Prep new brass

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shooter177

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What do you do to prep new rifle brass, if I am going to load for accuracy I have never fire fire formed brass I have always used factory ammo and reused the brass, but I bought some win 243 brass do I need to do any thing before fireforming, and what do I need to do if I am not going to form it
Also what method of forming do you use
 
For fireforming I've been told cream of wheat, but not the "1 minute cream of wheat", but the only I could find was this one:
cream-of-wheat-7.gif





I'm not sure if it is adequate, someone has to confirm. As to other prep, I trim to lenght, uniform flash hole and primer pocket.
 
If you need to do load development as well you can do that and achieve the fireforming at the same time. There's no need to fireform with a filler unless you're just getting new brass ready for a known load and rifle.

I would not trim to length until after fireforming either. The length of new brass can change by varying amounts on the first firing. Of course you should check to make sure it's not too long already but that is unlikely.

There's no need to size new brass either, it's already 'small'. Sizing new brass just puts unnecessary wear on it. You may have to run the neck expander into some necks to iron out dents.
 
TwoTone said:
If you need to do load development as well you can do that and achieve the fireforming at the same time. There's no need to fireform with a filler unless you're just getting new brass ready for a known load and rifle.

I would not trim to length until after fireforming either. The length of new brass can change by varying amounts on the first firing. Of course you should check to make sure it's not too long already but that is unlikely.

There's no need to size new brass either, it's already 'small'. Sizing new brass just puts unnecessary wear on it. You may have to run the neck expander into some necks to iron out dents.
Click to expand...

What he said.
 
+2 - expand necks only (I use Sinclair Expander), no resizing for new brass (a recent handloader article by John Barsness reiterates this). However, I also uniform my primer pockets and deburr the flash holes.

However, I have developed my loads already and have new brass (a .300 WSM). I am interested in fireforming with a filler (instead of firing cheap bullets)? Seems to me that I would save barrel life this way.
 
BearClan said:
+2 - expand necks only (I use Sinclair Expander), no resizing for new brass (a recent handloader article by John Barsness reiterates this). However, I also uniform my primer pockets and deburr the flash holes.

However, I have developed my loads already and have new brass (a .300 WSM). I am interested in fireforming with a filler (instead of firing cheap bullets)? Seems to me that I would save barrel life this way.
Click to expand...


Every once in awhile a good gun writer will come out with something stupid. Such is the case with that Barness article.

New brass is at minimum spec as shipped, and the chances of it even touching the sides of a FL die are slight, and likewise the chances of setting the shoulder back are slim. You can usually run new cases into the die without lube, since nothing but the neck is going to touch anyway.

His thoughts on setting the shoulder back unintentionally require a die that is shorter than a minimum spec case. More importantly it also assumes that this short die wasn't already set for that rifle. It also assumes that the handloader isn't smart enough to go with a partial FL sizeing if he was still concerned about setting the shoulder back.
 
BearClan said:
+2 - expand necks only (I use Sinclair Expander), no resizing for new brass (a recent handloader article by John Barsness reiterates this).
Click to expand...

I've been reading about how to handle new Lapua brass, and one common opinion is that it comes with too tight a neck. The internets recommends to expand with the expander mandrel (not the neck turning mandrel) in the sinclair expander die. Some of my Lapua brass has bent mouths from shipping (or Canada Customs agents who opened the box, back when we could still order brass from sinclair), so I think expanding the necks is necessary anyway.

ht tp://www.accurateshooter.com/technical-articles/reloading/expander-mandrels-and-neck-tension/

After cleaning off the lube, I will slightly trim the brass with a forster 3-way trimming head, in order to put a chamfer on the necks. Then load and fire.
 
I don't do much with new brass, but I do uniform the primer pockets and de-burr the flash-holes. If you use a powered cutter to uniform the primer pockets, a bit of dry neck lube on the cutter prevents it from chattering, with fired brass the carbon deposits take care of this. I chamfer the case mouths to ease bullet seating, and when I use my Giraud, by default I also uniform the neck length.
 
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