|
Post by mosigdude on Aug 7, 2015 1:24:33 GMT -8
I got my ship notice a few days ago and today, the moment arrived, I finally recieved my AM30 barrel!! For this I am happy, however, there was no die set-up gauge included so I'm not sure if this was an oversight or if they are no longer included but regardless, I'm not going to make it through the weekend without feeding this build one way or another. Can anyone who is already set up with this give me a measurement between the top of the shellholder and the bottom of the sizing die using the Hornady 30 Herrett dies and Hornady shellholder? I'll just make my own set-up tool to get me in the ballpark. Any help is greatly appreciated! Cheers, Tim
|
|
|
Post by mosigdude on Aug 7, 2015 1:28:49 GMT -8
And I guess it is probably understood, but I'll clarify just in case it isn't, I meant that measurement with the press ram fully extended.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2015 2:01:55 GMT -8
I got my ship notice a few days ago and today, the moment arrived, I finally recieved my AM30 barrel!! For this I am happy, however, there was no die set-up gauge included so I'm not sure if this was an oversight or if they are no longer included but regardless, I'm not going to make it through the weekend without feeding this build one way or another. Can anyone who is already set up with this give me a measurement between the top of the shellholder and the bottom of the sizing die using the Hornady 30 Herrett dies and Hornady shellholder? I'll just make my own set-up tool to get me in the ballpark. Any help is greatly appreciated! Cheers, Tim They no longer supply the gauge you are referring to. The setup is as simple as measuring a fired case and setting your die for the proper shoulder bump. I use the Hornady setup with the .350 insert. You can also use a fired 9mm case if you don't have the Hornady tool. Just bump the shoulder back .003-.005 and lock the die with the lock ring. Making the brass is just as simple. Take a new piece of brass and run it over the expander ball. Then trim to 1.620 Do not run it into the die the full length when making the brass. Then fire it to move the shoulder out to 30* After the first firing refer to the first paragraph
|
|
|
Post by mosigdude on Aug 7, 2015 2:43:34 GMT -8
I guess I'm confused since I don't have an AM30 case formed yet to take the original measurement. I'm familiar with the Hornady headspace gauge and it's opertaion in setting up the die. Do I just bump a standard 6.8 case shoulder back the specified .003 - .005? I assumed the measurement would be significantly different since we were changing the shoulder angle and not just the diameter of the neck.
|
|
|
Post by mosigdude on Aug 7, 2015 2:44:51 GMT -8
Disregard, I just re-read what you wrote and it makes sense, I'll do that.
|
|
|
Post by madcat on Aug 7, 2015 10:08:14 GMT -8
Parts in the mail, especially a barrel is such a great day. Use the method of sizing the old school way. The first topic I think. Cant go wrong there. Use your rifles chamber as the gauge
|
|
|
Post by GLSHOOTER on Aug 7, 2015 14:21:17 GMT -8
Parts in the mail, especially a barrel is such a great day. Use the method of sizing the old school way. The first topic I think. Cant go wrong there. Use your rifles chamber as the gauge Expand, trim and shoot has been found to work well for Ritch and I. You can drop the cases in the chamber and they will be fine for the first firing. It can't get any simpler than that. Even Ralphie could do it and not shoot his eye out. Greg
|
|
|
Post by mosigdude on Aug 7, 2015 19:46:10 GMT -8
I ended up doing that on my first, then I hydroformed the shoulder, probably to about 90% on the rest once I knew where to set the die from my measurements off the headspace gauge. I wanted cases that I could load to capacity the first time for load development or even hunting rounds without having to put the extra wear in the rig to form up each piece of brass prior. Worked like a charm and I have 200 cases ready to roll!
|
|
|
Post by GLSHOOTER on Aug 8, 2015 5:47:30 GMT -8
I ended up doing that on my first, then I hydroformed the shoulder, probably to about 90% on the rest once I knew where to set the die from my measurements off the headspace gauge. I wanted cases that I could load to capacity the first time for load development or even hunting rounds without having to put the extra wear in the rig to form up each piece of brass prior. Worked like a charm and I have 200 cases ready to roll! Did you shot some made the original way in comparison to the method you chose? Speed differences etc. might be interesting. Maybe 30 FPS if my calculations are right. Greg
|
|
|
Post by mosigdude on Aug 8, 2015 14:45:40 GMT -8
Did you shot some made the original way in comparison to the method you chose? Speed differences etc. might be interesting. Maybe 30 FPS if my calculations are right. Greg I have not shot any of the newly formed cases yet and when I said 90% I was basing that off of a subjective appearance of the shoulder only. I'll try to post up a pic shortly but the only noticable difference is the shoulder is very slightly rounded on the hyrdo-formed cases in comparison to a sharp shoulder on the fired case. I decided to do a little comparison on water capacity today on the fired case vs. the formed case. The fired case was loaded and fired a total of 3 times during my initial work with it, getting measurements, etc. As I said above, the shoulder is fully-formed and has fairly sharp angles, the case has been resized now with the same die setting that I determined necessary to bump the shoulder back .003" The formed cases have not been fired and are as they left the final sizing die. My process was pretty straight-forward, I first expanded the neck by running the case into the size die just enough to get the neck over the expander ball. I had an extra sizing die from a used set I purchased off ebay when I first ordered the barrel. After determining my required die setting, I set the extra sizing die to size .001" over (not under) the headspace reading of my fired case. I machined a piece of drill rod to .001" under inside neck diameter and rounded the leading edge. I removed the decapping assembly from the extra die and used