Fire Forming with Factory Ammo

[Greg Duerr]

I need to fire form .243 brass to the .243 Ackley..................I have heard that you need to seat your bullet out so that it runs into the rifleing. Why cant you just shoot factory .243 ammo in the improved chamber and get the same results. In the past I use to shoot ground squirrels with 22 Hornet ammo in a 22K-Hornet chamber to get the same results..............it shot very accuratly and at the same time I was fireforming the brass...............Then I would run the brass through my full length die.
I have lots of .243 ammo 100gr and 80gr.

Thoughts and sugjestions...........??

 

[Browninglover1]

I'm not near as educated on this process as many of the members here but I think you would be just fine shooting normal loads. That's one of the reasons that Ackley cartridges are so popular is because they can fire the standard parent cartridge if you ever need them to. My little brother has a 300 Tejas (Ultra Mag Improved) and the smith just told him to fire factory rounds to get his brass and he would be just fine.

Maybe someone else with a better understanding of the concept will give us a different answer but I'd just go shooting if I were you.

 

[Greg Duerr]

Browning ........


That makes sence to me and makes things a WHOLE lot simpler..........

Thanks.

 

[Greg Duerr]

Plus its a great time to break in your barrel............

 

[Browninglover1]

Have a good time shooting!

 

[OKIE2]

Where the neck and shoulder meets is the same on both cases.
you can fire factory or ackley it does not matter.

 

[Dano1]

I would say depends if you have a tight neck Chamber. I have one Ackley that is and 2 that are not.

The tight neck is a 6.5-06 Ackley Improved, I have to neck down or neck up depending on which case. If I neck up .25-06 Rem I stop right there,(besides full case prepping) load and fire form. However I prefer to neck down .270 Win brass trim to length, turn necks, all other prep work, load and fireform. These cases are perfect.

The .30-06 is lload & shoot as is the .243. I have made brass for the .243 AI out of .308 Lake City Math Brass and I have to do the same steps as for the 6.5-06 AI.

Turning the necks may be necessary, I don't mind as they seem to shoot better when I do.

Dan

 

[SBruce]

As long as you don't have a tight neck chamber in the 243AI, you're usually good to go with shooting factory 243 ammo or handloaded ammo that's been FL sized (within reason). If you feel a slight resistance when chambering a round, that is good.

The AI chamber should be just a tad shorter at the neck/shoulder junction in a perfect world. That's how they were designed to be anyway. Just as long as it's not longer than factory headspace.........that's when we need to seat bullets out long or create a false shoulder on the neck.

A rifle that's properly set up should shoot well under moa while fireforming. I've even heard tell that some have actually gotten better groups while fireforming.? When I was forming some 6 long dasher stuff a few months ago, I was getting some 1/2 moa groups at 300 and 400 yds just shooting off the hood of the pickup.

 

[Greg Duerr]

That's incredible......................................off the hood ........wow

 

[SBruce]

That's incredible......................................off the hood ........wow

Not freehand, LOL. I wish I could shoot that good with only my hands.
I had a sandbag under the forend and a rolled up coat under the butt. But I was standing up and resting on the hood of the truck, no bench no bipod.

My "new to me" 243AI seems to shoot pretty well forming brass too. No problems hitting prarie dogs at 350 yds with cheap factory ammo........as long as I called the wind right.