Modifying .22 Rimfire Ammo

[JimT]

I was in Academy Sports today and found .22 Long Rifle ammo for 6 1/2 cents a round ... so you know I had to buy some. They are "Monarch" brand ... a name for Brazilian-made ammo for distribution by Academy. The ammunition is produced by Companhia Brasileira de Cartuchos (Brazilian Cartridge Company), Avenida Industrial No 3330, Santo Andre, Estado de Sâo Paulo, Brazil and carries the CBC headstamp. I have seen that headstamp on 9mm ammo but never on .22 rimfire, not that I have been looking for it.

The cartridges have a 40 grain lead bullet and are typical of the cheaper American-made ammo that is put out by Federal, CCI etc. Buying it reminded me of when I was a teenager and Dad was always buying the cheapest .22's he could find. It was the best way he could keep me shooting and not break his wallet.

He made a tool to "flat-nose" the lead roundnose .22 ammo. I remember him trying different lengths until he found the length that would function through bolt actions and semi-auto handguns and rifles. Testing them on everything we could we discovered that on cottontails and squirrels the flat-nose .22's killed as good or better than a hollowpoint, and on small game like squirrels they did not destroy as much meat as a HP. And they were accurate!

Some years later ... in the 1980's ... Paco Kelly and Ed Wosika began making and marketing the tool to flat-nose the cheaper .22 ammo. Ed named it the Small Game Bullet - SGB - and for quite some time they made and sold them, giving my Dad a percentage. Dad never asked for it. He was just happy the idea worked. After a year or two Ed re-designed the tool making it easier to use.

Some time around 25 years ago I think it was, Ed visited with RCBS and CCI about producing the SGB Tool commercially. They looked at it and finally decided that since Paco and Ed had been selling it already, it wasn't worth investing in the tooling and said, "No thanks." About 1 year later CCI came out with flat-nose .22 Long Rifles named "The Small Game Bullet." Yep. Now my Dad never got upset about it. He never even commented on it other than something like "Oh well." And CCI did not owe Dad anything but it would have been a nice gesture to send him a case of ammo.

I still have one of the original SGB Tools. The Second Variation is larger around and easier to hold, the sides being knurled. But I dug the old one out this afternoon and modified a box of the Brazilian .22's.

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The only place I know of that is making a tool to flat-nose .22's these days is Gary Reeder Custom Guns. His tool is a lot nicer than the originals, being able to do 3 or 4 cartridges at one time.

This photo is from his website showing what the flat nose can do.

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I shot a lot of game years ago with the SGB bullet. The largest critters I shot with it were Javelina. They would come in our yard at night and fight with the dog and root up the wife's flowers and fight among themselves over the peaches that fell from our trees. About 2AM one morning I grabbed my .22 rifle and ran out the door and fired amongst them. One fell over. The next day I cleaned it and found the bullet under the hide on the off side. The load was a Standard Velocity Remington .22 Long Rifle. This is the ammo and the actual bullet.

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I shot other Javelina at distance to 25 yards with the SGB bullet and never had to shoot one twice.

Now I have 50 rounds finished and one of these days I will shoot them for accuracy and them maybe do a test where I shoot them against commercial hollowpoints and recover the bullets for comparison. That might be fun.

[Old No7]

Interesting story Jim. I've had great results with the CCI version when hunting.

My Dad had a similar experience as yours with a tool his father had invented to make locksmithing easier on a certain brand of key-in-knob sets. His father had initiated the idea and my Dad improved upon it -- and then a rep from "that company" saw it in use and remembered enough details for what/how/why that a couple of years later, they "developed" (dare I say "stole"?!) the idea and released a commercial version for sale to the trade nationally.

Ironically, 15 years later, my older brother would become a patent attorney, but at the time my dad said he was "Too busy running a shop and raising 4 boys" than to try and make money off his father's idea.

Oh well -- they were from the greatest generation after all.

Old No7

[JimT]

YES THEY WERE!!

[Grizz]

I have a brick or so of .22 LR sitting around somewhere, gonna try to remember to try the shortening protocol.
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i've been a flat-nose user for a while now . . .
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[Steve in MO]

I bought one of the original Hanned tools years ago, and still use it today. A few years after I got it, I had a gunsmith friend of mine make one for the .22 Magnum. That works like a champ! I haven't used it as much as the one for .22LR, I guess I need to get after that.

