280 II barrel

[Swageall]

xxx

[quickdtoo]

Sure did, got it Tuesday afternoon!  I got all my .280Ackley brass fitted to the chamber with a false shoulder and loaded with start loads of RL22 and 150gr Nosler partition seconds cuz they were cheaper than anything else I could buy, just need to get to the range to fire form em to my chamber. Without the false shoulder, the Ackley brass had a good ..030" headspace, so I ran em into a Hornady .308 win die to expand the neck to .308", then partial neck sized them in a Redding .280Ackley neck sizer until they were flush with the chamber.

Thanks for checking, I'll post a range report as soon as I can.

Tim

[Fred M]

Tim.
What you are doing should work fine. Though I would give all the cases a bit of lube for fire forming. That will give you a perfect fit. After fire forming you need to get rid of the lube. I found the best lube for this is a light rub with Crisco.

I think it is silly to call it 280 imp imp. When you get a 280AI chambered by some of the top smith like Hart and Bob Brackney they stamp the barrel 280AI even though you cant chamber or fire 280 Rem factory loads. I had a 280 AI made by Bob Brackney in Mesa AZ it had a .311 neck and in no way can you fire factory loads.

My own design was also a 280AI with a 2.035" chamber and a .310 chamber neck and a .300 neck length and a .469 shoulder. I have always wondered why anybody would want to fire factory ammo in a wild cat 280 AI chamber. Besides not two are alike.  You know Redding makes a 243 and 280Ai dies with a .469 shoulder.

The AI designation identifies the 40 deg shoulder. One of my vavorites is called 7mmSSAI the SS stands for sore shoulder. You know it has a 40deg shoulder.

[Mac11700]

I think it is silly to call it 280 imp imp....The AI designation identifies the 40 deg shoulder.

Therin lies the problem...Not all cartridges that have a 40 degree shoulder are Ackley Improved cartridges...Folks may want to pay homage to the man and attribute calling any cartridge with a 40 deg.shoulder an Ackley...but..if you read what Parker wrote on the subject...you'll see he felt much differently about it...Then...as now...too many people have taken liberties with the mans name...

Tim...I'm looking forward to a full range report on it...and I hope it shoots great for ya..

Mac

[quickdtoo]

Fred,

Since the brass is already .280Ackley with a 40 degree shoulder, would there be any need to lube the cases? And if I do lube em, won't that make each case stick?

Wayne marked the barrel ".280 Imp Imp" and the invoice said "rechamber to .280 Ackley", FWIW.

Thanks,

Tim

[Fred M]

Tim
When you go out to the range take a bit of Crisco with you and fire one with lube and one without and see. Then you can decide whether you want to lube or not.

You have 30 thou to stretch. The primer will first drive the case forward, the Crisco will make sure that the case will not cling to the chamber and form without head space.

I doubt that the false shoulder will hold up totaly against the primer explosion???

[quickdtoo]

Fred,

I also loaded .010" into the lands, an article at 6mmBR recommended both for best results, false shoulder and load into the lands. Loads are full pressure start loads for the .280AI, not reduced fire forming loads. I also read your article on fire forming for the .280AI, but since I'm starting with .280AI brass, I thought it best to use this method. Wayne thought loading into the lands would be sufficient, but the false shoulder made a lot of sense too, so I went with both.

Tim

[quickdtoo]

Made it to the range today, got all 50 rounds fire formed to my chamber, Fred's advice on lubricating the cases worked like a charm, I didn't have any Crisco, but I did have some TC BoreButter, it worked great, had not even one stuck case and all cases came out perfect with no problems as far as separations. The 57.5gr of Rl22 shot right at 2800fps which is below book velocity, probably since the chamber is a lot bigger than the brass, but not afterwards!! The first 4-5 shots from a cold barrel were even accurate with groups that were about 1" which was surprising, but after that groups got up to 2" with a hot barrel.

I did have one pop open, the tight fit in the chamber in addition to the bullet in the lands made it hard to close, apparently I didn't get it locked up good that one time and the case auto-ejected!! Didn't damage the brass on the concrete floor cuz it deflected off my forehead and landed on the  bench next to me!!

Thanks Fred!!

Tim

[handirifle]

I did have one pop open, the tight fit in the chamber in addition to the bullet in the lands made it hard to close, apparently I didn't get it locked up good that one time and the case auto-ejected!! Didn't damage the brass on the concrete floor cuz it deflected off my forehead and landed on the  bench next to me!!

Thanks Fred!!

Tim

Ouch!

[quickdtoo]

Not to worry, no harm done, it didn't even leave a mark on me or the brass, just embarrassing....no one saw it happen, so I got off easy on that!!

That reminds me, yesterday when I prepared the brass for reloading, that case wouldn't fit in the chamber, apparently with the action not quite closed, it pushed the shoulder too far forward. Since I'm only neck sizing, I had decided to buy a .280 Ackley body die just in case I ever needed to push the shoulder back, it worked very well in doing just that, and saved me a few dollars since the Redding body die only cost $15 compared to the cost of either a FL die plus a neck sizer, or the other way round.

FWIW,  I use a Lee Universal decapper so I can decap before cleaning.

Another new issue to deal with was trim length, there isn't any listed in the Nosler manual, so I measured all the cases, then trimmed to the shortest length with a cut down .280 Rem Lee case length gauge, I wanted all the cases to be identical in length so bullet pull would be consistent for best accuracy.

The learning curve continues.....

Tim