How many people are case forming?

[TaperPin]

I recently picked up forming dies for short BR cartridges, and was just thinking about a few barrels for cartridges based on the ultra mag dimensions that aren’t very well supported and brass is a challenge to get. There are actually a pile of great cartridges with hit or miss brass right now. It used to be more common to have to form cases, but as more wildcats have become factory cartridges the practice seems to have faded away and is rarely mentioned nowadays.

I am just wondering out loud how many people are doing this. Not everyone should do this, because the number of inexpensive take off barrels is quite nice as hard to get cartridges are rebarreled to those that are more readily available. Lol

 

[buffybr]

I started case forming in 1978 when I had my .30-06 re-chambered to .30 Gibbs and at the same time built a .257 Ackley.

For the Gibbs I had to expand the .30-06 case necks up to .35 Caliber, then full lenght size them in the Gibbs FL size die, creating a false shoulder to get the correct headspace on the initial firing.

The .257 Ackley formed by simply firing a standard .257 Roberts case in the Ackley chamber, but I did make some .257 Ackely cases from military 7.62 blank brass. Probably more trouble than it was worth.

Since 2005 I've made .375 RUM cases out of 7 mm RUM and .300 RUM cases. and .300 Wby cases from 7 STW cases. I expand the case necks with long taper neck expanding plugs and then FL size the cases in the RUM or Wby dies.

 

[RockAndSage]

I'm wondering if there might be a bit of a renaissance in the works, after reading some of @huntnful 's wildcat posts, and the rabbit hole it sent me down. Similar to your response on my post about chamber reamer life, @TaperPin. Seems that the newer short-mag casings based on RUM, Norma/.416 Rigby, and PRC parent cases is still fresh territory for a lot of wildcatting, and maybe even ARC and the 6mm Max that came from the .350 legend. It's extremely interesting stuff, what people are doing right now. Can't imagine there's much more that can be done with 30-06 or .375 H&H parent cases, that hasn't already been done in the extreme. But these newer ones? Some neat stuff happening.

 

[Article 4]

I have done case forming on 2 wildcats over the past few years - I took a LA 300 PRC case and necked it down to 7mm and also did a 338 Norma Mag and necked it all the way down to 7mm and then ai'd it. The former is super fun, the latter was fun but a multi step pain in the butt process.

Have kinda decided to stay with builds that are more like the 7-300 PRC. Something where I can get more performance, learn and not give myself massive headaches....small headaches and smiles are part of the fun

 

[huntnful]

I think I’ve done four 300 Norma Mag Improved and three 7-300 Norma Mag Improved and a 6 PRC.

It definitely forces you to learn a lot more about reloading, in a shorter amount of time. Always seems to be some sort of fire to put out initially haha. But then you get better at diagnosing lots of random small issues.

I don’t really believe any of it is all that necessary, but it is fun and keeps me learning, while also seeing what kind of performances cartridges can achieve.

I agree with a poster above that keeping it simple, with smaller changes is probably the way to go. Like 7-300 PRC, instead of 7-300 NMI for example. Dip your toes in and see the performance, but hopefully dodge a few headaches that way.

Lapua brass is the only thing I’ll buy for a cartridge now though. I’ll tell you that much haha.

But I did buy some Alpha for a 22CM

 

[jfk69]

I form for my .257 AI but that’s all at the moment.

 

[eLightfoot]

I’ve done a fair amount
6creed to 22cm
32-20 to 25-20
25-35 to 219 zipper
6.5.284 to 25.284
Bout to start 257bob to 6mmAI