Fireforming .280 AI from .280 Remington brass or .270 Win brass?

[J E Custom]

Gotcha as JE Custom wrote in a reply yesterday @ 7:30PM, Nosler was warned that there would be a problem making the changes that they did, however manufactured their cartridge under Ackley's name anyways. You are now the second person who has replied with the same information. Perhaps Nosler ought to have called "their" cartridge ".280 Nosler" instead of using Ackley's name, but....then maybe it would not have been so appealing to the shooting community. And if they did use the name .280 Nosler that then would be getting confused with the 28 Nosler, the new addition to the Nosler line of cartridges. You're right about all of the original Ackley cartridges, he did nothing to change the overall length of the case, that was the beauty of all his improvements.

It would have been better to call the Nosler something else because re loaders and wildcatters had been loading the 280 AI for many years and using standard 280 Rem ammo to safely fire form the 280 AI (Ackley). There were many shoulder variations from 30o to 40o but the case body to neck length never changed.

One of the reasons that they called it the 280 AI was there were no listing in the SAMMI specs for it and all they had to do was submit the original dimensions to SAMMI and request that it be included and call it their cartridge and start manufacturing formed ammo and brass for it.

But they chose to change the dimension and create a major problem. I have always liked and used Nosler products, but for the life of me I cant grasp why they would do something like this.

I noticed that some are still saying that you can shoot 280 rem ammo/brass in the Nosler version and they are right You can but not safely and for one or two firings but with the difference in length the case is stretched .014 to .018 after the first firing and the damage is done to the case. just because you can fire a different cartridge in a chamber, doesn't mean you should. I have seen many wrong cartridges fired in the wrong chamber and the person got away with it, without injury.to them selves. but the case was ruined and in some instances the chamber was damaged.

The 280 AI and the 280 SAMMI AI are two different cartridges thanks to Nosler and are not interchangeable. "Period" .

No good smith would set the head space at .014+ and essentially that is what happens if you fire a standard 280 Rem in the new SAMMI chamber.

If a person can read and understand the SAMMI chamber specification, it clearly shows the difference and when you add .003 thousandths head space (Normally max) you can have up to .020+
clearance in the shoulder.

If one can understand that the two cartridges are different, It should be easy to know what ammo to fire in what chamber.

J E CUSTOM

 

[Edd]

It would have been better to call the Nosler something else because re loaders and wildcatters had been loading the 280 AI for many years and using standard 280 Rem ammo to safely fire form the 280 AI (Ackley). There were many shoulder variations from 30o to 40o but the case body to neck length never changed.

One of the reasons that they called it the 280 AI was there were no listing in the SAMMI specs for it and all they had to do was submit the original dimensions to SAMMI and request that it be included and call it their cartridge and start manufacturing formed ammo and brass for it.

But they chose to change the dimension and create a major problem. I have always liked and used Nosler products, but for the life of me I cant grasp why they would do something like this.

I noticed that some are still saying that you can shoot 280 rem ammo/brass in the Nosler version and they are right You can but not safely and for one or two firings but with the difference in length the case is stretched .014 to .018 after the first firing and the damage is done to the case. just because you can fire a different cartridge in a chamber, doesn't mean you should. I have seen many wrong cartridges fired in the wrong chamber and the person got away with it, without injury.to them selves. but the case was ruined and in some instances the chamber was damaged.

The 280 AI and the 280 SAMMI AI are two different cartridges thanks to Nosler and are not interchangeable. "Period" .

No good smith would set the head space at .014+ and essentially that is what happens if you fire a standard 280 Rem in the new SAMMI chamber.

If a person can read and understand the SAMMI chamber specification, it clearly shows the difference and when you add .003 thousandths head space (Normally max) you can have up to .020+
clearance in the shoulder.

If one can understand that the two cartridges are different, It should be easy to know what ammo to fire in what chamber.

J E CUSTOM

Well actually JE, if one can read and understand the SAAMI chamber specification, it clearly shows the headspace is less with the Nosler SAAMI chamber. If you fire form standard 280 ammo in a SAAMI chamber, it will stretch less than it will if you fire it in an original 280 AI chamber. If there is going to be an issue with fire forming off the shelf 280 ammo, the issue will be closing the bolt. If you hand load new standard 280 brass, you can compensate for this with an initial pass thru a sizing die.

 

[J E Custom]

Well actually JE, if one can read and understand the SAAMI chamber specification, it clearly shows the headspace is less with the Nosler SAAMI chamber. If you fire form standard 280 ammo in a SAAMI chamber, it will stretch less than it will if you fire it in an original 280 AI chamber. If there is going to be an issue with fire forming off the shelf 280 ammo, the issue will be closing the bolt. If you hand load new standard 280 brass, you can compensate for this with an initial pass thru a sizing die.

