22-6MM AI Forming brass

[GNERGY]

I just finished threading and chambering my barrel ( X Caliber 1 in 8 twist ) and was wondering how you guys are forming your brass. What kind of powder and how much, for the COW method.
Don't tell me to just load them with a bullet and shoot them, cause that's just not happening.
Thanks in advance
I might just post for a shot out 223 cal barrel and run my reamer in it to use to form cases.
Tarey

 

[daniel brothers]

Some people use the oat meal system... but when i formed brass for my 22-243AI... I just worked with only 50 pieces of brass ... and worked up a load. By the time I got it worked up, it was just minor adjustments for the finished load... and it helped break in the barrel.... that worked for me.... and of course reaming out another barrel to just work up brass works as well. Congratulations on a WONDERFUL CALIBER.

 

[Plumsask]

I just did 50 pieces of 30-06 lapua brass I formed down for my 6mm Rem AI, I used 13.5 grains of W231, a quarter piece of toilet paper as a wad, and cream of wheat to the shoulder neck junction topped with a small piece of cotton ball to hold it in place. Worked great and I now have 6mm Improved Lapua brass.

I read off the Mike J's 6mm Ackley page : he suggests picking a fast pistol powder. First fill the empty case to the mouth the , empty the powder into a pan and weigh it. Take 10% of the total and use it as yourbsrti g charge and work up until you're seeing decently formed shoulders. I started at 6 grains and worked up to 13.5, I'm sure 11-12 grains would have worked for me as well.

 

[1lessdog]

When I did my 22-6MM AI I used the COW. I used 15 gr Red dot filled with COW and pushed the end of cartridge into a bar of soap. I would do 10 to 15 at a time and let the barrel cool down. After your done you look down your barrel and it is so shiny.

I clean my barrels out using this method now. No swabbing the barrel and running patch after patch thru them.

Give it a try and see what I mean.

 

[daniel brothers]

WOW.... good idea there

 

[GNERGY]

I plan on using HBN to coat my bullets and my barrel.
Thanks for the ideas.
Tarey

 

[RDavies]

A bit late rely, but how about using Trailboss? I used to have a 22/6mm Rem Imp (I went through 3-4 barrels) and did use ear plugs to plug the end of the case which worked in a way but I did end up with very differing case lengths after fire forming. When fire forming with normal projectiles, blown out case lengths did end up much more even.

If Trailboss powder had been out when I had this calibre I would most certainly stick to using Trail boss to fire form brass. You could fire form 100 cases with minimal throat erosion as you would only need to load around 15gns of Trailboss (at a guess) and it appears to be very cool burning when I have used it in other calibers since.

 

[GNERGY]

I ended up using 16gr HP38 with a 1/2 piece of toilet paper packed down inside, worked good. Made a hole in my garbage can to fit the end of a used barrel I picked up from a gentleman on this site, was still kind of loud, I had to use muffs.
RDavies, what kind of barrel life did you get out of yours. I an HBN coating my bullets to see if that helps.
Tarey

 

[Ackman]

I'll tell you anyway. Work up a load with a bullet, go out and find rockchucks or pd's or whatever you plan to use the gun for, and shoot them. That "fireform" load will be as accurate as with formed cases, and almost the same. With formed brass the load will be the same only a bit more, easy to find because you've almost already found it.

 

[284winner]

Does the low powder dose form the brass properly ? I've always use a pretty stout load using bullets to make sure the brass formed tight to the chamber. I like the soap and TP idea with less powder saving throat life. Makes sense if it's enough powder to get it done.

 

[7mmmag]

I also used 17 gr Red Dot cow method , I load 52.0 gr RL 19 CCI BR 2 Hornady 6mm brass 69 TMK vel =3863 fps . I also have a 1-8 twist barrel .

 

[Oso]

I've done a bunch of 223AI case forming using COW method. Go buy a canister of plain cornmeal (usually either on the Baking Goods aisle or Hot Cereal aisle of food store). You'll want to put 1/2 cleaning patch or similar item between the powder and cornmeal to ensure powder is centered on primer for ignition. Fill up the case to point of over-flowing with corn meal and then place other 1/2 of patch on top and pack it down into the case until patch is placed below neck/shoulder... a cheap chopstick or dowel works great for this. Bring a can of compressed air to blow out any residue (burnt cornmeal or patch) in chamber between each shot so that it doesn't deform or wrinkle the exterior of the next case during forming. By blowing out the chamber between shots you should only need to run wet patch down barrel every 50 to 100 fire forming cases.

Ideally, you want to use a Fast burning powder that will result in rapid expansion of shoulder sealing off gas from escaping around outside or neck retarding a clean uniform case form. Your best powers are pistol powders that are fast burning and also clean burning, specifically Bullseye or TiteGroup. For a 223AI case form process, I use 8.5gr Bullseye. For 243 or 6mm Rem I would start with 12.0gr and work up from there and not exceed 15gr.

 

[Longtrain]

For the 223AI, 8 grs of Bullseye, small square of TP, corn meal and another TP on the top. Usually fire 5 then run a patch down the barrel. Always worked well.

 

[Ackman]

The 40gr. "fireform" load for my .223AI is 28.0/2015, which is compressed. All holes touch. This load works very well in the field. With formed brass the load is anywhere from 28.0 to 28.5 of the same powder, I've gone to 29.0gr. and almost 4200 with same all-holes-touching accuracy and no pressure signs. Groups are so much better than with fillers and definitely much better results on a pd. With 50's I'm "fireforming" with 26.0/2015 and a 50TNT......that load simply because it's what I shot with great accuracy in a std. .223 barrel that's been retired, and still have several 100rd bags of it remaining in the ammunition cabinet. There are faster 50gr. "fireform" loads for the AI, but this one shoots as well in the AI gun as it did in that Shilen std. .223, so I'm using them. I've shot a whole bunch of pd's with this load on pd's and it's so much more lethal and accurate than COW. I put "fireform" in quotes because it's actually just shooting working, effective loads with the bonus of a perfectly formed case being ejected. The load with formed brass is usually about 1/2 to 1 gr. more of the same powder, depending on the chambering. Schneider 25" barrel, 14 twist, .250"NK, 0 freebore, IMI brass, 7-1/2, 6500' elevation.

