CZ-52 loads ... Grapes of Wrath edition

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Netpackrat
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Re: CZ-52 loads ... Grapes of Wrath edition

Post by Netpackrat »

Here's what I was talking about:

Image

Not sure if it is going to cause a problem or not.
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Re: CZ-52 loads ... Grapes of Wrath edition

Post by Netpackrat »

OK, so I finally shot some of these this evening. I didn't fire any of those I loaded up to max in the factory cases because I hadn't brought my chronograph, but I did shoot all of those I loaded in the re-formed cases using a somewhat reduced load, of 6 grains of Unique and the cast bullets. Despite looking goofy with the exposed lube groove, they shot just fine and with total reliability. As expected, there was a bit of a bulge in the reformed cases due to .223 having a slightly smaller case head diameter than 7.62x25, but it wasn't really enough that I was concerned about it.

I've got the mini chop saw, and the cutting jig sitting in a box still, and some more .223 cases that I scrounged, so the next step is to get set up and see if the additional tooling makes it possible to turn out the cases at a reasonable rate. I think I can do them fast enough to make it compare well to buying new brass, which of course isn't available right now anyway.

I also recently acquired a primer pocket swager that was in a box of reloading stuff that AlaskaTRX and I were given by our uncle (which he was given by a friend), so I don't need to worry about the crimped primer pockets anymore. On the previous batch of cases, I just used a hole chamfering tool from my aircraft sheet metal stuff to remove the crimps. Once I get the next batch of cases made, I will post how long it took me.

It's pretty cool to have something that I can shoot more or less with impunity because I can reload it with scrap as long as I have powder and primers. And I still have a shit-ton of Unique, and I was able to score more small pistol primers not long ago.
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Re: CZ-52 loads ... Grapes of Wrath edition

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I turned another 74 fired .223 cases into 7.62x25, and kept track of how long each step took. I only timed the conversion of 50 cases to keep the math easier. I didn't count setup time, or time spent learning the new tools, because that will be the same whether processing 10 cases or 1000.

First of all, the trimming jig that mounts in the Harbor Fright saw works pretty well. It took a little fiddling to get it trimming to the right length, but once set, it was really fast. The only real drawback to the jig is that the trimmed cases go shooting out of it with some force, so you need something to catch them, and they still go all over sometimes. I started out with 75 .223 cases. I'm sure the last one will turn up eventually. It took me 14 minutes and 10 seconds to trim 50 cases to length and deburr prior to forming.

Not much to say about forming... It took 5:50 to do all 50; I'm not counting that against my time (even though it's the main part of the process) because it is the exact same process as resizing, and you have to resize no matter what, even if buying new brass.

The next step was reaming and trimming to length, then deburring the inside and outside of the case mouths. The power attachment on the case trimmer makes short work of the reaming and trimming. This stage took 22 minutes and10 seconds to accomplish.

After that, I set up the primer pocket swager on my old RCBS press, since it won't work with the Co-Ax. As it turned out, very few of these cases had crimped primers, so this mostly consisted of seeing if the swager would enter the primer pocket freely, and swaging if necessary. Probably less than half a dozen of them actually needed it, so I was done with this in 3:30.

Added all up, and not counting the actual forming (see above), I spent 39 minutes and 50 seconds converting 50 .223 cases into 7.62x25. Or Just under 1 hour 20 minutes for 100. Since new brass runs $21/100 normally, it's probably not worth the effort. That's assuming you can get brass, which you can't right now. There's also some more time to be saved by power tools (I am still deburring by hand). Forster makes a trimmer blade set that should allow me to combine the reaming, trimming, and deburring all into one step. I can probably cut another 10-15 minutes off of the time to make 50 cases with more tooling.

[Edited because I fell asleep in my chair while posting, woke up, and tried to finish and posted it before I staggered off to bed.]
Last edited by Netpackrat on Fri Jul 05, 2013 8:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: CZ-52 loads ... Grapes of Wrath edition

Post by Combat Controller »

That 6 grains of Unique is what I load in my 230 ball for my .45
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Re: CZ-52 loads ... Grapes of Wrath edition

Post by Netpackrat »

CombatController wrote:That 6 grains of Unique is what I load in my 230 ball for my .45
And that's not even a very hot load for an 85 grain bullet out of a CZ-52. My XTP loads (and factory ammo) sling the spent brass a lot further than these did. Then again, .45ACP never sent all the body armor designers back to the drawing board, either. :lol:
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Re: CZ-52 loads ... Grapes of Wrath edition

Post by Netpackrat »

So, why start a new thread when continuing an 11+ year old one will do?

