Anyone tried reforming 25/35 Hornady brass to 25/35:Ackley? Any better results than Winchester?

"Reforming"? Don't you just fire a standard cartridge in the improved chamber? How is it that Winchester brass is giving unsatisfactory results?

Apparently when forming newer Winchester brass to 25/35 Ackley reports are high failure rate from cracking in the shoulder area. Most seem to be forming from 30/30 brass. My current cases are 30/30 reformed.

I am having the shoulder cracking on the 204 Ruger brass after neck sizing on 2nd reload. I have been inspecting the brass before the first firing and seem to have a few starting to split. The Hornady brass seem to be the problem.

I will be watching very close on these cases. I will be making a master die to check these cases for over all length after firing once.

I still have best results with 30-30 brass.
I have made up 2 from my stash of 375 brass. I ran them in my 30-30 imp dies first. I want to see if there is any strength difference in my 25/35 imp Sav 99.

Anneal the neck and shoulder area first and you shouldn't have any problems.
Make sure you don't overheat the bases!
I've formed .257 AI from .257R and .244 Rem. brass with no problems. Also .256 WM from .357 Mag. and 375AI from .300 WbyM. and .340 WbyM brass as well as standard .375 H&H.

Hip

You probably know this, but it was a surprise to me when I took Fred Zeglin's wildcatting course that Remington brass was thicker but less hard (and less brittle) than the lighter, but harder and more brittle Winchester brass in most calibers. Winchester would hold the same pressure, but was thinner and had slightly more interior capacity. I think Norma was in between the other two. Anyway, I mostly use Remington brass for case forming. Should be able to anneal the Winchester and Hornady to get the same ductility though.

Like Hip said, anneal the neck and shoulder. I use the propane torch and tray of water to ensure the case head never gets softened. I size 30-30 brass down to 25-35 then size that down to 22 Sav HP. If you don't anneal you lose lots of cases. If you anneal you might lose 1 or 2 in 50 rds. Works for me.

Some years back I formed 22/30-30AI brass from 30-30. Rather than getting custom forming dies I pulled the expander button out of a 25-35 die and formed the 30-30 to 25-35, then used a 22 Sav HP expanderless die to neck them down to near 224, then used the 22/30-30 AI die to finish the sizing, then fire formed. For brass I pulled the bullets from Winchester factory ammo. I was getting splits in the neck until I trimmed the cases to completely remove the portion lined by the factory crimp. Once the process was completed I had a 99.5% success rate on forming. No split shoulders or necks. This was done about 20 years ago so Winchester may have changed the brass, but probably not sufficient to alter the results very much.

In the back of the book after Mr. A mentioned problems forming with post WW2 brass, someone wrote and said that if they fire form the case with pistol powder and corn meal/cream of wheat, like that, worked slick and no case loss. I did it with an Ackly bigger than .25/35. Worked for me. Luck. Happy New Year. Happy Trails.

I.have had tons of problems with hornady brass.I tried to.make 375 jdj out of 444 marlin brass never worked .I.tried rifle.make 264 brass out of 7 mm rem mag hornady brass didn't work .I tried to make 338 win mag brass out of 7mm rem mag hornady brass didn't work .I had factory 375 jdj hornady made brass didn't work .I c s b go on.and on I.no longer buy hornady brass or ammo unless it's the only.kind on this earth for that caliber .The cream of wheat trick works with all other brass !

I also made 9.3 X 57mm brass out of 8 X 57 mm Hornady brass by annealing the case necks then necking up in one pass with the 9.3 dies----NO LOSSES!

Hip

You cannot compare other reloading practices to WW and Rem 25-35s, forever its been a case of its own, Im sure it has to do with metelurgy, Therefore you must use 30-30 brass end of story its been proven for a decade I suspect..

To make 25-35s, its best to run the 30-30 case thru a 25-35 file trim die, the FL resize the the case in the 25-35 die, and then fire form it to your chamber..This is suggested by RCBS and is the same as their expensive forming die.

If you intend to make 22 HPs then omit the fire forming and run the resized steps and let the last step be the full length 22 HP full length step as opposed to the fireform step to 25-35..

Huntington willtell you the same thing.

I see no need to anneal as long as you go gradually expanding the necks in steps such as 30 to 33 to say 338 then back to 35 with lube case necks, as opposed to one pass, but only in some cases..I never have needed to anneal until after some shooting in most cases..Depends on the caliber your forming etc..

Annealing isn't difficult but it also isn't a cake walk, it takes some thought and prepreation, sometimes its process is over looked and can be down right disaster..