when it first came out (35 grain bullet at 3100 FPS) It is very, very accurate, but I only have 50 rounds left, so I developed a factory duplication load with Accurate 1680, Remington 6 1/2 primer, Hornady brass and bullet. My notes are in storage, so I can't remember the quantity of powder, but it is around 14.1 or 14.2 grains . In my Savage factory ammo is 5/8 to 3/4 inch groups. At 3100 fps this load is 1/2-5/8". 2 tenths more powder is 3300 fps, but groups are 1.5 - 2"

For the contender I'm still using the classic 45/46 gr flat base bullets with 4227 powder (H or IMR) at about 2450 and 1"+/- at 50 yards off sand bags. The gun should do better, but I can't!

Now brag about you Hornet!

Ivan

Wonder if they somehow screwed up and gave you a decap/expander for a .22 jet. As you noted, modern .22 CF's are now .224.

For the hornet you may want to consider using the Lee collet sizing die. I have switched to them for all my rifles and am very happy with them. They consistently produce very uniform round necks and do not over work the brass.

For the old Winchester 43, I found the Barnes 30 grain hornet varment grenade with 12.5 grains of ww 296 to shoot the tightest of any thing I have tried in the hornet. Runs right at 3000 fps from a 20" barrel.

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My rifle is a Savage mod. 25 Walking Varminter. I bought some 35 gr. Hornady factory loads to get the brass. So far the best load I have tried is 13.5 grs. of 1680 pushing a 35 gr. Varmagedon bullet. I am using sp primers because that what Accurate recommends and they say 13.5 grs. is max charge. I am averaging sub moa with the largest being 7/8 inch. I have a bunch of 2400 and was hoping it would work the best but sometimes the groups go a little over an inch. My chrony is broke so I can't check speed.

When I first started with the 22H I was using an early set of RCBS dies that were designed for the older bullet/bore relationship. We didn't have email and long distance phone was very expensive. Using snail mail over a period of 6 weeks we got it realigned and the proper expander button, RCBS was great....as always.

Whidden custom dies sells expander kits with five expanders for their custom dies. They are sized from bullet diameter to .004 under bullet diameter.

I use the Lyman type "M" die below for my target loads in my AR15 A2 HBAR and "NO" crimp and the main expander is .003 under bullet diameter. If you Google he subject you will find many competitive shooters are using .002 to .003 neck tension. And this varies with annealing and neck thickness.



Below a new RCBS expander for a .223 that needs polished badly. After polishing the expander was .0025 smaller than bullet diameter.



Expander Ball Tips and Information
http://www.uniquetek.com/store/69629...nformation.pdf

Expander Mandrels and Neck Tension
http://www.accurateshooter.com/techn...-neck-tension/

Neck Tension — Not Just Bushing Size
http://www.accurateshooter.com/techn...-bushing-size/