219 Imp Zipper

[Ouisconsin]

I bought a box of reloading dies and going through it found another odd one (see my post about the Vickerman).

It's a bullet sizer from Herter's (H in C) that appears to be a 219 Improved Zipper.

Does anyone shoot this caliber anymore? I bought the box of stuff so I could keep what I shoot and sell the rest.

Wikipedia has an interesting article and states: "The .219 Zipper cartridge was created by Winchester Repeating Arms in 1937 to be used in their lever-action Model 64 rifle. It is a .25-35 Winchester cartridge necked down to a .22 caliber bullet."

(from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.219_Zipper)

They also state that it's used in a Winchester's tubular magazine so it has to have a round nose bullet which causes it to lose velocity quickly.

They stopped making ammo in the early 60's.

So does anyone still shoot this?

Any thoughts on what this would be worth?

Thanks,

Tom

[versifier]

I have no idea what the die set would be worth, but I can tell you that the Zipper and ZipperImp are still chambered for single shots like the Contender and Encore, though these days they're strictly custom propositions. The rim makes for quicker reloading in such actions. No need to worry about using FN or RN bullets for them like you would for a lever action/tubular mag, any bullet suitable for .222/.223 will work fine. The Imp version will give you a few hundred fps more velocity than the standard version and a lot of m94's were rechambered for it. Both are great small game/varmint rounds good to beyond 200yds, though not up to the performance of more modern rounds. Anything hit with them is not going to know the difference. I would post on CastBoolits (link above) or on RLB http://reloadbench.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/Ultimate.cgi to find out more about them and figure out what they're worth and where you can sell them.

[runfiverun]

savage made a version of it also [22 highpower], and there is a european metric equivelant 5.56x51R but they call it something screwey like 5.6x52 or like that anyways.
the 219 zipper dies can still be bought new from rcbs.
a search through thier catalogue [graf and sons or rcbs right next door b.t.w.]
should give you an idea as to what they cost nowdays.