Two semi dumb questions

[KRob]

How many firerings can you excpect out of cases before they become to week to use or can start expecting problems? I do not load my load all that hot
--300wm
--223

Secound semi dumb question. I was sizing some 300wm and i had three cases come out that had the slightest little indents around shoulder. Should i pich them or loadem. The indents are pretty slight i felt them and then had to look pretty close to see them.

Oh another question just poped into mind what is fire forming?

Sorry about my ignorance.

 

[Mysticplayer]

Within suggested pressures, you should get at least 6 reloads per case. This assumes that the action locks up tight enough and you do not move the shoulder too much during sizing.

The slight dings are due to too much case lube. Just clean out the die and use less. I find the Hornady one shot to work very well and does so with a very thin coating. The stuff from Frankford Arsenal is pretty nice too.

Shooting this brass should cause you no problems. Just cosmetic unless the surface is cut.

Fire forming is firing the brass while in the rifle of choice. Fire forming causes the brass to take on the interior dimensions of the chamber. By maintaining that fit, the ammo is more likely to chamber concentrically with the bore which leads to more accurate shooting.

You can fire form using the Cream of Wheat method or just drop in some factory ammo (or reloads). After firing, neck sizing using a collet or bushing neck die is usually the easiest way to maintain the fit.

Jerry

 

[Buffalobob]

Second question.

If I understand the indents, these are caused by having too much lube on the case and it getting into the shoulder area of the resizing die and having nowhere to go. The trapped lube will form dents in the shoulder of the case. As long as you are not shooting over max loads I wouldn't worry about them, becuase they don't decrease case capacity much. Three things to do. Don't use much lube on the neck and none on the shoulder. Check and clean out the "lube squeezing out hole" because it may be clogged or it may be under the set ring. And finally take the die apart and clean it real good to get out the trapped lube.

Fireforming usually refers to a wildcat cartridge that is made from another cartridge and must be fired to get it to expand out to the new chamber dimensions. If the differences are small then you can use a pretty good charge of powder and get pretty good accuracy. You will notice that SS7mm killed a deer and an elk at impressive ranges and for the deer extreme accuracy. For cartridges where the new chamber dimensions are greatly different then you will use a very mild charge that is just enough to expand the brass.


Sometime a person will take a brand new piece of brass and load it at some type of reasonable speed and shoot it once. That piece of brass that is now chamber size of the gun is then worked over and neck sized or partial resized and loaded up. This gives the case a very good fit to your particular chamber so you get more accuracy and you also can cram more powder in it.

Too slow typing -Agree with what Jerry said

 

[CPorter]

How many firings a brass case will survive depends on how hot your loads are and how much sizing you do. There are some other factors but those seem to be the major ones. I have some brass I've been using since 1980. I usually neck size only and anneal the necks every 10 firings or when I get a split neck. I think I've thrown away maybe 10 cases in the last 4 years..