Anyhoo, I think I have have finally got my Tok reloading for the CZ-52 to a state where I am happy with it. I have a decent XTP hollowpoint load, which was easy, and now I have the plinking ammo situation in hand. Up until recently, not much had changed in the 7 years since I last posted in this thread. XTPs, and FMJs from both Hornady and Sierra were available (maybe not so much at the moment), but none of them are really priced such as to be good projectiles for plinking ammo. I found the one maker of a Tok specific cast bullet that I think I linked previously, but they didn't have a web store, and further research indicated others had experienced spotty customer service and long delivery times (and even non-delivery of paid orders) from them. No off the shelf molds were really suitable either... Lots of people managed to make various Lee molds designed for other cartridges work, about like I could get the .30 Mauser mold from RCBS to sort of work. Oh, and at some point PRVI FMJ projos became available, but for some stupid reason they are sized to .3065" diameter and not the .308 bore diameter that they should be.

That's where it sat. Every once in a while I would do some searching to see if anything had changed, and a few months ago, I found a reference to Accurate Molds having a bullet that would work on another forum. Found it on their website, specifically the 31-087B designed for Tokarev. A flat nose bullet rather than round nosed, but with only one lube groove down low, and a crimp groove higher up where it needs to be. Still a custom mold, but at least the bullet was one of their stock designs and I didn't have to try to design one myself.

They offer their molds in different sizes and materials, and they take Lee commercial handles which you have to source separately. I had themmake a 3 cavity mold out of aluminum. It works, but I kind of wish I had gone with cast iron now. It takes a while for it to get up to a good casting temp, which I theorize is due to there only being 3 cavities of relatively small size, and the comparatively large mass of aluminum carries the heat away too quickly. But once it does get up to temperature it works fine.

Image

Here is one of the new 87 grain flat nose bullets from the Accurate mold on the left, and one of the 85 grain 30 Mauser pills from the RCBS mold on the right. Note the position of the lube groove and crimp groove. I ended up casting these out of some hardball alloy supplied by Rotometals since I have nearly exhausted my supply of wheel weight lead.

Image

Accurate mold with a couple of the finished cartridges. I ended up using the same 6 grains of Unique as before, and seating to 1.365" put the crimp groove where it needed to be.

Image

And the Czech Canceler. For shits and grins, I looked around to see what these are going for these days. Turns out if you missed out on them back when they were still being imported, you'll have to pay prices comparable to a that of a new, modern pistol now if you really want one.

Part of the reason why this caliber had been a low priority was because I had to load them on a single stage press. There is no conversion available for my SDB, so I pushed it to the back of my mind. Enter the Dillon XL750 that I bought back in April... I found that I could either buy the 7.62x25 kit for it, or a 9mm conversion (which was a lot easier to find) and a 30 carbine powder funnel. The 9mm kit didn't come with the right casefeed adapter but it turns out to be the same as the one for 40S&W, which I already had. The case head diameter of normal brass is the same as 9mm and since I am also running 300 Blackout, I have the 5.56 shellplate for loading brass which is re-formed from 5.56/.223.

Turns out I had quite a lot of that which I had re-formed at some point before I packed up my reloading gear and moved, so I had plenty of brass to use with the new cast bullets. I found that I hadn't bothered expanding the case necks after forming, so I put a Lyman "M" die in place of a resizing die in Station 1, which not only expands the necks, but also flares the case mouth a little to avoid shaving. I also found that I can't run the press as fast as I am used to since the tiny bullets are a bit awkward to handle and place on the case neck, but it was still lots faster than loading on a single stage press. The electric case feed is also a little slower to fill the tube, but since I can't run the press as fast anyway, it works out.

Only thing that sucks is the 7.62x25 case is short enough that I can't use the Honey Badger power trimmer on the Dillon press to form and trim in one operation, aided by the electric case feed. As it is, you need a shorter than normal tool head to form/trim 300blk (which is 10mm longer) on the press.
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Re: CZ-52 loads ... Grapes of Wrath edition

Post by Jered »

Random trivia.

Apparently you can use 7.63 Mauser loads in this pistol. The Mauser is not as hot but the rounds are dimensionally identical.
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Re: CZ-52 loads ... Grapes of Wrath edition

Post by Netpackrat »

Jered wrote: Wed Sep 02, 2020 6:47 pm Random trivia.

Apparently you can use 7.63 Mauser loads in this pistol. The Mauser is not as hot but the rounds are dimensionally identical.
Yes, basically. They use the same conversion kit from Dillon and I think most of the dies are the same. The Soviets ended up with a bunch of Mauser pistols between the wars, so when they came up with their own pistols, they hot-rodded the cartridge a bit and that's what they standardized on.
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Re: CZ-52 loads ... Grapes of Wrath edition

Post by Netpackrat »

Decided to make another batch of the brass since I have the Dillon to speed the forming (plus a better primer pocket swager), and learned a couple things. First, the casefeed adapter I was using (which was actually the one for 10mm, not 40S&W like I posted previously) is just a hair too short to work with the rough trimmed cases; the one for 300blk works fine, however. Second, the settings for the collator out of the Dillon manual won't really allow the case feeder to keep up. It calls for using the small pistol plate and window position 3, but I found I had to also add a spacer under the plate to get it to work OK. Turning up the motor RPM didn't seem to make any significant difference in the rate of cases actually being dumped into the tube; it couldn't keep up either way until I added the spacer.
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