I have a Remington getting a face lift to a 22-250 Ackley Improved and have read of fireforming the brass with out a bullet by using Bullseye powder and packing Cream of Wheat on top. I like the idea of not wasting barrel life while I form the brass. Does anybody have any experience with this. What would be a good "load". I am looking at starting out around 8-10 grains of powder.

Any help would be appreciated.

Girth

Girth,

Yes, the cream of wheat or cornmeal work fine. I have done it quite a bit forming K-Hornet, 25-35 Improved from 375 Win. Load for 25-35 was 7 grains Red Dot (anything fast will work just as well), fill with cornmeal close off the neck with a plug cut from photo mat paper and fire it. A load of up to 10 grains should be about right for 22-250 Imp. Just watch the first few to make sure it is getting the shoulders blown out. You can make plugs for the neck by sharpening the mouth of a case with an inside burr remover, then chuck the case in a drill press, cut plugs from the mat paper and press them in on top of the cornmeal with a allen wrench just smaller than the neck. Some guys drip some melted wax into the neck to keep the cornmeal in place instead of using the paper plugs.

When you fire them, watch out - I fired them into a bucket with a big chunk of hardwood in the bottom. after 200 rounds, it had blown a hole through a 2" thick piece of hardwood, blew the bottom out of the bucket and then started working on my concrete floor.

Don Shearer

Don,
I have the hole in the concrete from one shot.
And the smell of burnt cream of wheat and powder is too good to keep indoors

So I shoot my COW loads at the range now.

I used to do this with a 6.5 Gibbs and a .450 Alaskan (from .348 Win. to .458' case mouth). I used 10 to 12 grains of powder and a case full of Cream of Wheat, with a wad of Kleenex to hold it in the case mouth. In the Gibbs, it did not fully form the shoulders. They were rounded rather than square at the corners, but ironed out well with the first "full" loading.

eldeguello,
I have done allot of experimenting I came to the same spot. Cream of wheat with 10 gr Unique in 257 RAI will only fill out 90% of the shoulder.

If I can accept that, I save a bullet, allot of powder, get less overpressured brass, and less shrunk brass.

The ONLY case I fireform with a bullet is K-Hornets. Everything else gets fired with pistol powder, grits and a candle wax wad.

If the shoulder doesn't form sharp, full, and clean raise the load until it does.

I use Bullseye in small cases and Unique in larger ones.

WARNING!!!!
If a case forms but with a protruding primer DESTROY that case!!!!! It has excess headspace and can be very dangerous if loaded and fired.

Jack,
do you lube the cases up well so it sets them back on the bolt good? Headspace should be fine if you lube them... right? In the case that the primer indicates the case never set back, you could lube, and form it again, or seat a bullet into the lands and fire form... why throw the case away? Don't loose track of that case until it's properly formed at any rate!

I don't know how many you are planning on forming but I have found this to be a real pain and typically wind up with a large percentage of cases that are not fully formed. My answer has been to work up a good shooting fireforming load and do my fireforming in the prairie dog fields.

Is there any reason NOT to fireform using bullets? I fireform for my 06ai and 35whelenAI with bullets. I use the fireforming loads as additional practice. Just wondering if there is a negative, besides using up supplies, to fireforming with bullets.

thanks all.

Red

I have a tight neck chamber (.335") in a 30/338 Lapua 40 deg Imp I'm building and I'll form the brass before I turn the necks, probably don't need to but I think it will do a better job ironing out the new neck and shoulder this way before turning. Only way to use bullets in my case is to turn the brass first.

I third eldeguello's experiences on the 10gr (I use Titegroup - even cheaper?), hole in the carpet, have not tried the wax, but will for my .30Gibbs.

Deke.

With 257RAI, when I use a bullet, the case shrinks in length. If I incrase the powder charge, the shrindage stops, but the case cracks behind the shoulder.


So I use Cream of Wheat and 10 gr Unique now. It only fills out the neck 90%, but I can live with that on the first firing.

Maybe a stupid question, what is �cream of wheat�? Translated into Norwegian this is a wet meal that we have for breakfast!! If its wet, wouldn�t it destroy the powder?

I like it with a teaspoon of sugar... Dont care to much for the brown sugar...

Maybe a stupid question, what is �cream of wheat�?

A dry cereal mix, sort of like corn meal. Corn meal will work too.