I am ready to start fire forming cases for a 6.5-06AI. I plan to load with IMR4350 and 140 gr. bullets. Should I fire form with light bullets and reduced loads? Any suggestions are welcome.

Oddball, what parent brass are you starting with? This won't make a lot of difference, just curious mainly. I am assuming you are necking up .25/06 or necking down and trimming .270 brass.

The Ackley's headspace off of the original neck/shoulder junction, so the main movement of the brass comes from removing some of the case taper and blowing out the shoulder to a 40 deg angle. This is not a major amount of brass to move.

When fireforming my 6.5 Gibbs (which moves a lot more brass), I either use the Unique and Cream of Wheat method or a reduced load with bulk 120gr bullets. Either does a fine job, and I haven't lost many cases either way.

For the reduced load method, I use about 50gr of IMR 4895 and 120gr bulk Remington bullets. I am going from memory on the weight of the powder charge, so I will check and confirm later. This worked very well with my Gibbs, and had the advantage of allowing some additional plinking practice.

Canuck

Oddball,

I fire form my 6.5-06 Ackley cases by taking new Remington 30-06 cases and loading them with 48 grains of H4831 and bulk 120 grain bullets.

The above combination gives me a very nice case. So far I have done about 500 and have not lost a case.

Just a word of caution on necking down 30-06 cases. I have found that if I take them down to 270 first they work a lot better. I generally take an afternoon and do a 100 or so at a time.

Pecos