doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com Found the gun.. now need Stevens 22-15 SS Ammo...

Glad you got some cartridges from Denny! He's a great guy, and extremely knowledgeable on all things involving old US guns. I talked to a fella who is a friend of yours at the OAC collector gun show last weekend. As soon as he started describing your gun I told him I'd seen your post here.

Yes the nibbing is only draw out the OA length.
Then you still need to form the case in a FL sizer a;ong with the usual trimming to length.

Any of this drawing, nibbing and other drastic case elongation and sometimes diameter changes often rquires some equipment,,like a lathe and a very powerful press.
Not the norm for the average reloader.

I feel the same about lathe turned cases. They seem to work OK with BP loads from what I've read. Careful/watchful annealling seems to be one aspect of long case life.
Sometimes their cost per/case isn't too bad considering the alternative(s). But you often have to order a 100 or more. At even 6 or $7 a case, that's quite an investment.

BACO draws out some cases a good amount to make some obsolete brass they sell. I'm amazed at how much they're able to stretch cases. They stretch .30-40 Krag cases out to 2.50" to make the .40-70SS cases they sell.

I was surprised when I saw this post. I had never seen the case listed as a 22-15 SS. I thought this was something similar to the 25-20 SS. When I saw the pictures it was obviously the 22-15-60. I first became aware of the case when it was on the cover of Cartridges of the World (around the 3rd edition I believe). This was 60 years ago when I was a freshman in college. It was pictured in a group of cartridges and was one of the freakiest looking cartridge I had ever seen. It had an aspect ratio of over 8:1. Even at that time it was obselete. The writeup pretty much wrote it off as fouling faster than you could clean it. It has always been my understanding that the whole range of the 22 centerfires (and this one in particular) were supplanted by the 25-20 style of cartridges for small bore target shooting.In spite of this, I would still like to own one.
Like others, I believe that Rocky Mountain makes the cases. I have bought a lot of their products, mostly for old shotguns and black powder. At the pressures they run, their cases with BP simply last forever and are a good investment for antique guns. You only need as many as you would need at one sitting. With most bench or target shooting, reloading between targets is generally practical and actually preferred for changing conditions. Modern benchresters tend to firesort cases and have a match set that are fireformed and indexed fir rotation, using only these matched cases for sighters and scoring shots. With this system only a box of cartridges would be need for a match. I have never done BP target shooting but I thought at it's zenith, the bullet was started with a dedicated tool and a single cartridge used for every shot.

This story just got better for me... I called Ray Giles in Texas... he has a couple of full boxes. He sold a sealed full box recently off his webpage for $195. which I think is a bargain... I'm attending the Texas Collectors Show in Denton Texas in October and so is Ray, he's going to bring a box and a few extra rounds for me to purchase. The box is still shown on his webpage.

OSS,
I don't have a dog in this fight, but it would be a good idea to determine if the primers in that ammo are mercuric or not. I have mentioned pulling down a case of 11mm Spanish ammo a couple times before, these were also loaded by U.M.C. (ca 1911-12) and had mercuric primers (Berdan, in folded head cases). This was before BP shooters made 45-90 cases pretty common and I was using salvaged cases in my 11mm Spanish Rolling block. Over time, the mercury will make the cases too brittle to use for hand loading. The way to save the cases, if the primers are mercuric, is to pull the bullets, dump the powder and hydraulically de-prime them (if they are Berdan primed). If Boxer primed, but mercuric, hydraulically de-priming them is still best because if any detonate, they will ruin the case. Usually, when they first started using non-mercuric primers, their use was stated on the box. I don't know if the warning to use no. 1 1/2 primers was intended to accomplish this.
Mike