Hydraulic Form Die

[MontanaJack]

I grew up using the hydraulic case former that Rocky Gibbs included with the die sets he sold with all of the Gibbs wildcats back in the 50's and 60's. My dad and his buddies used military surplus brass to form brass for the 6.5 Gibbs, the 270 Gibbs, the 30 Gibbs, and the 8mm Gibbs. It got dangerous if you didn't get all of the air out of the case before hitting the plunger. This process required fire forming to finish the cases. Dad used surplus bullets. I use the Cream of Wheat method to finish the process for these old family heirlooms. I just fire standard ammo in my AI's to expand the cases. Perfectly fine for plinking.

 

[Coyote Shadow Tracker]

I grew up using the hydraulic case former that Rocky Gibbs included with the die sets he sold with all of the Gibbs wildcats back in the 50's and 60's. My dad and his buddies used military surplus brass to form brass for the 6.5 Gibbs, the 270 Gibbs, the 30 Gibbs, and the 8mm Gibbs. It got dangerous if you didn't get all of the air out of the case before hitting the plunger. This process required fire forming to finish the cases. Dad used surplus bullets. I use the Cream of Wheat method to finish the process for these old family heirlooms. I just fire standard ammo in my AI's to expand the cases. Perfectly fine for plinking.

WOW that's some history.
We are going to get a Whidden Hydraulic Die for our current 338LMAI because they are going to make the Hydraulic Die to the same as our Custom Dies and Chamber.
I don't think that we are going to make anymore AI Cartridges for ourselves. Too much involved in additional work and $$$s for an extra 100 FPS++.
If we have a bullet caliber that we want to push the limits, I'll just go with the next larger Cartridge. Just looking at a 338LM there are so many other .338s out now BUT a lot of them are custom Cartridges (Wildcats) also.
Going with an AI you have:
Custom Reamer $$
Custom Dies $$$
Fire Forming Brass$$$
We built our custom .338 LMAI for possibly a 3K competition.
If I were to build a .338 for hunting I would definitely go with a .338 Norm Mag.

 

[brian11]

I hadn't heard of this. Looks interesting for some custom brass forming applications. If I had one, I would definitely use a light oil instead of water, though. I have enough problems fighting rust without introducing water to my dies or reloading environment.
The cost seems pretty high compared to a regular die. Someone with a lathe could probably modify a regular die and make a custom plunger for it for a lot less than the cost of the Whidden hydraulic die.
I'll keep the concept in mind and either make or buy one the next time I need to blow out a shoulder.

 

[Alibiiv]

I had forming with a regular cartridge on my mind in with COW. No bullet or barrel wear with COW. My Mistake on where I should have put it in the forming. Didn't have any coffee yet this morning!
Thanks much for picking that up. I did edit my post.

Okay I got it.

 

[KsKevin]

Looks like a PITA vs fire forming / COW

 

[McStocks]

I thought you all might be interested in another wrinkle to Hydro Forming. This uses "real hydraulics"! I built these adaptors to screw into the top and bottom of a sizing die. The top part is threaded to NPT to adapt to my electric-hydraulic pump which produces 10,000 PSI (to use with Porta-Powers). The bottom part has a stem with an o-ring which seals the primer pocket hole. It works pretty well, but you still have a very small radius at the corner of the shoulder.

 

[victor3ranger]

I thought you all might be interested in another wrinkle to Hydro Forming. This uses "real hydraulics"! I built these adaptors to screw into the top and bottom of a sizing die. The top part is threaded to NPT to adapt to my electric-hydraulic pump which produces 10,000 PSI (to use with Porta-Powers). The bottom part has a stem with an o-ring which seals the primer pocket hole. It works pretty well, but you still have a very small radius at the corner of the shoulder.

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That's freaking awesome

 

[victor3ranger]

I thought you all might be interested in another wrinkle to Hydro Forming. This uses "real hydraulics"! I built these adaptors to screw into the top and bottom of a sizing die. The top part is threaded to NPT to adapt to my electric-hydraulic pump which produces 10,000 PSI (to use with Porta-Powers). The bottom part has a stem with an o-ring which seals the primer pocket hole. It works pretty well, but you still have a very small radius at the corner of the shoulder.

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This is a very good setup

 

[josh_127]

I wonder if a grease gun adapter would be faster...my grease gun says right on it that it'll do 10k psi. We use grease guns all the time filled with oil to free stuck pins at work..works great.

 

[DustThroughaFan]

I thought you all might be interested in another wrinkle to Hydro Forming. This uses "real hydraulics"! I built these adaptors to screw into the top and bottom of a sizing die. The top part is threaded to NPT to adapt to my electric-hydraulic pump which produces 10,000 PSI (to use with Porta-Powers). The bottom part has a stem with an o-ring which seals the primer pocket hole. It works pretty well, but you still have a very small radius at the corner of the shoulder.

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I like it! Pics of formed cases ?

 

[Sealesniper]

I just loaded a normal load for the 22-250 and shot it in my 22-250AI chamber. My POI was identical to my POI with the AI load out to about 350 yards, so when I was verifying zero, shooting squirrels, or just close in coyote hunting, I fired regular brass to fireform it, and I did not "waste" any components. Also, shooting this way made it to where my barrel never got hot. I looked at getting a hydroforming set, or just a fireforming barrel, and opted to stay the course.

 

[glide71]

I use a Whidden for a .250 AI and it worked great. It takes a few cases to get the hang of it. There are a couple of youtube videos that are worth watching. Whidden says to oversize .010 then resize to fit your chamber. Works great.

 

[DustThroughaFan]

I just loaded a normal load for the 22-250 and shot it in my 22-250AI chamber. My POI was identical to my POI with the AI load out to about 350 yards, so when I was verifying zero, shooting squirrels, or just close in coyote hunting, I fired regular brass to fireform it, and I did not "waste" any components. Also, shooting this way made it to where my barrel never got hot. I looked at getting a hydroforming set, or just a fireforming barrel, and opted to stay the course.

This is what I do with my 243AI. I load at or near book max for regular 243 loads and hunt/plink with them.

When you consider the cost of the die, that'll buy about 3lbs of powder and the associated components to fire form. And you get good hunting ammo or maybe just some good practice.

 

[ntsqd]

For what it's worth, hydraulics means the use of any fluid, not just oil. NOT that I suggest or recommend it, but you could be using Glenfidditch 12 year old Scotch to form cases and it's still "hydraulic". Friend of mine's step-dad holds a patent on the design of a hydraulic pump that uses sea water for the hydraulics on a deep sea submersibles. Can't contaminate the ocean will hydraulic oil if there is no oil to start with. Bonus is no reservoir needed since the machine is operating in the reservoir.

Sometimes a lot of energy applied extremely rapidly works better than the same amount of energy applied slowly. Hitting the plunger with a hammer will spike the pressure very rapidly. No idea if that works better than using some sort of pump. It might work considerably better, it might work the same, and it might not work as well. I'm curious if anyone has experimented with this.
And, as a good friend taught me, it is easier to hit something lightly with a big hammer than it is to hit something hard with a small hammer. Put the 8oz. Ball-Pein hammer away, dig out the 2 lber.