fireforming?

[scratchmark]

what's some good recipes for fireforming bottle neck cases?

[Ladobe]

I've been a wildcatter for decades, but I'd have to know what the case is and what you are forming it to to give a recipe that will do the job but is still safe.   Doing so otherwise on an open forum is foolhardy IMO.

[scratchmark]

30-06 to 30-06ai

[Tom W.]

I just load a moderate load of IMR 3031 with a 160 gr cast Lee bullet, and load as normal. New brass is best to use, as older brass may give you troubles..
At least that is what works for me.
ANY load that you use needs to come straight from a load manual. The Lyman is a good one for that, if you'll be shooting cast bullets.

[Ladobe]

30-06 to 30-06AI is about as easy as a wildcat gets.   

Most wildcats that are simply improving the parent case to a blown out shoulder can be simply loaded with a reduced "book" load for the parent case, and then go hunting or target shooting as Tom suggested.   IOW, usually they are nearly as accurate as the improved version will be, so you might as well enjoy shooting them.   Fireforming these easy WC's with fillers and no bullet seated is mostly just a waste of supplies IMO.

HTH

L.

[Catfish]

For fire forming Ackley improved cases do not use loads that are loaded to lite as the shoulders will not form. I like to find a max. or near max. load for the parent round and fire form while hunting, or target shooting. With my 411 Hawk you have to load heavy charges to get the shoulder to form enough to head space on.

[parkergunshop]

My approach for the 30-06 Ackley Improved, the .257 Roberts Ackley Improved, the 338/06 and .35 Whelen is:

Use midrange loads couple grains below maximum in the loading books, adjust the bullet seater so that the bullet is just contacting the lands in the barrel when the round is chambered, this keeps the base of the case back against the bolt face and causes the front of the case to do all the stretching in the shoulder area, you don't want brass stretching near the base of the case.

I have never lost a case with this method in these calibers.

[Tom W.]

I learned that the hard way.. Those bright rings will have you scratching your head until it dawns on you....

[geezerbiker]

Depending on the round I use 5 to 10 grains of red dot, a cotton ball and pack the rest of the case with rolled oats.  Got outside and shoot them straight up.  Yes it's messy but it works and doesn't stretch out the case. 

I've used this method for forming cases for .22 K-Hornet and 7.7mm Arisaka rounds from shortened '06 cases. 

Tony

[roper]

30-06 to 30-06ai

 
 
If the 30-06AI is chamber right you should be able to fire a 30-06 case with no problems.  I'm not going to waste my new Ackely barrel fireform with bullets so I use the COW method.  About 16gr Bullseye fill case to bottom of neck with Cream-o-Wheat you can take alittle cotton or tissue paper fill the neck tap in down over the COW point the barrel slight upward and fire.  I've fireform using that for the 35WhelenAI,30-06AI and others.
 
I run  a wet/dry patch 10/15 rds fired.  On some of my varmit barrels I'll fireform shooting PD and that way I've got two loads worked up.
 
 

[cpileri]

I can only offer my limited experience.  But i can agree that i never got anywhere blowing out the bottleneck of a 9.3x74R case until i put some 'oomph' into the load: a projectile with some weight to it and a decent powder charge.  Nothing super magnum, but not cornmeal and 10gr of Unique either.
Here is my experience with it:
http://www.gboreloaded.com/forums/index.php/topic,223383.0.html  check on page 2 of the thread, posts #34 and 35 by me for the meat of the info.  The beginning is my information gathering phase.
Bottom line: what worked finally to get 95% where i wanted was the 148gr projectile and then 200ish grains of shot over my powder charge: in other words, about 2/3 of the final projectile weight, with a powder charge light enough to make ~50% of the foot-pounds of the final load. 
So, my conjecture, with a 30-06 Springfield to 30-06AI, using factory 30-06 ammo which is plenty powerful relative to most recommended fireforming loads (which are all very light in annealed brass) it should form your case in one shot, maybe 2. 
C-

[SHOOTALL]

Isn't the 3006 AI and 3006 factory the same head space ? If so just fire the factory load in the 3006 AI . I thought the AI chambers were able to use parent factory load incase you need to use them in a pinch.
 

[SHOOTALL]

When I shot a 7 TCU I would fire 223 rem. in my 7 TCU and it worked great. And no it was not accurate with the 223. 

[roper]

Isn't the 3006 AI and 3006 factory the same head space ? If so just fire the factory load in the 3006 AI . I thought the AI chambers were able to use parent factory load incase you need to use them in a pinch.

Might want to read this
 
http://www.mansonreamers.com/Instructions/Ackley%20Gaging.pdf