annealing, COW fire forming and neck turning. What order?

CanuckR

CanuckR

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Ok so I am about to start to COW fire forming some brass for a new 243AI I will be putting together tomorrow. This will be the first time I'm doing COW fire forming. The brass is once fired from my old 243, its already sorted and in great shape so I'm not starting with new brass.
I plan to anneal it and turn the necks as well. I don't know if it will matter or if there is a certain order I should do this in.
I think I'll anneal it, turn the necks, then fire form it?

Make sense?

Derek
 
Anneal, form, neck turn.

I always turn after all work on the brass has been done. Forming can change the necks as it has to draw brass from somewhere.

Likely annealing again is a good thing after forming.

Jerry
 
I'd go neck turn, anneal, form - the neck turning is another 'mechanical cold working' step, with the internal mandrel and the cutter - best to get them all out of the way first before annealing.
 
sunray said:
"...once fired from my old 243..." Full length resize 'em before you do anything.
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Why would he want to do that when going to the AI version? As long as they chamber you would just be overworking the brass.

Once again, sunray enters a discussion without anything useful or even remotely sane to say.
 
sunray said:
"...once fired from my old 243..." Full length resize 'em before you do anything.
Click to expand...

H:S: Here we go again... Ackleys were designed with the ability to chamber the parent cartridge (datum point at the same dimension). There are loads of information out there about this. I'm not sure why anyone who claims to know anything about Ackleys would say otherwise. If the cartridge headspace is the same or shorter already than the intended Ackley chamber, load and fire!

Use your dipstick Jimmy!

Rooster
 
nanuk said:
why would you turn the neck BEFORE forming?

you may not need to turn, and you risk haveing too loose a neck
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How many thou are you turning your necks to risk becoming loose?? I'm only knocking off the high points, roughly 1/3 of the neck gets shaved. No matter how good the brass is, you'll have variation in wall thickness from the drawing process.
 
Wasting components, popping primers, but learning nothing.....

The best way to learn about shooting, is to actually shoot. Just sayin'....
 
scout said:
How many thou are you turning your necks to risk becoming loose?? I'm only knocking off the high points, roughly 1/3 of the neck gets shaved. No matter how good the brass is, you'll have variation in wall thickness from the drawing process.
Click to expand...

OK, I thought you might have a non-stardard chamber neck.

but I still think it makes more sense to turn necks after forming, so you have the chamber measurements, and KNOW what you need. Doing it before, you are guessing. if you are just knocking off the high spots, wouldn't it still make sense to do it after?
 
nanuk said:
but I still think it makes more sense to turn necks after forming, so you have the chamber measurements, and KNOW what you need. Doing it before, you are guessing. if you are just knocking off the high spots, wouldn't it still make sense to do it after?
Click to expand...

Purpose of annealing is to undo the effects of cold working and the question comes down to how many cold workings before you need to anneal again. Using the expander mandrel and the neck turner are 2 cold working steps (and the neck cut is only partial). Sizing the brass and seating a bullet are 2 more cold working steps (3 if you use the expander ball). I prefer to remove all the stress and let the neck (more) equally expand. Works for me - your results may vary.
 
KodiakHntr said:
Wasting components, popping primers, but learning nothing..........:confused:

The best way to learn about shooting, is to actually shoot. Just sayin'....
Click to expand...

Doesn't take much time at all to COW brass. Depending on the caliber, there can be significant savings to COW brass. I don't think anything is lost at all with the COW method.
 
Other than actual experience shooting you mean?

Seems to me that there are a bunch of reason to actually shoot, and not any to use COW.....
 
COW forming can be done in a few minutes and then you have shaped brass without risk of web damage.

If you set up the headspace on the brass to be too loose, the case can and will be damaged during the high pressure forming going from parent to improved.

If you set the brass to a proper crush fit, it can affect accuracy so I see little point in wasting bullets and very short bore life at this step.

I have shot a bunch of improved wildcats, some of which I have designed. ALL showed far longer brass life when cases were shaped using "lower" pressure first.

In fact, after COW, I still need to high pressure load to completely set the brass AND this I do with a suitable charge and bullet.

Can you do it from the parent? Of course, but as I said, I found far better case life when taking the COW step first.

YMMV

Jerry
 
Mystic Precision said:
Anneal, form, neck turn.

I always turn after all work on the brass has been done. Forming can change the necks as it has to draw brass from somewhere.

Likely annealing again is a good thing after forming.

Jerry
Click to expand...

+1. Also, a turner like a K&M will have the best results if all forming/resizing/trimming is done before turning. If the necks are different lengths you will not get consistent results when turning. I like to anneal as the last step of brass prep so that everything is starting from a clean slate when loading for development/testing.
 
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