Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles forming new brass

I wanted to share this with you guys. A little bit ago there was a discussion about Lapua coming out with 221 fireball brass. Of course that spurred on a conversation of "why spend the extra money for lapua when remington is just fine". Well with the shortage of decent 17 fireball brass I have made the move to start forming my own out of Lapua 223 brass. I know Paul (the guy in this video) and have a die on the way. As well as a bunch of other tools from Sinclair. I'll let you know how it goes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNYfPGmOTkM

Matt

That's a real interesting piece of hardware. Is the shoulder angle of the new cartridge determined by the die or the bushings?

The shoulder angle is determined by the die. It will probably not be exactly to your chamber but it will be once you fire form. Paul could tell you better than me. I don't want to post his email with out his permission but I will post a link to another ad he has out there. Hope I'm not breaking any rules by adding this link.

http://forum.accurateshooter.com/index.php?topic=3836974.0

Matt

Thats a very handy form die, I just formed 500 20VT and 500 17 FB from some new unfired LC13 brass basically the same way except I used a Redding 221 from 223 form die, then a Redding 221 FL die, Redding 17M4 #1, for the 20VT then 17FB FL die for the 17FB.
I wish I would have seen those before I like the Idea of just setting up one die and changing bushings.
To get to 17FB took 4 dies or steps but out of 1000 cases I didn't loose a single case, I could have skipped one die the 221FL die but it did make it alot easier.
I used one of those little Harbour freight chop saws to rough cut the case to 1.420 then trimmed them to length on my RCBS trim pro.
Still need to turn the necks and anneal, both my rifles have tight necks.

Cool, Can you show me the chop saw? That is the one step I haven't set myself up for.

Matt

I just added a stop on the left side of the vise to adjust case length the vise has a groove running across the center of the jaws that secure the case pretty good, you don't need to tighten it all that much.
The saw is about $32 at harbour freight
I used Hornady One Shot case lube instead of Imperial wax it's faster and worked fine I had no lube dents and didn't lose a single case

Thanks, There's a Harbor Freight store in town. I'll see if they have one in stock.

Matt

Thanks from me too. I didn't know that saw existed. I can think of a dozen applications for it in my shop. I'm gonna get one!

I hope you are planning to turn the necks, they will be very thick.

The other tools from Sinclair are the expander and turning mandrels. I'm going to measure a fired piece of brass and turn it down .002 thinner/smaller. Kind of like a tight neck chamber.

Matt