Hi guys,
just another issue with my 06 ackley
Ruger no1.
this is a new chamber not a re-cut 6.5-06,the issue is this,when I fireform using (17gn bluedot +cow)the case is really tight to close on the falling block, I have created a false shoulder on the 270 brass after trimming, once fireformed and i push it back into the chamber it is short and goes in about 10-15 thou. has anyone any ideas?

regards
Griff

Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but from what I gather it sounds like your false shoulder isnt getting the job done.

OR!!! Maybe the chamber wasnt cut properly. Those Ackley chambers headspace differently then standard chambers. I assume you are pushing the case back into the chamber after resizing. ??

Hi,
I am using once fired 270 brass and creating a false shoulder, the false shoulder is I think just right as it is very solid when pushed into the chamber, I even have the falling block shaving brass of the case,once I fire them and push them back into the chamber they are short, they have not been resized.


regards
Griff

You need a near full load with bullet to fire form I imagine is the issue. Your cream of wheat isn’t getting the job done.

I think your false shoulder is too far forward. You shouldn't be shaving brass off the case head when you close the action. I would adjust the size die down just a little at a time until you just feel a little resistance when you close the action but you are not shaving brass from the head. As already mentioned lose the creme of wheat and try 3 rounds with a bullet seated. I think your problem will be gone

Use the "jam the bullet into to throat" method; that works. Your false shoulder is not as tight as it seems.

quote:

Originally posted by Fury01:
You need a near full load with bullet to fire form I imagine is the issue. Your cream of wheat isn’t getting the job done.

^^ What he said. As long as your false shoulder is holding AND you have a good snappy load you should be golden. Beef your process up in those aspects. I like to use inexpensive fairly heavy bullets for fire forming with a full load.

You have to figure, even if you are using a full 6.5-06 load, before the process is over and all the gas has escaped, that once full standard load has suddenly become a rather light AI load. Git er done!

Merely loading a bullet will not do it right; it might cause the case to stretch. You must hold the case head against the bolt face and seating the bullet into the throat is a good way, if your false shoulder is not working, which it isn't. If your false shoulder was holding then you would not have short brass.

The headspace for an Ackley occurs at the shoulder. The 06 go gauge should function as a no go. Virgin
270 brass necked down needs to headspace on the shoulder not a false shoulder up on the neck.

There are two ways to end up where you are. The first is use once fired 270 brass that was fired in a 270 with a short chamber, a chamber .010 to .015 too short, this seems remote.

The second possibility would be to have an Ackley chamber that's reamed too deep.
The force of the firing pin is overcoming the false shoulder you are sizing, the case is moving forward .010 to .015, the actual shoulder is then making contact, ignition then occurs.

A bullet jammed into the lands with a good crimp will get you a sort of Ackley + case. If you can do a consistent job of holding the case on the block face during ignition, if not consistency will suffer, accuracy case life, etc. etc.

Check your chamber with an 06 go gauge it should not go by .004 to .006. Go is NO go for the Ackley.

On neck sizing you should have to bump the 270 shoulder on the once fired brass at least .004 to .006.
Chances are virgin 270 brass won't need a shoulder bump back if it does it won't be much of a bump back.

quote:

Originally posted by Timan:
The 06 go gauge should function as a no go.

^^^ THAT is the first thing you should do. Check the headspace before ever firing it again.

The bottom line is either the false shoulder is inadequate or the chamber is out of spec.

Don't know if it'll make a difference, but I prefer to fireform with virgin, or freshly annealed brass.

BTW, I have a friend who once had both a 270 and a 25-06. Until he mixed up the ammo! The Rem 700 25-06 was a total loss. He decided not to allow possibility for such mistakes in the future. 25-06 was replaced with something that won't take a 270.

The headspace is immaterial if you fire form correctly; either make a larger shoulder, or use the bullet method. then don't set the shoulders back.
But now, your shoulder is inadequate to prevent firing pin pushing the case forward. Open it up to 32 caliber; use new brass as stated above.
Very common wildcat/Ack stuff.

