WB
I was buddies with Bob Baker at the Y-O hunts
Monday, September 24, 2018, 07:42

we drove each other wild discussing various virtues of cartridges. Bob is super smart and can put me to complete embarrassment in short order. He was discussing his new .224-32FA ctg. for his M97 revolver. I agreed to buy one from him. Boy was is a booger to make! Based upon the .327 Federal case they had an RCBS die issue early on that Bob got fixed for me. I crumpled many cases in frustration. You had to form the case without crumpling it and shorten the neck, fireform, etc. But the cases were strong and it's a great ctg. He wanted to do a .257 cal. version but I do not think he ever did. Mr. Taffin did one of the best articles I ever saw on it and the work will be a great assist to anyone working with the ctg. or one like it for all time to come.

I finally resorted to using .32 H&R brass. Less expensive and much easier to get at the time too. I only had to FL size it to make a necked down case and since it was shorter to begin with, it was done. The cases are thinner than the .327 and fire-formed much more readily too. Bob rolled his eyes at my antics and his OCD could not handle the deviation from his development. But by golly it worked fine! Gary could make the same round (based off his .25/.32H&R - .250GNR) and have the exact thing I was doing as a remedy to a problem. It's plenty short to manage the Single-six window and has the same capacity as a .22 K-Hornet but stronger case. It would certainly not be a copy of FA stuff as Bob sure did not like my solution. I had an easy time pushing Nosler 40 gr. BT to 2200 fps in my 7.5" FA M97. The Callhoon 30 gr. DHP would add even more and be super explosive. I shot my Muntjac with the 40 Nosler.