Catching up on this thread after some big (good) life changes.
I'm circling back around to sending the shaw to LRI with a BCA pencil barrel for the ackley improved chamber, and the bca profile. Then I'm going to see if I can get the speed out of those nickel shellshock cases, and if not I'll just run the LC brass and be done.
But, I ran across something interesting that I wanted to share for those of you wanting to push the .224 bullets faster.
Apparently you can ream (extra long) to the ackley chamber without setting the barrel back, and then with the use of 204 brass, you get another +1 grain of powder, AND no fire-forming! The only rub are new dies and 204 brass. I think I'm going to pass, because green tips in LC brass is good practice ammo, and gives me the fireformed brass at the same time. *I am going to pull the bullets out slightly and seat them to a 10+ thou jam for grade A quality fireformed brass after one firing.
If the shellshock cases shoot strait by some miracle, and don't split, then that might be as fast as the 223-204 or whatever it's called. *from what I've read, fireforming to the ackley actually shortens the case length, so I'm optimistic that the nickel cases won't be jammed in there. I'll start with a half case full charge and step up from there. Hopefully they don't split, and maybe I'll even be able to size the neck and get a second firing. Or, maybe the 2nd firing will be accurate. Should be a fun project.
My apologies if I left anyone in the dark on this project. I've pretty much forgotten where I was at and had to re-read much of this thread to catch up (still more to read). @cbow did you ever report back with your ackley improved results?
*edit/caution. I'll have to reduce the powder charge of the green tips and ladder test to see if the 10 thou jam is safe. Might have to pull all bullets and reduce charge. At least I'll have more precise target ammo in the end if I have to re-charge all of them...
204 thread:
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.php?threads/223-ai-can-i-use-a-regular-223-seating-die.705146/