Ok so you jam the bullet into the lands and fire it.
The bullet accelerates down the bore, you hope the case head stays plastered to the bolt/block face.
If not then you stretch the case at the web making a thin spot gets thinner with each loading.

Locate on the shoulder and forget it, headache alleviated.

quote:

Originally posted by NRDock:
Don't know if it'll make a difference, but I prefer to fireform with virgin, or freshly annealed brass.

BTW, I have a friend who once had both a 270 and a 25-06. Until he mixed up the ammo! The Rem 700 25-06 was a total loss. He decided not to allow possibility for such mistakes in the future. 25-06 was replaced with something that won't take a 270.

Seem to me that would take some determined effort to close the bolt

Right, I was thinking that the bolt would not close at all on that combination as well.
Tim, I guess you have never heard of, nor tried, to fire form brass using a bullet seated hard into the rifling.
It works, does not stretch brass, and is well proven; I use it, as well as making a new shoulder for cases that have expensive bullets.
But please do not try it. Use your own methods.

Hi guys,
one of the reason's I am using COW is that I do not want to waste bullets just fireforming.
Barrel life is not going to be best in this caliber, so firing bullets down the barrel is wasted rounds and wasted barrel life..

regards griff

quote:

Seem to me that would take some determined effort to close the bolt

Reloads, no crimp, not completely full of powder
Not so hard. But yes, you'd think the neck would have been tight.

The point here, especially when fire forming with COW, the primer blows the rimless case forward a LOT, then as pressure builds with a full load the case comes back to seat against the bolt while full pressure builds. And you have a well formed case. With COW and a slower powder like Blue Dot you may not have the rear motion. Yes check the chamber thoroughly, and then you may want to fire form the case with a full load or work a fast powder that gets real pressure or a real bullet at near full pressure and standard load, or just start with a real, full pressure load. No problems like this with rimmed cases that hold headspace on the rim but Mr. Mauser lead us away from that. Very good cartridge. With Uncle Sam no longer giving away free brass, not as economical. (With an '03 Springfield --$18.50--, surplus ammo was $0.01 per round, no limit, and many fired cases lay where they fell.) Luck. Happy Trails.

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
The headspace is immaterial

Wow. Did you really just say that?

So now we are advocating building rifles with bad headspace?

quote:

Originally posted by Wstrnhuntr:

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
The headspace is immaterial

Wow. Did you really just say that?

So now we are advocating building rifles with bad headspace?

I think you are misunderstanding what dpcd is saying. The OP already has the equivalent of 'bad' headspace in that he needs to fireform his cases to take up the headspace. The rifle hasn't been built with bad headspace it is just that this is a wildcat needing cases formed to fit.

Seating the bullet to jam into the rifling ensures the case head is firm against the bolt face i.e. minimal headspace, and the softer section of the case, the shoulder and neck will blow forward to provide cases perfectly fitted to the chamber.

The OP doesn't indicate how many cases he wants for his wildcat but I doubt that firing off a packet of bullets to perfectly fireform 100 cases is going to make much difference to barrel life. At the moment he is not achieving anything towards producing suitable cases for his chamber.

quote:

Originally posted by eagle27:

quote:

Originally posted by Wstrnhuntr:

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
The headspace is immaterial

Wow. Did you really just say that?

So now we are advocating building rifles with bad headspace?

The rifle hasn't been built with bad headspace it is just that this is a wildcat needing cases formed to fit.

It is a 6.5-06 AI. I get that. I have an AI rifle. A properly built AI chamber does NOT have the equivalent of bad headspace, it is perfectly safe to fire factory rounds. OP states that the fired cases turn out short, so how do we know that the wildcat chamber hasnt been cut too deep? It is a Ruger #1. Was the barrel set back after being altered like it is supposed to be? Or did someone just run an AI reamer into it?

You take a 270 case and neck it down to .264, put it in a 6.5-06 AI chamber that is cut too deep and guess what, the false shoulder is going to be short of the chamber shoulder, the firing pin will then push it forward and you will have exactly what OP is seeing.

