Forming Ackley Cases - With or without bullet?

[rking453]

Good evening everyone,

I am going to venture into my first Ackley chambered rifle. I am planning to find a nice donor Ruger M77 Hawkeye short action, and have a barrel custom made in 250 Savage Ackley Improved for whitetail hunting. I have owned or shot a large variety of bolt action hunting rifles, and there is just something about the look and feel of a walnut and blued Hawkeye that makes me love them more than any other.

I already have 200 250 Savage cases, and 200 relatively cheap Hornady 117 gr. BTSP bullets. I was planning to load up all 200, and use them to form the cases and break in the new barrel before developing hunting loads around Hammer Bullets.

I have been ready a lot lately about bullet-less fire forming. I am looking for opinions on this method, vs the method I had planned, just shooting normal loads to form the cases. Some folks say the bullet-less method does a better job forming the cases, is this true?

I would assume you want the cases as well formed as possible to give more accurate results when performing load development.

Any insight, advice, or opinions around this manner would be very much appreciated.

Thank you!

 

[Mikecr]

I would assume you want the cases as well formed as possible to give more accurate results when performing load development.

That much is true for sure.

The only advantage I can think of with cream of wheat (COW) forming, is in saving bullets.
Hydro forming could save one cycle of primers/powder/bullets/barrel life.

With a deep body dip anneal you can get solid forming in 2 shots on the cases.

 

[rking453]

Could you explain what you mean by deep body dip anneal? I have a flame annealer. Where and when should I be annealing during this process? Thanks for the input!

 

[just_jon]

I've been fire forming 250AI brass for 30 years. I use 12.3 grains of green dot with COW and ivory bar soap to seal the case. Cases are fully formed in one firing.

 

[rking453]

I've been fire forming 250AI brass for 30 years. I use 12.3 grains of green dot with COW and ivory bar soap to seal the case. Cases are fully formed in one firing.

Great info thank you! I do not have green dot, but I do have Titegroup. Do you think this would be a decent substitute?

 

[rking453]

I've been fire forming 250AI brass for 30 years. I use 12.3 grains of green dot with COW and ivory bar soap to seal the case. Cases are fully formed in one firing.

Do you put anything between the powder and the COW? How much COW, up to the shoulder?

 

[Swamplord]

don't need anything between the powder & cow, load cases with powder then cow directly on top, 1/4" lower than top of case mouth then push soap bar or paraffin candle directly into case mouth to fill that void and compress contents so they don't mix, clean off excess on neck & square off with top of case mouth...... recommend firing as soon as you can, if traveling to range or out of town sandpit etc. keep cases upright in ammo box & load & fire with rifle pointed up, plan to load & shoot on same day or load in the evening & shoot next day...

 

[rking453]

don't need anything between the powder & cow, load cases with powder then cow directly on top, 1/4" lower than top of case mouth then push soap bar or paraffin candle directly into case mouth to fill that void and compress contents so they don't mix, clean off excess on neck & square off with top of case mouth...... recommend firing as soon as you can, if traveling to range or out of town sandpit etc. keep cases upright in ammo box & load & fire with rifle pointed up, plan to load & shoot on same day or load in the evening & shoot next day...

Sounds great, I think I will go with this method. How often do you clean the barrel when doing this?

 

[SEGARE]

don't need anything between the powder & cow, load cases with powder then cow directly on top, 1/4" lower than top of case mouth then push soap bar or paraffin candle directly into case mouth to fill that void and compress contents so they don't mix, clean off excess on neck & square off with top of case mouth...... recommend firing as soon as you can, if traveling to range or out of town sandpit etc. keep cases upright in ammo box & load & fire with rifle pointed up, plan to load & shoot on same day or load in the evening & shoot next day...

Best description of COW process I've read.

 

[Swamplord]

this was with Peterson 300 NM brass & 17 gr of Blue Dot, fireforming into the 6.5 Skuldryl .... I prefer the paraffin wax candles vs the soap

.

 

[Hugnot]

Fire Forming without bullet:
Crush fit, case inside chamber.
Any kind of primer that fits.
Any kind of pistol powder.
COW, grits, or COR (cream of rice) work fine, the higher the sugar content the bigger the mess.
Start with 10% of total case capacity of case for given pistol powder then work up. 50 grains gets 5 grains, no doubt not enough but be safe, increase by .5 gr, increments.
Clean chamber after every round to avoid dents in brass caused by COW between brass & chamber.
Fire form will take 15-20 thou psi.
Don't mix COW with powder, I like to place wad of paper on top of powder but that can be skipped.
Seal off mouth of case with whatever, wax, soap, paper...
Fire Forming can be done without COW but rifle must be pointed straight up.
If you don't have nearby neighbors, fire forming may be done in garage using a capped 3-4 inch PVC pipe 4 -5 feet long, suspended at 30-45 * angle then blaze away with rifle inside pipe. Lots of junk & dust, noise as expected but not that bad. Vent lead bearing fumes (primers) from garage.
Bore will look like sewer pipe upon completion but stuff cleans out real easy but keep the chamber clean to avoid dented brass.

 

[Swamplord]

I use a compressor & air blower tip with trigger control to blast out action/chamber/barrel every shot, also cools barrel quick with a nice prolonged blast, drain compressor daily to keep air clean ...... out at my range I use the compressed air cans used for PC cleaning

 

[Seabeeken]

Ive done 243ai, 250ai, 257ai, 7x57ai, 280ai. I tried cow and ended up using coffee. I found a lot of burnt cow in the corners of the shoulders that had to be removed by a pick. This was before i started pin tumbling. The coffee is already burnt and makes less of a mess in the case and barrel. I use imr red for form cases. Any fast burning pistol powder will work fine. Out of all my ai rifles, the 257ai is by far my favorite.

 

[RidgeTop]

I have used corn meal, pistol powder and cotton on top of it all. Works good.