blackbrush1
Well-Known Member
On the seater side, have your gunsmith use your reamer on a Wilson seater blank. Comparatively inexpensive and very precise.
Fireforming brass for custom dies (Ackley Improved cases)
- Thread starter milanuk
- Start date
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I believe your smith should be able to make a chamber mold. this IMO would be the fastest way to get your dies made (check with John Whidden) to see if he's made dies from a chamber mold before. I'm sure he has..
Also, I would fire lighter loads on first FF as to not over-stress the brass.
And yes, it may take 2-3 firings to get fully formed brass.
You can use the parent "neck sizing die" for the fire forming as long as you use low pressure loads.
I'm a fan of the COW method.
Wildcating does have it's PITA's
Best of luck
milanuk
Well-Known Member
Ya know, the thought crossed my mind... but I've never seen or heard of any places that make custom dies even mention it.
When John built mine in 2016, it is a service they do not provide.
Andrew Massi
Well-Known Member
Looks like a rocket
What kind of performance do you get
fremont
Well-Known Member
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There is a reason, no one has heard of it being used. Cerrosafe is a PITA to do and get accurate measurements. Never heard of a die maker willing to use a cerrosafe cast as the basis for a die. You have exactly one hour to get accurate measurements and then hope after 200 hours it has expanded the correct amount. No way in hell I would spend money to have a die made like this. Reamer print or fired brass is the only way to go.
bigngreen
Well-Known Member
I order all my custom dies of a reamer print BUT I also chamber my barrels to spec. Whidden has completely fallen of the map on the ability to hit specs or make dies, dead last company to use though!!
After the rifle was built, .270 Ackley Improved, I sent three, full-power fired pieces of brass from the rifle to Hornady, they in turn made a custom set of dies for my rifle. I also had a hydro-form die made when the custom dies were being made at Hornady, these did not work out and I wouldn't purchase them again from this company. I only hydro-formed 10 cases when the die stopped functioning, the piece that is hit with a hammer, the plunger, to form the brass would not slide into the die itself. I contacted Hornady, after a week someone called me back, I told them the problem, and another plunger-spindle was sent to me, that plunger-spindle did not work either. So.....I have a lot of money invested in a piece of equipment that does not work, I have to use a pair of pliers and a hammer to get the plunger spindle to pull out of the die. I am not happy about banging Hornady's hydro-forming dies, however they have earned it, would never buy a hydro-form die from them again!!
I use the cream-of-wheat process, this seems to work quite well, however have found that it is necessary full-load fire-form after hydro-forming to get a true representation of the chamber. If I use a fully loaded parent case, .270 Winchester, the case will be an exact duplicate of my chamber, this process has never failed me; however, a full load .270 Winchester is another round down the barrel of this rifle. Depending on the reamer and the gunsmith, with the parent cartridge you may find the bolt to close hard on the parent casing. I have two rifles,, in .270AI, that were built by the same gunsmith, at the same time, using all the same components, using the same reamer. When I close the bolt on a parent-cartridge in my rifle the bolt closes extremely hard, yet on my son's .270AI his closes as it ought to. I do not purchase any factory ammunition whatsoever, so all of my ammunition is reloaded. I can say that I always purchase new brass and always anneal that brass right out of the box before I do anything. I use the salt-bath process for annealing and have found a huge difference between annealed brass and brass that has not been annealed. The annealed brass fire-forms much easier, also the brass resizes and neck sizes much easier as well. I have read other posts about annealing where people have said that the brass is already annealed at the factory (so controversial), the brass that I anneal straight out of the box works a whole lot better.
For me fire-forming is a process that has to be learned, primarily though doing. I had to ask questions, as you are, to get started, I had to make the mistakes, ruined some brass, then started t get the process down to where I have found a process to make brass that works for me. I started out making my brass from inexpensive brass as I did not want to have to learn on Norma or any of the other high-end brass. Then I had to do load development, that was another process because there is not a whole lot of data out there for the .270AI; there we a lot of loose primer pockets after a few reloads. Primarily I start out using loads for different powders starting at the high-end of the .270 Winchester, or I will take middle loads for the different powders for the .270WSM and work my way up from there. Presently my loads out of a 26 inch Lilja barrel will replicate of better the .270 Weatherby mag with less powder.