Im not saying that absolutely is what is happening, but it is certainly a possibility. And if that is the case, the answer is not to let it go, jam the bullets into the lands, fireform and then adjust reloading dies to compensate for the flaw, the answer is to fix the flaw.

It is a new chamber not a re-cut of an old chamber,I used a 06 go gauge and left it 4 thou proud, as instructed from a reputable source.
I tried Cow of wheat using a recipe from a 260 ackley and obviously it is not creating enough pressure, I had a private message from a member and he told me where I was going wrong.I tried a new recipe of 20gns bluedot and packing between the powder and the COW and guess what, it improved.
But erring on the side of caution I have not ventured past 20gns bluedot. I tried jamming the bullet and it worked a treat,but I as I explained bullets and powders are not cheap in the UK.
$65(100)for 129gn sst's
$70(1lb) for powder

Hence the perseverance with the COW method..

regards
Griff

Cast bullets long and heavy are great for this task. No wear on the barrel and will reach the lands. The fire forming works as great offhand practice as well.
If you have access to them of course. Good luck!

griff,
Your COW load will work fine if you lube the case. It allows the case to move to the rear without the pressures needed to stretch the case. Too much pressure however will overcome the lubrication and the case will adhere to the chamber.

quote:

Originally posted by griff:
It is a new chamber not a re-cut of an old chamber,I used a 06 go gauge and left it 4 thou proud, as instructed from a reputable source.
I tried Cow of wheat using a recipe from a 260 ackley and obviously it is not creating enough pressure, I had a private message from a member and he told me where I was going wrong.I tried a new recipe of 20gns bluedot and packing between the powder and the COW and guess what, it improved.
But erring on the side of caution I have not ventured past 20gns bluedot. I tried jamming the bullet and it worked a treat,but I as I explained bullets and powders are not cheap in the UK.
$65(100)for 129gn sst's
$70(1lb) for powder

Hence the perseverance with the COW method..

regards
Griff

Glad we got that cleared up. So 20 grs BD "improved" the fire forming, but are the cases still short? If that fixed the short case issue, you are good to go, even if they are not yet fully formed. But you need to have a proper shoulder to load your actual rounds. If not, you need another solution.

I understand that components can get spendy for you. But at some point you are going to need practice rounds. Yes? Nothing wrong with practicing with the equivalent of factory ammo. Kill 2 birds with one stone as they say.

What are you using for filler between the powder and cow? Maybe changing that up a bit will do the trick.

quote:

Originally posted by roughone:
griff,
Your COW load will work fine if you lube the case. It allows the case to move to the rear without the pressures needed to stretch the case. Too much pressure however will overcome the lubrication and the case will adhere to the chamber.

He is already experiencing forward movement of the case. I dont think lube is what he needs.

I would load a load that is just short or max, seat a bullit and fire it pointed up isn't a bad idea Im told but unnecessary, no false shoulder as that creates problems in this case..Many wildcat cases are made by shooting factory ammo in them..These things are over thought in many cases..I shoot 257s in my Ackley 257 to fireform brass all the time, shot many a 30-06 thru a 35 Whelen as did most folks back in the day..IN some cases its a good idea to seat a bullet into the throat snug to hold the case against the bolt face as DPCD suggests, in others its not needed..I recently fireformed about 200 257 Ackley s with 7x57 brass..jammed the bullet, but got to playing with it and found it unnecessary with the heavy bullets, so then tried some light varmint short bullets and still got a fully blown out case and that was with nickel brass that's harder to form Im told..

What I do believe is fireforming with cornmeal, rice etc and wax is not nearly as efficient as the use of a heavy bullet, and a near max load, that forms the case crisp and fully with one shot.

Hi guys,
with an increase in powder I noticed the case was not as deep and that the shoulder was far better formed, not looking like a weatherby..
Will try heavy packing, might also try necking a 30-06 which will give me a bigger area on the shoulder to stop the push forward by the firing pin.

regards
Griff

I've formed cases for my 6.5-06 AI from trimmed 270 brass with bullets seated long into the lands as well as the COW / false shoulder method. I use 11 gr. of Bullseye with a toilet paper patch and I lube the cases. I can't see any difference in the formed cases.