I'm easily confused so be patient with me.

I know that in some Ackley Improved calibers you can fire full-powered parent caliber rounds with no ill effects, and end up with a fire-formed Ackley Improved case.

Is this true with all Ackley Improved calibers? Or do you have to fire-form with reduced loads to safely fire make brass?

As long as the chamber was cut correctly so that a factory case is a crush fit you are safe to fire the parent round for forming. That was a plus for the AI over other wildcats.

If you use reduced loads, your shoulders will not be fully formed (they will look like Weatherby's). I fireform with max loads for the parent cartridge. Some of the pressure is spent just forming the brass to the larger Ackley chamber before the bullet goes anywhere.

SST is right. You load 'em up with full power loads to form. That is the beauty of the Improved design as you can always use standard factory ammo in a pinch.

Greg

quote:

Originally posted by GLShooter:
SST is right. You load 'em up with full power loads to form. That is the beauty of the Improved design as you can always use standard factory ammo in a pinch.

Greg

How bad does accuracy (and velocity) suffer when you do this?

I have a customer, that I built a 257 AI for, who has killed over a dozen deer while fireforming brass.

quote:

How bad does accuracy (and velocity) suffer when you do this?

I've used forming loads for hunting numerous times. You will see a reduction is velocity. Even the largest is not enough to worry about(as long as you know point of impact) and for sure what you shoot will never know or the feel the difference.

Only a slight reduction in velocity. By and large the accuracy is pretty good with most fire forming loads. (Assuming the rifle is accurate to start with)

Greg

quote:

Originally posted by ramrod340:
As long as the chamber was cut correctly so that a factory case is a crush fit you are safe to fire the parent round for forming. That was a plus for the AI over other wildcats.

+1

I have two rifles with AI chambers, a 223 and a 250 Savage. I shot full loads for fire forming cases. The accuracy I got was equal to groups shot with FF cases.

I have a number of different Ackley improved cartridges and from what I've read, all but the 450 Ackley, is a direct put the parent factory loaded round in and pull out a fire formed Ackley improved case.