Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Alternatives to Cream of Wheat

Seafire,



I usually fireform brass by loading up some bullets and shooting a bunch of ground squirrels or prairie dogs, easy to do here in Montana. But over 80% of Americans live in major urban areas, where just going to a shooting range is not only time-consuming but expensive. Using the COW or Bullseye-and-plug technique can often be done at home, whether in the garage or basement, and the formed brass then loaded with various powder charges and bullets for the limited range-time available to those shooters.

Which is why I've experimented with non-bullet case forming: Many readers can't get to the range very often, and when they do their range-time is often limited. So I try stuff to see what might work for them.

I wanted some 250 savage brass . I have lots of 22-250 brass so decided to fire form. I did not have cream of wheat so tried an alternate.
I did have some of the meal left over from making alcohol. The farmers use it for cattle feed . Close enough i figured .

Worked like a charm . Seemed too clean the barrel also. But I did give it a proper cleaning before using bullets ,

Yondering-that is impressive. Are you from the South? I didn't think anyone north of the Mason-Dixon knew what Grits are unless they were from down here...lol.

I guy down here used milo to fireform. I think he used bullseye.

Yep, mostly Mississippi but all over really. Love me some grits, as well as black eyed peas, greens, and other things these Northerners don't know about.

Plus ++++, I love poke salad and collard greens also. I like the fruit of the PawPaw Tree.

How about rice? You end up with free puffed rice. Commercial tag line, "It's shot from cannons!

Just kidding of course. Dirty work but someone's got to do it.

ipopum,

In my experience with quite a few .22-250's and .250-3000 Savages, just running new .22-250 brass into a .250 die works fine. The shoulder angle is supposedly slightly different, but in new cases I've never found it to make any difference.

"I want my Maypo!" Anyone else remember that?

That could get messy:

Amazing the lengths people will go to not shoot.

I tried the corn residue that I used to fire form the 250 Savage cases in an old military 8 m/m today.

Loaded some shotgun powder and then a cloth wad and then the course ground corn. The barrel was noticeable cleaner and brighter after about 3 shots.

Hmm I wonder what else needs a few corn round down the barrel ?

Unless the parent case is long enough to form a false shoulder sized to jam the case head against the bolt face while forming with Cream of Wheat, etc....you're probably going to get a better fire formed case by loading a real round and seat the bullet long to jam into the rifling, and keep the case firmly against the bolt face. Look at it as practice/plinking ammo. You also may be surprised and find that these fire forming loads pretty damn well. Trigger time, is never a bad thing.

Yes rather amazing actually..... amazing folks put shiit in their barrel l I ke cream of wheat.....

I believe the COW method and usefulness is when stepping UP several diameters,

I blew out 50 rds of .30-06 cases to .338-06 in a relatively short period of time and don't understand what all the crying is about, it ain't like COW is going to hurt a steel barrel.

Mike

Tell that to my former Homer bucket that had been filled with wadded up newspaper, old beach towels, etc.

Every 338/06 case I have made has been from just necking up 30/06 cases, using a tapered expander spindle that RCBS sent me for free....probably 500 to 600 plus....

certainly a lot cheaper than Cream of Wheat, primers and powder to do so,

I've never had to use filler on any reduced loads, and I shoot a bunch of them.

but hey, whatever way works for each member... don't let me get in the way...

Iv use this method for the Gibbs and it does a good job ....

One of the cases I used to fireform was a 35 Gibbs and necking up and making a false shoulder was the best method for me.