 

[Oso]

For the 223AI, 8 grs of Bullseye, small square of TP, corn meal and another TP on the top. Usually fire 5 then run a patch down the barrel. Always worked well.

That's how I started but then I had a brain storm and brought can of compressed air (used to blow out keyboards). I went from having to clean the barrel every 5-10 rounds to every 50-100 rounds. A couple of quick blast of air clears out any residue/debris left in chamber from extracting last fired round. It eliminated any issues with irregular dimpling or dents on outside of case that usually results from case expanding with piece of debris between it and case chamber.

The Compressed Air made a world of difference and massively sped of time for forming cases.

 

[JSH]

If you don’t have some way to hold the brass back against the face of the bolt and just use the extractor to hold the case, your setting yourself up for issues.

I have fireformed with about every way one can think of.
Imho a cast bullet is a prime candidate for forming brass with great results and zero wear on your bore. I set mine up so they are jammed and finish seating when the action is closed. Trail Boss is the easy way out as far as powder goes.

 

[Oso]

If you don’t have some way to hold the brass back against the face of the bolt and just use the extractor to hold the case, your setting yourself up for issues.

I have fireformed with about every way one can think of.
Imho a cast bullet is a prime candidate for forming brass with great results and zero wear on your bore. I set mine up so they are jammed and finish seating when the action is closed. Trail Boss is the easy way out as far as powder goes.

I know with 223AI you are indexing off shoulder to create crush fit (holds case steady and also seals off gas). This works fine so long as 223 case is spec, but if shoulder is short (pushed back) then can't get a proper seal. In this situation it is quite common to experience light strikes as the firing pin hits the case it simply pushes it further forward into the chamber.

Is it not same procedure for forming the 223-6mm... indexing off shoulder?

 

[Ackman]

I know with 223AI you are indexing off shoulder to create crush fit (holds case steady and also seals off gas). This works fine so long as 223 case is spec, but if shoulder is short (pushed back) then can't get a proper seal. In this situation it is quite common to experience light strikes as the firing pin hits the case it simply pushes it further forward into the chamber.

Is it not same procedure for forming the 223-6mm... indexing off shoulder?

No matter what the headstamp, 223 cases aren't all to spec. I measured a bunch of .223 brass and was surprised at just how much difference there was. Within one headstamp they can be all over the place by enough to make that oft quoted number .004" crush meaningless. And between headstamps, shortest to longest can vary by twice that. In order to get a good crush for an AI you chamber at least .010" short and .012" is better. My chambers are .015" short. Sounds like a lot and surely there are people, including some gunsmiths, who'd say that's way too much and not necessary. But it's not. It takes very little, or barely felt, pressure to close the bolt and results in a perfectly formed AI case every time. I'm using IMI brass. Other headstamps I measured were WW, R-P, Lapua.

 

[JSH]

The JDJ cartridges almost always said to jam the bullets, the first fire forming and then not do it again. Pretty sure that was to keep the brass up against the face of bolt or breech to insure brass grew at the shoulder and not the web.

It is a shame but AI has become a generic term for the most part.
To my understanding is the proper fire formed brass will end up shorter than the parent case, always has in the half dozen I have had over the years.

There is what some term as the false shoulder. Leave enough of an over sized portion of the neck to crush or hold the case back when the action is closed. That is how I do 7-30 Waters.
The COW method with cream of wheat,grits,even heard of guys using coffee, is a waste of time, powder and primers IMHO. If I load a cartridge for fire forming nothing says one has to run it full throttle, I usually anneal even virgin brass when I fire form, seems to make rounded shoulders less of an issue.

 

[Oso]

No matter what the headstamp, 223 cases aren't all to spec. I measured a bunch of .223 brass and was surprised at just how much difference there was. Within one headstamp they can be all over the place by enough to make that oft quoted number .004" crush meaningless. And between headstamps, shortest to longest can vary by twice that. In order to get a good crush for an AI you chamber at least .010" short and .012" is better. My chambers are .015" short. Sounds like a lot and surely there are people, including some gunsmiths, who'd say that's way too much and not necessary. But it's not. It takes very little, or barely felt, pressure to close the bolt and results in a perfectly formed AI case every time. I'm using IMI brass. Other headstamps I measured were WW, R-P, Lapua.

Agree - My first experience with 223AI resulted in a few follow-up calls and visits to gunsmith to determine why I was experiencing such a high level (40% - 75%) of failure to fire on a variety of new factory .223 ammo that I was attempting to fore form. At the end of the day after much hand wringing and cussing, the culprit was the ammo being loaded short (shoulder set below SAMI Spec) which resulted in my bolt/chamber not being able to form crush fit. Ammo designed/geared toward AR15 are loaded short by manufacturer to ensure 100% reliability feeding and extracting in gas gun. I found that best success was Match Ammo, which tended to hold to factory specs.

My chamber is AI as originally designed by Mr. Ackley. Next time I will set the barrel back to help offset the "short" factory ammo.

I needed to fire-form a large volume of cases (2k-3k) to feed a couple of rifles. I used COW to retain barrel life as well as to speed up case forming. On a cool day (45F-50F) I could form 300 cases an hour with the barrel getting barely warm (like same as having shot 1-2 regular cartridges). I used new virgin LC brass without an issue.