fire form or buy whats needed?

[chad]

I have heard fire forming brass gives you more life and less stretching, my 280 AI should be done in a couple weeks and I don't know if fire forming brass is the better way to go or buy the over priced nosler Ackley brass. God knows why they want 30 to 40 dollars more for brass that's Ackley improved?

 

[gohring3006]

I would fire form if u can get some 280s it won't hurt a thing if your barrel isn't broken in. Just do that while u fire form then u kill two birds with one stone

 

[chad]

barreis boken in, its a factory barrel I just had Ackley ized.

 

[gohring3006]

sounds like you should have some brass already I would fire form your brass for two reasons one is its cheaper than buying the new stuff which if you buy new it will be technically fire formed to your chamber anyway and the second reason is you can use up all that 280 brass that you would not use anymore if you didn't fire form I guess it would depend on if your 280 brass has been work alot where it is at the end of its life and needs rotated out anyway

 

[chad]

I have plenty of 280 brass. I was thinkin of just getting some light bullets and about 30 grains of powder and forming them. I think that would work.

 

[gohring3006]

that will work just don't go to low on your charges as you might know it can just as bad as to much powder

 

[chad]

gotcha thnx

 

[J E Custom]

I have plenty of 280 brass. I was thinkin of just getting some light bullets and about 30 grains of powder and forming them. I think that would work.

Warning : Stay away from squib loads. Load at the minimum listed in your manual.

Squib loads can be very dangerous because of the air/oxygen space left with light/squib
loads causes the powder to burn faster,(It changes the burn rate).

A normal/minimum load will also give you a better fire form.

Be safe

J E CUSTOM

 

[chad]

Thanks for that info. I have heard of squib loads and didn't know what they were talking about. But ill do the min load listed. Thanks again.

 

[bamadawg2009]

I just load full strength hunting loads in mine to fire form, then you also have a back-up ammo to use if you dont have a chance to load Ackley loads before you need them. I run 57grains of RL22 in my 280 cases to fireform with and get .3s group and have not had a problem.

 

[MudRunner2005]

When forming for my Ackleys, I load about 5 grains less powder than book minimum so as to not blow out or crack the shoulder during form expansion.

For example, going to form some .300 Ackley brass tomorrow. Loaded up light enough to do no damage or blow the shoulder, but enough to form the brass properly. Also have to re-form some 7mm STW brass that had been previously blown-out to a Tejas, then I formed the shohlder back down for possible .300 Ackley, but it was too stiff on the bolt closure for my liking. So I sized the walls and necks back down to 7mm STW specs and loaded a pretty light load (60gr of powder) so I don't crack the shoulder walls because they've been worked so much recently.

 

[Trickymissfit]

fire forming has it's pro's and con's. I do a good bit of fire forming, so have an idea.

* the main issue with fire forming is brass displacement. If you doing a round like a .308 Ackley Improved, this is not all that much of an issue as some like 22-250AI. The case necks actually shrink to make up for the brass displacement in the shoulder area. (it's easier to move brass in the neck area than the shoulder). So always expect some shrinkage

* Of course you can maybe buy a preformed case that is to size. That eliminates most all shrinkage problems. Still, it's a generic case that's meant to fit most chambers. Fire forming will still need to be done, but the above issues will be very minor compared to others.

* the next reason to buy a preformed case is that the process is just plain nasty. But alas those nasty ones are rare and often unobtainable anyway (30 Meyer comes to light).

so assuming the brass quality is good and the case reasonably fits the chamber; I'd jump on it! I fire form brass with some fairly stiff loads, but still not close to max. Maybe a good stiff mid range load. I like to use a cheap bullet jammed into the lands when possible. Others like the cream of wheat method. I used to know one well known BR shooter that fire formed with wax bullets that he made himself. I look for mid range loads that are of higher chamber pressures, and go from there.
gary

 

[chad]

thanks everyone

 

[Catfur]

Due to the present unavailability of Norma 6XC brass, I have fireformed all of my 6XC brass from Lapua 22-250.

You will end up with cases that are quite a bit shorter than before, they won't need trimming for a long time. And until you learn how to do the process right, you'll likely lose quite a few cases in the process (I lost about 8% my first try, 0% on the second run) due to a variety of reasons.