Shiloh Rifle Forums

I would like to fire form more brass for my Sharps, I have 2 other 45/70s, but they don't get much attention these days. I have another 50 pieces that are almost new, and I want to dedicate them to the Sharps. Once I fire form them, I do not resize them any longer. For this, because they have been fired in either a Marlin or a Ruger chamber, will have to be full length sized, this makes it impossible to seat the Brooks bullets since my expander die doesn't open them up enough to get the bullet far enough into the case to not leave an air gap. So with these I am thinking that I will load some 415gr Ranch Dog bullets over either Unique or IMR4198. My question is, will this suffice for my purposes? In the past I have just used the same Black Powder charge as I use for the Creedmoor bullet, thinking the smokeless should pop the cases out to fill the chamber just fine, but I haven't tried it before. At the ranges I currently shoot, the lighter bullets ring the steel just fine, and if I use the smokeless, I can skip the lube as I powder coat these. When I shoot them over black, I lube the powder coated bullets to keep the fouling soft.

Dave

Have you tried chambering them first?

Yes, they won't chamber without full length sizing, leave about .5" hanging out of the chamber.

That's not an uncommon problem with brass fired in chambers other than the Shiloh.
You can either resize and then fireform and hope they don't stick, or just use a separate brand of brass for the Shiloh.

I segregate my Shiloh brass, these are going to be an addition to those. Component availability being what it is, I figure the additional 50 in the rotation will increase the longevity of all of them.

The brass shortage thing is a problem.
After you resize those others load, chamber, and fire them just to make sure it's going to work.

Absolutely! I've been lucky for a lot of years, I have duplicates of several calibers, the Sharps and a Remington Sendero are the first 2 that I've had to keep separate brass for.

I've always done the fire forming thing because that is what I was taught about reloading of BPCR rounds but have never really been able to tell any difference in accuracy if done or not , with straight walled cases. If the bullet kisses the lands and is straight in the case mouth I don't think the barrel cares if the case body is a precise fit to the chamber. Actually no case ever is any way because it springs back from the chamber walls and unless the brass wall thickness is precisely the same radial thickness at the same length it is not going to have the same amount of spring back from the chamber wall. I think it a great theory and probably has application to bench rest shooting but doubt it's necessity to what we do.
It is necessary when forming a brand new case of a differing shape but if your chambers are cut to a nominal specification and the load will chamber I don't think you can detect the difference in accuracy potential from a factory or sized case compared to a fire formed one. One mans observation and opinion.

HIgh Desert Hunter,
I suggest you Partial size those tight brass -fit and try fit and try until they will just chamber snugly.
Then load and shoot them
beltfed/arnie

Arnie,
I will try that with the next batch, right now I have 20 primed and full length sized waiting for powder and bullets. The original 100 were all full length sized originally, haven't been sized since, I use a universal decapping die to punch out the spent primers.
Dave

I do think that consistent case length and neck wall thickness far more necessary to good accuracy than is fire forming.

The reason I am fire forming is strictly so that I can seat the bullet I shoot. My RCBS expander die simply does not expand the case deep enough to seat my bullets by hand.

Have you thought about fire forming those cases using smokeless powder and corn meal instead of a bullet ?
Seem to recall an older thread here on this forum on how to do that by Michael Rix.
I had a bunch of Remington new factory 45-70 brass that was short, so I annealed and stretched the brass then fire formed with corn meal, then trimmed to length.
I tried it in my 45-70 and it works just fine. Saves on alloy also.
Seems to work best firing with muzzle well elevated and your back to the wind.

Or you could get the proper expander from Buffalo Arms. In general, the expander supplied with a die set is too small for most cast bullet applications.

Clarence

DD, I have a lot of the 415s cast up, and the trigger time will do me good. Clarence, I will definitely look into that!

Dave