All the stuff is finally here for my new 6 Dasher.

[Steve Wilson]

The Pacific Tool and Gauge reamer came yesterday; it was the last thing I had been waiting on. No Turn .2704 neck, .104 freebore, 1*-30 lead. The rest of the stuff came in over the past few weeks. Broughton 30 inch, 8 twist, 5C barrel, 200 Lapua 6 BR cases, 200 Berger 105 Hybrids, 8 pound jug of Varget, Forster micrometer seating die, Redding Competition full length bushing style sizing die, and Pacific Tool Go and No Go headspace gauges. Also, a barrel vice and recoil lug alignment tool from Sinclair. I already have an action wrench.

I phoned my gunsmith buddy last evening to find out when he wanted to get started on this new switch barrel. He said he would be busy doing some pillar bedding work today for another customer, and to call him Thursday. A friend from the range gave me a 6 BR take off barrel from one of his Remington silhouette rifles that I will have re-chambered to use for fireforming. That barrel has a shot out throat and has just been laying around here for a few years, waiting to find something useful to do.

This barrel will go on my Remington 700 that currently wears a Broughton 8 twist, 5C, 6.5x284. It is in a Lone Wolf 3 inch forearm, thumbhole, adjustable cheek piece, Kevlar and Carbon Fiber stock. The Jewell trigger is set at 4 ounces.

It's finally all coming together. Whoohoo.

 

[bozo699]

Steve,
Congratulations on your new build I hope the .298 no turn was a miss print, you should have about a .270 or .271 no turn neck for blue box Lapua and .272 for cardboard box Lapua brass. Don't overlook H-4895 for your dasher with 400 primers, best of luck and have fun
Wayne.

 

[Steve Wilson]

Wayne,

Right you are, Sir. It is a .2704 neck. The .298 is a neck reamer that I also bought from Pacific for my two tight necked 6.5x284's. I want to open their necks up so that I don't have to turn the brass anymore.

Good catch on your part. I didn't pay close enough attention to the invoice when I entered the reamer data.

 

[bozo699]

Wayne,

Right you are, Sir. It is a .2704 neck. The .298 is a neck reamer that I also bought from Pacific for my two tight necked 6.5x284's. I want to open their necks up so that I don't have to turn the brass anymore.

Good catch on your part. I didn't pay close enough attention to the invoice when I entered the reamer data.

Steve,
I understand, I am in the middle of three builds now and it gets confusing. I had a 6 Dasher last year and did okay with it but I bought it from another guy already built, I bought my own 6brx reamer at the end of the season two years ago and have chambered several barrels with it and like it very much, my partner won a reamer from PT&G at our championship shoot last August so we ordered a new reamer with a longer throat, cant wait for it to get here, our first match is the middle of march and the ream isn't expected until the middle of Feb so that means the first of march if were lucky so we will be pushed again this year, fun fun fun : I think you will really enjoy the dasher there just plain accurate, all the winners at our club are running them, my partner and I just like to be different and buck the system I hope were not wrong, we will see, best of luck with your build and most importantly have fun! let us know how it pans out.
Wayne.

 

[Killshot]

Steve,
Kiff set me up with the same reamer for my new Dasher.
I'm halfway through fireforming and the accuracy is absurd...
Absurdly great!
You're going to love it.

 

[Steve Wilson]

Wayne,

I've been in the same boat before; being rushed isn't the most fun position to be in. Is it? It seems everything conspires against you....weather, schedule, stuff not getting to you in time, etc. You know what I mean. Our first match at Benchrest Club is in March also but I feel I have plenty of time for fireforming, load development and practicing in the wind. Best of luck to you also.

Killshot,

I sent off a PM to you about your fireforming. Hoping that the gunsmith will have me together in time to start forming my brass this weekend. What load and method are you using? I have a bunch of Berger 95 VLD's I was hoping to burn up, a new 8 pound jug of Varget and a brick of 205 primers. I'm planning on doing the load & shoot method with a healthy jam.

Thanks guys,

 

[johara1]

I hope you made the chamber a little shorter to use with the blue box brass. When you fire form it will come out very short,like 1.550 or less and in a 1.570 chamber it would be a big jump.............jim

 

[bozo699]

