Fire forming Question...

[jwrowland77]

I have about 400 .308 win cases that I want to fireform. Fireformed brass just seems to shoot better in my rifle. I've tested both way, fireformed, neck sized brass and FL Resized brass, and the FF Neck sized just shoots better.

Either way, I have about 400 cases I need to fireform and don't want to waste 400 bullets or spend the money on 400 bullets.

Is there a way I can do this without loading a minimum load with a bullet?

 

[witchhunter]

Google Cream if Wheat or COW fireforming. Use a light load and some cereal. It is a common way to fire form brass.

 

[Walkalong]

IMO, no, just use cheap bullets, or use the fire forming rounds for practice. And don't use reduced loads.

 

[gamestalker]

I just keep a variety of random bullets available for this. As for the load, I just run a standard load as it applies to the bullet weight.

I just formed a bunch of 7 mag. recently, and since I didn't want to use any of my bullets intended for the accuracy load, I just rounded up all my left over's, and although that sometimes means I have to run various charges as per bullet weights, it's well worth it to not waste the good bullets.

Eventually you'll have to bump the shoulders, thus having to start all over again, but such is the art of reloading.

GS

 

[spitballer]

New .223 cases are the same way. Hate to even use them the first time because the necks are so tight! I've considered opening up the necks and then resizing them before loading them, but it would be a lot of work. I think the best bet is to load them just a few thousandths into the lands, trying to approximate the same OAL as the normally-tensioned necks. I suspect that the neck tension itself is relatively inconsequential until it's used to hold the projectile hard into the lands. I don't know about .308 cases but the .223's don't seem to behave much differently after they're fire formed, it's just a hassle working with the new cases mostly because of the tight necks.

 

[jwrowland77]

I neck turn and then use a collet die. Don't have much neck tension. I do know that fireformed brass that's been neck sized with a collet die, definitely shoot better and are more accurate out of my rifle when shooting 600 and 1000yds