[JimT]

I made one for the 7.62x39 when I had a semi-auto AK.

I made one for the 9mm last year.

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With cast bullet

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[Nath]

Great story Jim.

I made one for 357 many years ago. Works a treat.

[EdinCT]

Great minds think alike! I saw my die yesterday looking through a bin on the bench.When I saw it I thought I'd better make up some more 22's. I shot two red foxes in my chickens with a SGB. They dropped right quick too!

[yooper2]

Paco gifted me one of his tools, makes a huge difference being able to dial in the bullet diameter. I made a punch for it that resembles a LFN profile which has proven excellent on small game.


Eric

[gcs]

I have one of Paco's "whack a mole" tools, works great, My father left me a case of standard velocity target 22's, and I run them through Paco's tool...

I also made a tool to modify 32 longs for a flat nose similar to what you showed, except I used a piece of hardened oak and a tight drilled hole, saw off the tip with a Dremel tool. Works good enough for a handful at a tome. Those 32 lead round nose's need a little help anyway.

[Ysabel Kid]

Thanks for sharing this Jim. The results speak for themselves.

[AJMD429]

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Are Paco's tools still available...? I have one somewhere but would love an 'extra'...

The ad-banner is up on the Leverguns.com page - https://www.leverguns.com/ - but the link doesn't work...

[JimT]

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Are Paco's tools still available...? I have one somewhere but would love an 'extra'...

The ad-banner is up on the Leverguns.com page - https://www.leverguns.com/ - but the link doesn't work...

No they aren't. Paco hasn't made any in several years now. The website needs updated since there's stuff on there from the early 2000's that no longer exists. I am not sure who can do that.

[Scott Tschirhart]

I have one of Paco’s tool sets to make various types of .22 bullets and diameters. But I have to confess that I have never used it.

[ikocher]

Thanks for the reminder. I need to get the Accu-RZR out and actually start tinkering with the boxes of Aguila Standard I have. I also have a box of the new Remington Standard-V I need to sit down with and see how the Model 17-9 likes it

[marlinman93]

Modified .22LR bullets and cases is pretty neat stuff. I made a cartridge holder from an old collet years ago so I could chuck .22 ammo in my cheap Chinese lathe and make hollow points out of cheap .22LR ammo. They were deadly on small game and being a hollow point they still fed flawlessly.
There was a gentleman here in Oregon back in the 1970's who was pulling bullets on .22LR and .22 Magnum and made up a forming die to turn them in .17 caliber bottleneck cartridges! He used jacketed spire point .17 bullets, and his own powder charges. This was well before any of the modern .17 RF cartridges came out, so he was ahead of his time. I had samples of both types he made, but sold my cartridge collection and they went with it.

[AJMD429]

I have one of Paco’s tool sets to make various types of .22 bullets and diameters. But I have to confess that I have never used it.

You should try it. I found it made the cheap bulk-type ammo perform better in ACCURACY, which was all I could really measure, since I don't really hunt with the 22 LR. I would assume the flat and concave pointed ammo would be great for small game.

....if you find you don't like the tool, I might buy it off you since I can't seem to find my own....

(that's the best and most reliable way to find things I've lost - just give in and buy another one, and the next day it's 90% guaranteed I'll find the original, whether it is a ViceGrip, wire-cutter, solenoid for my wood furnace damper, or whatever... )

[samsi]

My experience mirrors the Docs on both counts, I find lost things and soon as I buy a replacement, and the Paco tool shrinks groups with bulk ammo by about a third. I've got the multi- diameter 4 hole version but found that .224 works best for most guns.

[Bill in Oregon]

Well y'all are making me regret selling my Paco tool on here a year or two ago. Never gave it a decent try, but then I haven't hunted small game in many decades.
If I had had a .22 on me I would have been tempted when I almost stepped on a desert cottontail yesterday wandering among the piles of chert reduced for tool making by the ancients in this part of the Southwest. You can see the fractured banded chert in the close up, taking from a high point looking south. There are petroglyphs near that gap on the horizon.