this in conjunction with the drill rod and a dead-blow hammer as my hydro-forming die. The brass I was forming was the primed federal pull-downs. Since I didn't know for certain what the cases were primed with, I just sacrificed that primer and left it in the case for forming. I set up a single-stage press outside with the dies set as described and lubed up the cases. The process was, insert the case into the die, use a straw to fill the case with water from the top, inset the drill rod, give it 4 solid whacks with the hammer and remove the case. Occasionally, this would partially push the primer out, locking it in the shellholder. I just used the press-mounted priming arm to push the primer back in for easy removal. All the cases were then sized a second time in the die set to .003" under the diminsions of the fired case. The cases were then trimmed to spec. Based solely off appearance, I expected the formed cases to have very-slightly less water capacity than the fired but also expected it would not be enough to matter significantly (much like new brass vs fired brass in anything else) I had only one fired case to test but I weighed it dry, filled it with water and weighed it again, I then subtracted the empty weight from the full and ended with 36.2gr water weight. I then repeated the process with 10 of the formed cases (to get an average) and the result is.... drum roll...... 36.2gr! Once I get rolling with load development and end up with a consistent load, I'll do an accuracy/velocity comparison between fired cases and newly formed cases. But this is my report for now. Cheers, Tim
|
|
|
Post by madcat on Aug 11, 2015 13:27:57 GMT -8
I ended up doing that on my first, then I hydroformed the shoulder, probably to about 90% on the rest once I knew where to set the die from my measurements off the headspace gauge. I wanted cases that I could load to capacity the first time for load development or even hunting rounds without having to put the extra wear in the rig to form up each piece of brass prior. Worked like a charm and I have 200 cases ready to roll! Did you shot some made the original way in comparison to the method you chose? Speed differences etc. might be interesting. Maybe 30 FPS if my calculations are right. Greg What did you use to hydroform your cases?
|
|
|
Post by mosigdude on Aug 11, 2015 18:03:10 GMT -8
I had an extra sizing die that I picked up on ebay when no one had the Hornady sets in stock. At the time I didn't know how long my barrel was going to take so I wanted to be able to load if it came sooner so I kept a Hornady set on order(which outran my barrel in the mailbox) and bought the ebay die also (It ended up being a pre-hornady Pacific Durachrome). Anyhow, short version is I used the hornady die to expand only the case neck with the die backed way out and decapping pin removed, I then used measurements from a fired case to set the extra sizing die with the seating stem completely removed. I set this die .001" longer than the fired case. I then machined a piece of drill rod on a lathe to .001" less than the inside of the case mouth diameter. To Hydroform, I just inserted a lubed case that still had a primer. I used pull-downs so it was a new primer but I suspect a spent primer would work fine also if you're using once-fired. Anyhow, I inserted the case, raised the ram, filled the case with water and inserted the machined drill rod, I then gave it 4 whacks with a dead-blow hammer. The case was then expanded pretty close to the internals of the die, in my setting .001 over fired-case dimensions. I then emptied the water out of the case and sized as usual with a die set .003 below my fired-case dimensions. Here is a pic of the die and drill rod for a visual, notice that the shoulder of the case is still slightly rounded after forming: Here is the video I mooched for reference (video quality is poor, this is NOT me, so give credit where it is due, but I used a similar process): www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQgIFscVOE8In hindsight; if I were doing this again, I would make the machined portion of the drill rod a little longer, I am almost out of room by my 4th whack of the hammer and have a lot of case left, I may have been able to form the shoulders out just a bit more with a few extra whacks. What this did for me: As cited in other posts, my measurements on a fired case with a Hornady Headspace Measurement Tool and a 350 insert is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.371" plus-or-minus. My virgin cases were measuing around 1.350-1.355" leaving a significant excess of headspace. Using this method, I was able to fill in the gap before my first firing and my case capacity measurements in grains of H2O in fired and unfired cases match, this saved me having to form up a case with bullet and powder for the first time, I did have to sacfrafice the primer that came with my pull-down brass but I didn't know exactly what this primer was anyhow, so it was no big deal to me. Those of you with smaller measurements from the Hornady Headspace Tool may have different results or may be able to omit this process completely with exactly the same result.
|
|
|
Post by madcat on Aug 13, 2015 17:19:53 GMT -8
Where can I get that set up. I dont really want to fire form a thousand cases and wear out my barrel. This sounds like a good option.
|
|
|
Post by mosigdude on Aug 13, 2015 19:19:15 GMT -8
For the die, I'm guessing any size die for 30 Herrett would work, then for the punch, I think any machine shop could turn one fairly easily if you gave them a basic drawing with the dimensions you want, I'd offer to make one for you but I have pretty limited access to the lathe and just had that short section of drill rod left. With that said, I suspect it could be made of any type of steel so long as you kept it wiped down with oil between uses. If you do this, through a few trials, I figured out the punch needs to be .001" under the ID on the sized neck, much smaller and you will get a face full of water with every whack of the hammer, any larger and you, simply, won't be able to insert it into the case.
|
|
|
Post by madcat on Aug 14, 2015 5:22:41 GMT -8
Is the rod 6.8 or 308 diameter? Curious if you opened the neck up first
|
|