17 Ack Bee+

Mr. Mashburn, I tried to find the thread where you talked about the 17 A. Bee. I bought some Starline 32-20 brass to make mine back some time ago. I thought I had encountered some hard brass to form but this Starline will test you. I take the brass down in roughly .020 steps and yet I still got folds in the shoulder along with splits.  The couple hours I played with them I found taking the 32-20 down to 25-20 and then reducing the necks down 3 more small steps before running them into the 17 Ack Bee die. My die is a Redding that JLC converted to a bushing die. I ran the case into the die without a bushing to iron out the shoulder some. Then I used a .191 bushing to final neck size. I loaded 11.0 gr 4227, 20 gr VMax, 7 1/2 primer and got just over 3400fps with absolutely no pressure signs. I did lightly lubed the front half of the case. I ran a bent paper clip inside to check for any grooves and found none. I was surprised that my small group of cases were only .020 shorter than cases made from 218 Bee..  Back in late summer I was going to make a .200 or so short version of this case. I made up 10 without any issues. My friend doing the rechambering of a new 17 HMR Contender barrel had never cut a short chamber so I told him to cut it full length. Next time I try this I'll run them thru my Ken Light annealer a couple times before forming. My formed necks are running just over .009 so maybe there's an issue with factory annealing where the necks transition to the body??.   I neck turn all my brass so when I finish up this winter I'll make a .009 clean up cut on the necks. My suggestion is if you can find W-W 218 brass use it. I've shot the 17 Killer Bee for years and never had an issue forming cases.. Mr mashburn hope this helps, any questions, just ask.