Okay, first a description of my 'educational experience'. I picked up a pile of once fired nickel plated brass from a 270 at the range. I saw the guy shooting it, so I know it was once fired. I wanted it for my 280. I know that the shoulder in the 280 is forward from other -06 based cartridges, making the headspace longer, so I loaded a starting load of 4895 (IMR) and seated the bullets looooong. I mean when I got the bullets at the lands with a dummy round I backed the seater out another half turn. It takes a moderate palm strike to close the bolt and finish seating the bullet. That SHOULD hold the casehead against the boltface and eliminate the headspace problem, right?

NOPE! The first round fired off fine, but the second went 'click'. I looked at it, saw a light primer strike, and without thinking it through, rechambered it and pulled the trigger. It went bang that time.

In looking at the case there is a nice bright brass colored line marking and a slight crack showing the near complete casehead seperation.

Even better, the primer is well flattened, and in looking closely, I can see daylight down the mouth of the case. Yep, you guessed it, pierced the primer. I didn't realize that till later, though I did quit trying to shoot the forming loads after that second one.

Time to break out the 30 cal neck sizer, neck up and then partially size the neck back down to leave a false shoulder. I've been leaving the false shoulder with 30-06 brass without a problem...got that one down I think.

Okay, now a question. I understand the casehead separation, the bullet slipped when the firing pin fell and did not offer enough resistance to fire the primer, but did I somehow get a pressure spike too or is the headspace problem somehow to also blame for the pierced primer?

I would think that the head space problem accouts for all that you experienced, the flattened primer/pierced primer and stretched case.

CDH, brass is cheap, and eyeballs, fingers etc. aren't, if they are available....I don't know what all is on E-bay any more. Your headspace issue and seating strongly into the lands are not recommended procedures IMO.

Order some 280 brass and get your rig dialed in. I think your playing with fire--no pun intended.

Good luck.

quote:

Order some 280 brass and get your rig dialed in. I think your playing with fire--no pun intended.

The bullets, powder, and primers you use for fireforming will pay for 20 rounds of new brass. There are a lot of ways to save some money by reloading but I would look elsewhere to cut costs.

Thanks for the responses so far!

While I can't speak for others, I suspect most who have reloaded for years like me have plenty of bullets and powder around that you never found a good load with. So I consider the bullets and powder free...it's useless to me anyway. As for the time and wear spent shooting, it's good for offhand practice, which I need anyway. No downside there, it really is free brass in my mind.

Converting from one member of the -06 family to another shouldn't be a big deal unless neck reaming is needed. I have a bunch of 30-06 brass that worked fine. It wasn't until I started using 270 brass that I ran into this problem, and the fix is one more step in the process.

Seating firmly into the lands with a starting load actually IS recommended to fireform brass by the Nosler manual among others, especially for wildcat and improved brass forming. My load is the starting load for IMR4895 and 100 grain JHP in the Sierra manual.

I was just sharing and wondering if I had missed something wierd. The bullet slipping with the fall of the firing pin was a new one that I had never heard mentioned anywhere. Maybe the light bullet didn't have enough bearing surface to grip sufficiently. Whatever. I thought it was worth a warning to others who do it to fireform...I know I do it with virgin brass anyway, so it's the same procedure with a different brass haeadstamp.

CDH, I think you hit the key with the 30cal sizer....you have to have something to headspace against to fireform safely, even if it is a false shoulder made by a dual necksize operation. The fact that the 30-06 brass worked is luck and possibly unsafe. Check the inside case wall with a dental pick for a ring beginning. If it is mil brass, it might work better because there is more brass in the web area to expand.

you should or could anneil the necks to help the brass