Sorry ED I think we are arguing the same point. I am not sure that you can chamber a standard 280 or 280 AI in a Nosler SAMMI 280 AI
because I have never tried it because of the increased length of the Ackley 280 AI over the SAMMI AI (.014 to .018 )
This problem is not related to head space. head space is set by the smith. The only contribution head space has to this is more or less total clearance from the case head to the shoulder.

This was how the original problem was found. Some of the shooters of the 280AI (Ackley) tried the new SAMMI ammo and had case head separation immediately. They contacted Dave with PT&G and ask about the reamer dimensions. Dave then looked at the NEW SAMMI spec. and found it had been altered from his drawing during the approval process before the reamers were made and missed the change, so the reamers were made to the new dimensions that exist today. The only reason that I have this firsthand knowledge is because I had ask him to build me a new reamer (because mine was well used) and we had lots of conversation about the difference in the two chambers. The fact that Nosler had it submitted and approved To SAMMI, All future reamers have to be made to the new dimension unless it is identified as a wildcat on the reamer. The new reamer can be used for ether chamber but the head space gauges will differ depending on which chamber you want.

The difference is still in the cartridge lengths which is the reason I posted to explain the difference. I have no problem with ether chamber just the chance that people will use the wrong cases/cartridge in one or the other chamber.

J E CUSTOM

 

[Edd]

Sorry ED I think we are arguing the same point. I am not sure that you can chamber a standard 280 or 280 AI in a Nosler SAMMI 280 AI
because I have never tried it because of the increased length of the Ackley 280 AI over the SAMMI AI (.014 to .018 )
This problem is not related to head space. head space is set by the smith. The only contribution head space has to this is more or less total clearance from the case head to the shoulder.

The difference is still in the cartridge lengths which is the reason I posted to explain the difference. I have no problem with ether chamber just the chance that people will use the wrong cases/cartridge in one or the other chamber.

J E CUSTOM

I don't think we are. You said firing a standard 280 cartridge in a SAAMI 280 AI chamber would cause excessive case stretching, I said it would be the opposite. The only situation that would cause excess case stretching would be firing a SAAMI 280 AI cartridge in an old style 280 AI chamber.

I never said anything about chambering a standard 280 AI in a SAAMI 280 AI chamber. If both chambers were cut correctly, that wouldn't work. However if you resized them it would work. The SAAMI chamber gives you mere options for brass instead of forcing you to buy more expensive brass.

 

[J E Custom]

I don't think we are. You said firing a standard 280 cartridge in a SAAMI 280 AI chamber would cause excessive case stretching, I said it would be the opposite. The only situation that would cause excess case stretching would be firing a SAAMI 280 AI cartridge in an old style 280 AI chamber.

I never said anything about chambering a standard 280 AI in a SAAMI 280 AI chamber. If both chambers were cut correctly, that wouldn't work. However if you resized them it would work. The SAAMI chamber gives you mere options for brass instead of forcing you to buy more expensive brass.

Don't get mad, just read the last post. I never said that, just the opposite If you fire a SAMMI AI cartridge in the Ackley version case stretch will occur.

If no one gets the problem by now, I cant help them and they are on there own.

J E CUSTOM

 

[Edd]

Don't get mad, just read the last post. I never said that, just the opposite If you fire a SAMMI AI cartridge in the Ackley version case stretch will occur.

If no one gets the problem by now, I cant help them and they are on there own.

J E CUSTOM

I'm not mad, I'm a little disgusted that someone with your background and knowledge would post incorrect information and cause confusion.

 

[TOM H]

I noticed that some are still saying that you can shoot 280 rem ammo/brass in the Nosler version and they are right You can but not safely and for one or two firings but with the difference in length the case is stretched .014 to .018 after the first firing and the damage is done to the case. just because you can fire a different cartridge in a chamber, doesn't mean you should. I have seen many wrong cartridges fired in the wrong chamber and the person got away with it, without injury.to them selves. but the case was ruined and in some instances the chamber was damaged.

The 280 AI and the 280 SAMMI AI are two different cartridges thanks to Nosler and are not interchangeable. "Period" .



