Wildcat reamer and dies: chicken or egg?

[Tommie]

Say you're designing a cartridge that involves shortening brass, necking down, and blowing out to a sharp shoulder. Reamer and die manufacturers can make what you need if you supply a few fireformed rounds, but of course you're not able to do that. For those of you who have been through the process, how do you get from point A to point B?

 

[357Mag]

Tommie -

Howdy !

It's the chicken.

For non-hydraulically formed wildcats, generally:
- Spec the wildcat case w/ the reamer maker, so they can make the chamber and re-size reamers.
- Send re-size reamer to die maker, so that " case forming " and reloading die sets can be made.
- Form sample wildcat cases w/ the new case forming die(s), once they arrive.
- Assemble bulleted " dummy rounds" w/ bullets seated to the depth ( cartridge oal ) you want to operate at, using the new bullet seater die.
- Provide chamber reamer and samples of both un-bulleted and bulleted " dummy rounds " to the riflesmith, for use in cutting the chamber.
- Use new sizing dies and bullet seater die on fired cases.

There are of course exceptions, dependent on how involved case forming of your wildcat might be. Y.C.M.V.
For a sharp-shouldered wildcat that has to be fire formed to final case specs, the case forming die set could include a die that initially forms the case
w/ a shallower shoulder angle than seen on the final configuration.

Simpler wildcats that can be case formed w/ existing dies and even chambered perhaps w/ existing reamers run in " short " or " long " change up the rules.


IMHO.

With regards,
357Mag

 

[Dusty Stevens]

You can send your reamer print to whidden and have dies made before your reamer is finished. This is what i do and between jgs and whidden it hasnt failed me yet and i did 4 very questionable ones this past winter. I used to get a resize reamer made at the same time and make my own but its easy enough with whidden. The trick is to make sure your reamer maker can make the reamer according to the print and your gunsmith can cut the chamber correctly.

 

[SmokinJoe]

In addition to what Dusty said, another option is to send the reamer print to CH4D and have them make a standard FL die from the print. If you do this, figure out what die neck diameter would be most desirable & spec it on the order. In my limited experience with both CH4D & Whidden's they both do good work, but Whidden's was quicker with delivery.