Steve,
Jim has a point, I cheated however and just by accident not by design my brass comes out about 1.5575- 1.5615 and my chamber is 1.563, I trim for 1.557 which gives me .006 clearance I did this like I said by accident, I was tired of wasting bullets and decided to try cow method again I was able to get my shoulders square enough to suit me but I lacked .003-.005 of being full length on the shoulder so upon the first firing with the bullet you were still fireforming, and I didn't like that so I decided I would try something new, I chambered the factory tube on my sons Savage 6br to 6brx and set it about .003 long on the go gauge, I expand the neck with a .257 expanding mandrel and then run it in a Forster neck die that was set to bump the shoulder on a fully formed 6brx case and backed it off about 1/3 of a turn which gives me a nice crush fit, I have been using 14 grains of Bullseye then topped off with COW and .177 cleaning patch jammed into the neck and that has been working great, I have another method that even works better but won't publish it over the WWW, with this combination my brass at the base to datum measurement is equal to or even +.001 over my match chamber specs and I am with in .0015-.0055 of full chamber length, I then am able to bump the shoulder back to desired length for my match chamber and trim to 1.557 which gives me a piece of brass that is almost 100% full capacity on it's first firing. I thought this might be hard on my cases so I took three cases and loaded them with full house loads and fired them 10 times each after the initial forming and they show no signs of abnormal wear so I formed 300 more cases in the same manner, I don't know why it wouldn't work for a Dasher, the basic only difference is mine has a 30 degree shoulder and yours a 40 degree shoulder.
Wayne.

 

[Steve Wilson]

I held off replying to these last posts until I could talk to Dave Kiff, which I just did. Dave said if we chamber the barrel, using the 6 Dasher Go Gauge that I ordered along with the No Turn reamer, that my chamber length would be 1.555 and that he could foresee no issues at all with the length of my fireformed brass. If anybody has used these exact reamers and headspace gauges and came up with any issues, or success, PLEASE let me know. We are chambering my new barrel Sunday morning.

 

[Killshot]

Steve,
The reamer I got from Kiff (same neck, FB and throat as yours) had a 1.500 1.550" chamber-length. It was chambered with his Go/No-Go gauges. He was aware that I'm using the "new" brass.

I just measured fifty cases I fire-formed this morning and they are coming out at 1.538" with sharp case-to-shoulder and shoulder-to-neck angles. I have not re-sized them yet so I don't know how much, if any, they might grow in length. I am pretty much unconcerned about the .012". I doubt that I'll need to trim brass.

The 30" Bartlein 5-groove, ratchet-rifled, .236 bore, 8 twist shows ZERO coppering (200rds) - just the normal (for Varget) carbon fouling. During FF it was easily putting 15rds under a nickel at 200yds using 30.5gr of Varget and Berger 108BTs. I was jamming .030" using unsized, new Lapua blue box brass.

Am working up a load this week for the 1st match with this rifle next Sunday. I'll post results or PM you.

2-4-12 Edit: corrected chamber length typo!

 

[Steve Wilson]

Killshot,

The 1.500 is a typo, right? 1.538 + .012 = 1.550 Which is still .005 short of the 1.555 length that Kiff gave me yesterday. Let me know what length they are after sizing and how your load development goes. I'm planning on using 95 VLD's for fireforming and 105 Hybrids for the actual load.

Many thanks and the best of luck.

 

[bozo699]

Steve,
I was thinking the same thing (1.500) must be a typo. Why are you going to fireform with expensive 95 vld's are you going to fireform at a 600 yard match or something? just curious why you picked that bullet? fdshuster and I both found we had the best luck with un coated flat base bullets, I used the 105 speer because I was able to buy them bulk and cheap, I think Frank used 80 or 85 fb Sierra bullets, I was able to shoot steel for practice out to 600 yards with that setup, just curious on your thoughts that's all.
Wayne.

 

[Steve Wilson]

See? This is why I am so pleased with all of the advise and friendly suggestions here. I have a couple of boxes of the 95 VLD's laying around back from when I was shooting a 243 Ackley in 600 yard matches. The Berger 105's did so much better that the 95's became just something else gathering dust. But, I have been having this nagging concern rattling around in my head about using boat tails at all for the fireforming. Specifically, that a flatbase may give more neck tension due to the longer bearing surface. Would that be correct?

I really like your mention of shooting steel at 600 yards, I could do that too but never thought of it. What I should have focused on is what bullet would be the best for the fire forming, not what I might have laying around. The goal is to get the best result on reforming the case after all. I think I will order up some of the bullets you suggest.

Thanks again Wayne.

 

[bozo699]

Steve,
Other guy's are going the route you were talking about, I just had better luck with f b bullets, you might give fdshuster a p.m,.....very nice guy with a wealth of info, I know he would be all to glad to share with you his results on fireforming the 6brx and I think he may have owned a dasher as well, I did fireform my dasher in the same way with good results, I fireformed 150 cases and shot maybe 50 in a match and then pulled the barrel and rebarreled and chambered it in 6brx : take care steve, let us know how it all worked for you.
Wayne.

 

[Killshot]

Fellas, that WAS a type, the chamber is 1.550".

Only reason I used the 108s was I had two boxes of them. Even with the .030 jam the bearing surface filled 99% of the neck. Came out perfect.