J E CUSTOM

Let me ask you a question. If you take 280 case Saami spec which is 2.540" long and fire it in Saami Spec 280AI chamber and case length now changes to 2.525" so where does that .015" go? Doesn't case body at the start shoulder change dia which does increase case capacity then you form new 40 deg shoulders. At the start of the new neck for 280AI spec it's now 2.180" vs 2.199" for spec 280. I took everything off 280 case and 280AI case Nosler printed in manual. What happen Spec 280AI has little longer neck.

If it been done like other AI you would had same case length.

 

[J E Custom]

I'm not mad, I'm a little disgusted that someone with your background and knowledge would post incorrect information and cause confusion.

You are correct ED. I went back and looked at my other post to see if I had reversed the two chambers and In one post I had So I am correcting it and having another cup of coffee. With all of the back and forth I just messed up. the point is still that the two chambers are different and need to be treated differently.

Read post # 73 for the correct description and how it was found.

Sorry about the mix up my intentions were good but my Typing was not. I know the difference, I just failed to say it correctly one time and I apologize for any confusion it may have caused.

J E CUSTOM

 

[Alibiiv]

Sorry ED I think we are arguing the same point. I am not sure that you can chamber a standard 280 or 280 AI in a Nosler SAMMI 280 AI
because I have never tried it because of the increased length of the Ackley 280 AI over the SAMMI AI (.014 to .018 )
This problem is not related to head space. head space is set by the smith. The only contribution head space has to this is more or less total clearance from the case head to the shoulder.

This was how the original problem was found. Some of the shooters of the 280AI (Ackley) tried the new SAMMI ammo and had case head separation immediately. They contacted Dave with PT&G and ask about the reamer dimensions. Dave then looked at the NEW SAMMI spec. and found it had been altered from his drawing during the approval process before the reamers were made and missed the change, so the reamers were made to the new dimensions that exist today. The only reason that I have this firsthand knowledge is because I had ask him to build me a new reamer (because mine was well used) and we had lots of conversation about the difference in the two chambers. The fact that Nosler had it submitted and approved To SAMMI, All future reamers have to be made to the new dimension unless it is identified as a wildcat on the reamer. The new reamer can be used for ether chamber but the head space gauges will differ depending on which chamber you want.

The difference is still in the cartridge lengths which is the reason I posted to explain the difference. I have no problem with ether chamber just the chance that people will use the wrong cases/cartridge in one or the other chamber.

J E CUSTOM

I'd like to thank you both (and all who have provided the posts in this thread who have shared their information) for sharing your knowledge on this subject. I am truly glad that I made the thread to get some answers. From all that I have read on the differences, I am pretty much set on the .280 Ackley Improved (40`) original wildcat if my gunsmith has a reamer for it. If not I am hoping that the is willing to rent a reamer for it if that it possible. If he doesn't have the wildcat reamer, I will make it the .280 AI SAAMI instead. I wanted a cartridge/caliber that was unique and efficient in nature. This all started when my son and I started shooting up some left over ammunition that we'd had from a bear hunt the previous year. Just for curiosity we decided that we'd like to see if we could hit the 8 inch steel plates at 300 yards with our 35 Whelens, .358 Winchester and 45-70 Guide Gun. At that time to our amazement it wasn't that difficult to do, and it really was something to see when those 225 and 200 grain Barnes bullets, and the 300 grain 45-70 Noslers were hitting those plates. I know that for many on this sight, it really wasn't/isn't a big deal, but.....for us this was new territory. My son really got a kick of shooting that far and now when we go to the range we always end up shooting out to 300 yards, the farthest range that our club offers. We live in Rhode Island and if we were in the middle of the state and decided to shoot 1000 yards we'd either be putting rounds in Connecticut, Massachusetts or into the ocean. From that point on I started looking for something that we could use to shoot longer distances, thus all of the research on a caliber, and........that is what got me here while doing the research. We both really like the Ruger tang safety rifles, as I have written here several times, I have a safe full of them so I started looking for long range shooters and found two Ruger tang safety rifles in .270 Winchester that were extremely reasonable as donors. One I called a beater rifle for $400, however it had a 3.5 X 10 Leupold VarIII on it in Talley rings, but it looked like it had been dragged behind a truck when I got it. I stripped the stock, saving the original checkering, and then stained, Birchwood Casey'd the stock and finished by clearing the whole stock, it's no longer a beater rifle, and the scope is out to Leupold to have it gone through. The other donor was on Gun Broker for $400 and it was a mint 200th Anniversary model; thus my two donor rifles. I find that the .270 Winchester caliber is a great caliber, but I'd just like to get something that is unique and efficient, and we may try to get out west and do a mule deer hunt.

