reforming fired formed brass?

[aldar]

I bought some brass from a guy for my .280Rem. Some of the brass was fired formed into .280 Ackley Improved. Is it possible or advisable to try and run these through my die back to .280 Rem?

[Graybeard]

I've done it tho not with the .280 AI. If the brass has been fired several times I'd say it's likely not worth the trouble but if just formed and then not fired again it has seemed to work OK for me.

Annealing might be a good idea tho.

[aldar]

I'm guessing it was just fired once, but I don't know

[stimpylu32]

Like Bill said , you can try , thats a lot of shoulder to move back , it may take a couple passes to get it done without crushing the case ,

You may be better off to find someone to trade the improved case's to for normal 280 brass .

stimpy

[aldar]

I set the die up to partially re-size and ran a couple thru ok.  I had to put quite a bit of pressure on them to move the shoulder back. The third one snapped at the shoulder.

[gray-wolf]

You may be better off to find someone to trade the improved case's to for normal 280 brass .

stimpy

+ 1  on the trade it off
That brass is going to be very over worked, and I would think it would have to be re-fire formed to your chamber before you can get any good accuracy from it.  That's a lot of load and shoot for nothing.

[Catfish]

I`ve never tried to go that way with any brass, but I don`t think that you will be able to reform the shoulder without crushing them. Necks are 1 thing, shoulders are something else.

[jhalcott]

I went from 308 to 708 and back once. I only shot the 708 one time then bought new. After RE resizing to .308, I lost several cases due to split necks. I think annealing the cases BEFORE returning them to the standard .280 form would help. BUT that is a lot of work to get usable brass that can be bought, and the history of it will be known in stead of guessed at!

[charles p]

I have a 280 and a 280AI, and have been given lots of once fired 280 brass.  I'll swap with you if it will help you out.