Using Match Heads as Primers to Reload .17 HMR

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As a licensed Funeral Director and Embalmer in the State of Ohio, I wholeheartedly recommend it. Funeral Homes can always use new business.

Although calling ahead and letting your Funeral Home of choice know when you plan on starting this brilliant escapade, That way they dont make any plans that will have to be cancelled on account of some du'mass kid who thought he knew enough. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smiliesmack.gif



/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif
 
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I heard someone on here (CatShooter I think) say that when he was a kid he would grind up match heads and stuff them in the bottom of .22 shells and load them up. I want to try "reloading" for my .17 HMR this way. I don't know how I'll seat the bullets, but I'm thinking about having someone make me some dies that'll work for it. All I need to do is find a way to prime them. I've messed around with it a little, but haven't gotten it to work so far. Any tips? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/confused1.gif




Look kid - no disrespect but this thread is getting real old...
... and you're being a flaming idiot of the first magnitude.

What I wrote was NOT the instructions on how to reload rimfire cartridges, just that I had done it. Now I'm sorry I wrote it. I thought this site was to share information with people that are interested in shooting - I guess the "stupid jerk filter" is not working.

First off, there was a lot I left out... and because there is now someone so stupid as to think they can do it, I will NOT give anymore information.

Second, what I did is NOT applicable to reloading ANY 17 cal cartridge.

Third, what I did was NOT to save money - if you are that cheap or desperate for money, get another hobby.

Forth, I started reloading at 11, I finished an advanced placement college inorganic chemistry course when I was 15 (I finished the advanced placement college physics course when I was 16).

You don't have the smarts or the experence to do it - there is no need to do it, you can not save money doing it, you can not make usable ammunition by doing it, and it CANNOT be done for the 17 cal cartridges...

... so stop acting like the child that you are and grow the hell up.

This thread should die right here!!


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Yeah I am starting reloading, but only for my 25 WSSM,still at 50 cents a pop. I just wanted a little info, if you think it's too dangerous, fine, I won't do it. I didn't know that before hand, but now that I've had my head chewed off several times I know that it isn't. A .223 Anvil Arms Ar-15 is in the works, until that I'll just keep coughing up the 15 bucks a week. It's worth it to shoot that gun. I'm not an idiot either, unless a 4.0 GPA, including College Algebra as a sophomore makes me an idiot (I guess there's more than one way to be an idiot) One day, I'll make 6 figures, but now I'm near broke. I just wanted to know if it was practical, now I know it isn't, that's what I wanted to, sorry if I made you sound like you were telling us how to do it, but it did give me an idea. Also, the stupid jerk filter is working, but it doesn't pick people like me up!
 
Most of us "older" fellas whom read such a post as you made just imagine a character 15 years old looking like Alford E Newman of Mad magazine fame in a darkly lit basement grinding up match heads. The next frame is just the bombed out basement with the house gone.

Most of us that have made it this far have done some silly and probably dangerous things on the way. We all are concerned when young folks think about doing things that can cause them harm, thus the posts we made.

Like Lost River stated notifying their loved ones is pretty hard.
 
utahpredator_7, I think folks are only coming on strong to make sure that you and anybody else reading this is getting the point. It is obvious by your posts that you are an intelligent person. I'll go so far as to say you are probably in the higher percentile of intelligence here. BUT..... intelligence isn't always a substitute for experience. Shortly after I blew my fingers off my friends little brother blew off a finger, took shrapnel to the front of his body and if he hadn't been wearing glasses he probably would have lost his eyesight. He thought he was being extra careful because I had just blown my fingers off several weeks earlier. Nobody wants to see you or anybody else get hurt over $15 a week. At this point $15 is BIG BUCKS to me, but it's not worth taking the chance of losing eyesight over. You've got a long life ahead of you. Protect your hearing, eyesight and general health now and it'll pay off in years to come.
 
I've stayed out of this up to now, but I'll throw in a professional opinion. I am a chemical engineer and work in manufacturing primary explosives every day. In fact, I design the reactors, control systems, and equipment. I cannot emphasize strong enough how much you should NOT do what you are proposing. Primary explosives and their mixtures are best left to the professionals.

Also, as was stated before, matches these days are also not matches of days gone by. Too many people doing their own chemistry and making meth from red phosphorous matches.

To be old and wise you must have once been young and stupid, but the adder to that is you have to live through the young and stupid.
 
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I'm not an idiot either, unless a 4.0 GPA, including College Algebra as a sophomore makes me an idiot (I guess there's more than one way to be an idiot)



Its not just about book smarts, you'll find out in life that those without real life experience to even the keel make for some real interesting folks- usually they turn out to be liberal democrats, and we dont want that for you.

Keep savin up for that AR, it will come in time. And your anxiousness will make it all the sweeter.
 
Me thinks you should listen to those above. Developing your own reloads for the 17 HMR would be a headache anyway. In addition to whats already been said:

1. You'd have to find a set of dies. Last I checked no one made 17 HMR dies
2. You'd have to get a chronograph to test loads.
3. Buy and test diffent powders to find one that actually may approach factory velocities.

The cost of these alone would easily eat up any saving you might get reloading.

And at the age of 25 I remember quite vividly being your age. Believe me, if you are going to risk mangling your body, at least do it doing something that makes a good story for the girls.
 
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It's just like 4 match heads. That's awful about that kid, but I don't make pipe bombs out of match heads, just like 4 match heads or less to prime a shell. Sorry if I sound like a stupid cocky teenager (which I probably do) but I hate buying things I can make myself. I also want to use the 20 grain v-max, which they haven't been smart enough to load factory yet. Yeah, .17 ammo is fairly cheap, but when you're 16, make 40 bucks a week at minimum wage, and are saving up for other things, 15 bucks a week really sucks.



Even if you dont want to listen to the safety aspect. Think about the accuracy and damage to your rifle. If you dont want to spend a couple bucks on safer factory ammo why would you want to do something that would harm your rifle and have to shell out to replace it?
 
Utah, tons of good advice here.

Do you realize the number of things that don't go well in military weapons? I was a designated weapons specialist during 21 yrs in the Navy with BIG weapons and 17 yrs in nuclear warheads. Things go wrong all the time in research and development and these programs are run with massive infusions of money, PhD's, laboratory equipment etc. They take extensive precautions and things still go wrong.

Modern science and engineering has been paved through the mistakes of many over the years, you're not in a position to evaluate the risk.

Get reloading advice from an experienced person and forget your effort to reload rimfires. Don
 
This past Monday at about 5:30pm I held the hand of a young man who tried to take a shortcut in life rather than listen to good, sound advice. I held his hand as he died. I also helped pick up the pieces of him following his "woops".

Listen to people who have YOUR BEST INTEREST in mind. Growing up and having more money and more opportunity may take awhile, but it is better than not growing up at all.
 
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