Thread: 22lr Resizing/Hollow Pointing Tool

Is the photo of the 'HP stem with a tip flair built in'. Can you explain the 'tip flair' please - I don't understand from looking at the photo. The stem seems to be the same diameter along its length. Also, what is the diameter of the stem and how deep do you insert it into the bullet? Thanks for a very interesting development of 22RF ammo.

Originally Posted by rupert

Is the photo of the 'HP stem with a tip flair built in'. Can you explain the 'tip flair' please - I don't understand from looking at the photo. The stem seems to be the same diameter along its length. Also, what is the diameter of the stem and how deep do you insert it into the bullet? Thanks for a very interesting development of 22RF ammo.

The HP stem has a taper of around 3degrees. The tip flair is the angled section where it steps up to the full punch diameter. I set the die so that the angled section goes a small way into the tip of the projectile, which "flairs the tip" a little. Essentially I'm adding a small countersink to the end of the hollow point cavity to promote expansion and reduce the cavity being plugged which stops expansion.

Just a variation on a theme, but after seeing your tests I think I've settled on the punch shape for my setup as well. I was using a 60deg lathe centre, but am now using a simple 28deg cone with a needle tip. 2.5mm cavity diameter at the nose, 5mm cavity depth - so twice the depth I was using before. Gives wider expansion than my older version and looks near identical to the mushroomed bullets you posted above.