Based upon all the information that has been provided to me, I am thinking that no matter what Ackley Improved caliber that I get I will get the proper hydro-form dies for that particular Ackley Improved chambering, they're a little expensive but not out of the budget, and make my brass using these dies. JE I too like the Nosler products and shoot them quite frequently, I especially like the 225 grain Accubons in the Whelen, and have shot a lot of deer with Nosler partitions since 1960 and back then I believe that at the time they were made on a screw machine lathe. The first deer that I shot was with the "new", hot caliber that came out from Remington, the 6.5 Rem Mag in the Rem 600 with the laminated stock and shooting a 140 grain partition bullet at a paced distance of 260 yards, I'm stretching the memory banks here, it was an easy field dress because the insides pretty much ran out of the cavity. This is a great forum, I'm now researching neck turning vs case neck reaming and what neck turning tools to get.

 

[Edd]

I am pretty much set on the .280 Ackley Improved (40`) original wildcat if my gunsmith has a reamer for it. If not I am hoping that the is willing to rent a reamer for it if that it possible. If he doesn't have the wildcat reamer, I will make it the .280 AI SAAMI instead.

As JE previously said, you can cut either chamber with the same reamer. If I was having an original style chamber cut, I would still want it cut with a SAAMI reamer. The difference is where the Gunsmith stops reaming.

 

[Alibiiv]

I wasn't whether that was the case or not. The gunsmith who I am using is Olson Gunsmithing out of Montana. He comes with great credentials for working on Rugers, I am sure that he knows what needs to be done with the build. I have spoken to him once on the phone, he suggested some stuff to do with the build that I didn't think of. I did not now that it was possible to pillar bed a Ruger, he said that he does it all of the time. I have to talk with him one more time on the build, not certain about barrel length. Thinking about the 26 inch barrel over the 24 in barrel?? I will be using this rifle for some long range deer hunting in Maine on pasture land or power lines. I've shot one deer at 450 yards with one outfitter who leased a farm during the hunting season. It will be ground blind hunting for me because of all the sins that I committed to my body at an earlier age have now caught up to me; walking comes at a premium price!! I'm sure that many of on this forum who are getting long in the tooth can attest to that!! I tell everyone who is interested that from 40 to 50 years of age is a quantum leap. From 50-60 we pay for all of the sins that we did to our bodies earlier in our lives, and from 60 we just try to hand onto the body parts that we have remaining and try to keep them running!! Thanks to all the input that I have gotten from the forum, I feel safe in making the investment with getting the hydro-form dies and making my brass from the .280 Rem brass or the .270 brass once trimmed. I told the gunsmith that I really didn't care what we added, deleted or upgrade, I just want this rifle to shoot better than I can shoot it. He said that it will.

 

[J E Custom]

I wasn't whether that was the case or not. The gunsmith who I am using is Olson Gunsmithing out of Montana. He comes with great credentials for working on Rugers, I am sure that he knows what needs to be done with the build. I have spoken to him once on the phone, he suggested some stuff to do with the build that I didn't think of. I did not now that it was possible to pillar bed a Ruger, he said that he does it all of the time. I have to talk with him one more time on the build, not certain about barrel length. Thinking about the 26 inch barrel over the 24 in barrel?? I will be using this rifle for some long range deer hunting in Maine on pasture land or power lines. I've shot one deer at 450 yards with one outfitter who leased a farm during the hunting season. It will be ground blind hunting for me because of all the sins that I committed to my body at an earlier age have now caught up to me; walking comes at a premium price!! I'm sure that many of on this forum who are getting long in the tooth can attest to that!! I tell everyone who is interested that from 40 to 50 years of age is a quantum leap. From 50-60 we pay for all of the sins that we did to our bodies earlier in our lives, and from 60 we just try to hand onto the body parts that we have remaining and try to keep them running!! Thanks to all the input that I have gotten from the forum, I feel safe in making the investment with getting the hydro-form dies and making my brass from the .280 Rem brass or the .270 brass once trimmed. I told the gunsmith that I really didn't care what we added, deleted or upgrade, I just want this rifle to shoot better than I can shoot it. He said that it will.

All he has to do is use the 280 Remington head space gauge and have .004 thousandths compression. (.004 thousandths short to get the 280 Ackley improved). If you decide on the New SAMMI 280 AI he should use the new head space gauge that matches the reamer.

J E CUSTOM

 

[Troutslayer2]

So wait a minute. Do we all agree that it is ok to fire 280 ammo in a SAAMI 280AI chamber or not? JE, you seem to think it's not or did I get that wrong?

Maybe we have solved the mystery of why Nosler did this since they are the only ones making bra$$.