Fireforming new brass: the poll

[Lawnboi]

Interesting, good feedback. Have you noticed any correlation between the type of manufacturing, and the speeding up? Tracking my Preferred barrel in 25 Creed but only at 90 rounds right now. Just got a borescope as well, might be dealing with my first carbon ring in a 28 Nos

I havnt, but I’m probably not the right guy to ask, don’t have enough data to really come to any conclusion. I have had a few bartleins that sped up very little and it seems anything really overbore seems to speed up more drastically. My last buttoned 6 creed sped up around 150 rounds enough to notice and need to adjust in the middle of a match.

Yea I hate cleaning. But I do it now again. 1200 on a 6.5 creed without cleaning made for some serious soaking. Bore mop with c4 left In for 4 days chipped it loose.

 

[mod7rem]

Do both at the same time. Usually I will open the neck up on new brass and then size leaving a false shoulder that gives just a little resistance when chambering. Start load development with them.

 

[Hill Difficulty]

No, I do not fire-form new brass.

Easy reason is that a rifle should shoot great with new brass. Going to the trouble and expense of forming brass is a personal preference thing. Not for me + we all end up with fired brass soon enough.

My current approach is to have 200 to 400 pieces of new brass when barrel is new. At 150 rounds I'll start a new loading rotation using 1x-fired, re-evaluate the load specs. Additionally, by the time I get to 150 round count I know whether I want to keep the rifle. 150 rounds is a nice place to be when selling considering it's still new, can represent an accurate rifle's capability (proven) in good faith, there's more appeal to include brass w/accurate load specs for the new buyer.

Helpful topic, by the way.

 

[Mule3006Elk]

I do mainly by default. When doing chronograph work I will use new brass if applicable.
I reload for a 30-06 and there's not a lot headspace bump FWIW. I also reload for 300 WM and there is a lot of headspace bump (0.0015-0.0030). If you do fireform brass don't use light loads. A light load can be too light to fireform the brass.

I also like the fact, if fireformed, one less variable to recheck for final load evaluation.

 

[bigmoose]

I have a pre 64 Win. Model 70 in 300 ICL. It has always been my "go to" rifle and I've taken 90% of all my big game with it. It started out as a 300 H&H and those were the cases I would fireform. Nobody made any factory cases. The first way was to load the cases with a reduced 150 gr. load. The problem was that I would lose about 20% of the cases. This was back in the 70's .

Later in the 80's I found the Cream of Wheat method and I hardly ever lost a case. Loading 25 grs. of Bullseye or Red Dot over a magnum primer and filling the rest of the case with Cream of Wheat worked great. It was just messy and a pain to do.

Later I found that I could use 300 WBY cases with no problems. When the Rem. 8mm magnum came out, I found that I could also use them by running them through the sizing die. When I reloaded these cases I worked them up to my normal load of 78 grs. of IMR 7828 with a 200 gr. Partition or Accubond and found them to be quite accurate even though they were not fireformed. Grouping around one inch at 100 yards.

My rifle has always been a shooter so maybe that helped with non-fireformed cases. I've never tried fine tuning my a load for more accuracy although I did try just neck sizing with the same results.

About 10 years ago, My Dad, who has the same rifle, sent me a box of 300 ICL cases with that headstamp. I can't remember who made them and I've yet to load them.

 

[PurpleDriver]

Just built a 33SM. I’ve loaded up 50 rounds and loaded them long to use pressure from rifling to seat the case against the bolt head. Min charge of powder.

Time will tell if I did it right. But until then I’m watching this to see if there are any advantages to the other methods.

 

[NorthernHunter]

I like to do it as a part of load development. New rifle, new brass. Put together 6 or so loads. Fire for groups. Use fire formed brass and pick the 2 most accurate and make slight adjustments each way. I've felt that when your going for those last fine adjustments to accuracy every detail counts. Including the case being formed to your chamber. This isn't all that important for 100yd deer rifle. The gun I do this for shoots 2.5" groups consistently @600yds. For my 30-06 I could care less. Never shoot it past 200