.22 airgun pellets in centerfire .22?

[Spindrift]

Have any of you guys tried to shoot .22-cal airgun pellets in your .22cal centerfire rifles, using primer-only as a propellant?
I’ve decided to explore this concept a little. A little basement fun during the winter!

So, today I bought some .22 pellets and some new primers. Small rifle magnum primers, and some shotgun primers (that will require drilling/reaming primer pockets of course. I thought I’d try them in my .222rem, eventually.

One obvious problem is, the the fact that the bullets are to skinny. They tend to fall through the neck of FL-sized brass. I can think of a few possible solutions
1) powder coat the bullets, this increasing the diameter. Bit this requires some work.
2) tumble lubing them with some sticky Lee goo, might help the bullets stick
3) forming .222 brass from .223 and leaving the neck overly thick

Any tips or experience, guys?

 

[Bill]

I took the expander ball out of my 22 hornet dies and gave it a go a few years ago

Bill

 

[Spindrift]

expander ball out

Good idea, didn’t think of that! Thanks!

 

[JWFilips]

My buddy Ed shoots the 22 airgun pellets with just a Remington primer from his 22 hornet in his attic during the winter!
He has been doing that for years. I have no details but I can pick his brain about it

 

[david s]

In a 22 Hornet I've just lightly squeezed the neck out of round to hold the pellet and used rifle primers, vvvvvvvt is the sound they make. Be careful to not over pressure the pellet. It's possible it blow a hole in the nose or separate the pellet into two pieces. The old Crossman pellets were what I used. Your powder coated ones look different.

 

[RicinYakima]

1: stick with small rifle primers, or small pistol primers as the shotgun ones I used were very inaccurate
2: I deprime with a hand tool and reprime and don't size cases
3: coating with LLA is messy but works
4: for me most accurate was just breech seating with a plugged case

 

[Ian]

4: for me most accurate was just breech seating with a plugged case

^^^^^THIS! Solves the undersized problem, the leaky engraving problem, and the accuracy problem all at once. Ramset blanks in a .22 rimfire with a .22 pellet breech seated just enough ahead of the blank that the crimp won't interfere with the pellet skirt upon firing is quite a thrill.

 

[Spindrift]

Thank you all for excellent advice!
I’ll report back when I have tried this a bit.