Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Custom Rifles & Wildcats Which Brass for fire-forming?

Which brass would or wouldn't you use for fire-forming cases? This will be for a 270 Improved.

I built a 6.5-06 & bought PPU 25-06 cases many of which have such narrowly-gapped extractor groove they won’t fit in my hand held primer case holders.

So no PPU...

I’ve become somewhat fond of Hornady brass of late...

I would go with any of the better brass. All the stand buys RWS, Lapua, Norma, Nosler. Norma has several out source companies now including Hornaday so can't bet on getting Norma produced brass anymore from them. There are several new companies that are making really good brass but I don't have any experience with them. Any brass will work just may take more sorting. I would definitely go with new brass.

For my 280AI I went with plated Remington cases for two reasons. It was on sale so cheap I got enough to burn out two barrels and it has the highest capacity of the commonly available cases. I would double check the chamber length, the Ackley gets shorter when you fire form, almost all reamers will have this correct but occasional one is made with parent cartridge length.

My PPU 25-06 was fine except the primer pockets needed reaming out. Sounds like your batch may have started as one of the x64mm cases which have a smaller extractor groove. Always lot by lot for brass, more so the less expensive it is..

Thank you

My only experience in fire forming was transforming 7.62x39 to 6.5 Grendel. Well a modified 6.5 Grendel. THey are supposed to have small rifle primers whereas the 7.62 cases use a large rifle primer. It may make a difference for precision shooting but they work fine for mine. I used IMI, Isralie Military Industries brass and it works fine. This was initially for a couple of AR 15 rifles in 6.5 Grendel. The resized loaded cartridges for fireforming fed from the magazines and even at much lower pressures cycled the action and gave me nicly formed cases.

I use 1969 LC National Match .30/06 brass for my Gibbs, and anneal the neck-shoulder area via the candle method after fireforming.

New brass.

Look up crod1972 in the classified section and get some of his once fired stuff.

It’ll be cheap enough to scrap 50%, and will get your feet wet on what your chamber dimensions are before committing to expensive new stuff.

I've formed Ackley brass my whole career and I find the brass is easiest to form in this order:

Winchester
Norma
Remington
powdr

Norma or Nosler

Always prefer Remington. Second choice would be Norma.

I had a 270 Improved in a 14” Encore barrel. It ran 130 BT’s to 2950 fps & 130 PT’s under 1”. Very enjoyable hunting rig. Great recreational shooter too.

Always! No exceptions. Use Imperial Case Lube if you start splitting necks.

I don't shoot a 270 but my first consideration would be Lapua 30-06 brass. Make a nice false shoulder and pull the trigger, done.

Remington or Winchester.. both easy to find, easy to form. What`s the problem?
Grab a factory box of either, zero the rifle, break in barrel etc, and have 20 or more formed cases to work with.