My new wildcat 6mm

[yobuck]

No joke about the 20mm case. There are guys fooling around with those necked down to 50.

[Hotolds442]

I expect a full report on my desk in the morning.:cool:

Dean
You got it, Chief!

[Hotolds442]

Barrel is out for delivery, I should have it in a couple of hours. I'll set the headspace on some new Lapua brass necked to 6mm with a slight crush fit on the shoulder and touch off a few rounds hopefully later this afternoon for fireforming and see what happens.

ETA: Hit a slight snag. Looks like the necks of my formed cases need to be turned. The barrel came shipped with a 6.5x55 empty in the chamber that was necked down to 22. Protrusion is a measured .125". Protrusion of the 6x55 empties I have measure .190", neck diameter is .273 empty, .275 with a bullet seated. I'm in a hold pattern until I talk to Jim and get the reamer specs.

[emtrescue6]

Barrel is out for delivery, I should have it in a couple of hours. I'll set the headspace on some new Lapua brass necked to 6mm with a slight crush fit on the shoulder and touch off a few rounds hopefully later this afternoon for fireforming and see what happens.

ETA: Hit a slight snag. Looks like the necks of my formed cases need to be turned. The barrel came shipped with a 6.5x55 empty in the chamber that was necked down to 22. Protrusion is a measured .125". Protrusion of the 6x55 empties I have measure .190", neck diameter is .273 empty, .275 with a bullet seated. I'm in a hold pattern until I talk to Jim and get the reamer specs.

ruh roh....I've been patiently following this thread waiting on a range report!

[Hotolds442]

Jim at Apache, being the stand-up guy that he is, turned 20 rounds on his lathe and mailed them out to me on Friday. They arrived this afternoon right after I left for work. rickiesrevenge over on specialtypistols will have 100 rounds of my brass tomorrow and will turn them and ship them back to me in the next week or so. I have a K&M that I ordered from Bruno's on Friday, but I have heard nothing but crickets from them since placing the order last week. I'm off Thursday and Friday, so I'll do some fireforming, and then do some max charge work ups after a run to Costco to order a new safe. Once I find my max powder charge with H4350, I'll load up some more using H1000 and find max again. I'll only be using Hornady 105 HPBT's in this rifle for the time being, I've got 1000 of them on hand, so my bullet selection is already made. I'm on the hunt for some MagPro, and will do max charge work ups with it too when I find it. Then I'll drop 4 grains from all three max loads and start working back up in 1/2 grain increments, shooting 5 round groups for accuracy at each step. Once I find the sweet spot I'll start playing with seating depth and see what happens. A big thanks again goes to Jim at Apache, here's proof that he'll take care of you after the sale, too!

[ShaneG.]

Just seen this last night and took my 6br reamer to work and chambered a barrel stub just to measure and have a look. I have a 8 twist barrel in 6br I'm thinking of punching deeper. Are you using a 6.5swede head space gage or just using a case?

[Hotolds442]

I'm using a case that Jim sent me, it's been filled to prevent it from deforming. Fire off an email to Jim at Apache Gun Works, he could probably walk you through it or prep one up for you.

[ShaneG.]

Thanks I'll fire off an email. Looking forward to see how it turns out.

[Apache]

Hey Shane.....responded to your email. Let me know if you didn't get it. Any other questions just ask, I'll be glad to help if I can.....BTW, I can send you a filled case if that's what you prefer but it sounded like you have the job thought out pretty well in your email to me.

[Hotolds442]

Shane,
Let me know if you go through with this, we can swap load data. My fire forming loads are all ready to go, I'll shoot them and then build my max charge loads, one round each of H4350 from 46-51gr in 1/2 grain increments. They were tested in the chamber to make sure the necks weren't too tight after being loaded. I plan on shooting Thursday barring any SWMBO planning conflicts. rickiesrevenge got my 100 rounds of brass today and is working on turning the necks, I mailed that out yesterday, so not much wait time on USPS. My LGS made some calls looking for MagPro, to no avail, so right now it's just H4350 and H1000. I have a feeling I won't be able to get enough H1000 in a case to reach adequate pressures and velocity, so I may try some other powders while I'm at it.

[ShaneG.]

Jim got your email. I didn't figure it would be much different than forming my Brx or Dasher brass. I'll get my brass ordered and load a dummy to check load round dia. then turn if necessary, my reamer has a .2705" neck with a .104" freebore. Hopefully 8 twist won't be turning bullets to dust.

I have some h4350 and also some surplus WC857 which is close to H1000 and also some imr7383 surplus.

[Hotolds442]

You'll probably have to turn your necks as I did. The Lapua brass, when necked to 6mm, has a finished neck diameter of .273, and with 105 Hornady HPBT's measures .2755. After turning, my brass measures .2685 with bullets seated, roughly .003 neck clearance. I'm running a 9 twist barrel.
Ammunitionstore.com had the best prices I found on the Lapua brass.

[Apache]

Don't forget to try RL17....I think it will surprise you with how well it will perform.

[Savage6x284]

The beauty (one of many) of having a cooperative and talented 'smith thread and chamber your barrel is that you can spec your dimensions.
I loathe case prep and will go out of my way to minimize it.
When my 'smith and I were discussing the chamber specs for my 6x284 I specified no turn necks as well as addressing several other important dimensions. I loaded a few cartridges, measured the necks and gave him this dimension.
He took it from there and my necked down Lapua uses no turn necks.

Oh, and do yourself a favor and round up some MagPro. You'll be glad you did.

[ShaneG.]

Got my brass ordered and as soon as it comes in and I can get on my buddies lathe I'll start on running my reamer in on my barrel. I also got some more 6br brass too since it was priced well. I just need to figure out whether I want to use it on my 6brx,22dasher or 30br....lol

[ShaneG.]

Brass came in today so 50 got necked down and turned. Pulled my 8twist barrel off my lrpv and got it set up and chambered. Loaded 3 rounds with 46.5g of Hi 370 and an 87g vmax. Looks like it fully blew out at the shoulder. Loaded a couple more at 48g and seemed ok. Soon as I get a scope back on it I'll get the chronograph out and see how it shoots.

[Hotolds442]

I got my K&N setup yesterday, turned 30 last night. Got the 100 prepped cases back from rickiesrevenge on Saturday. Right now I've got the barrel on a long action, and I'm waiting on a stock that I thought would have been here by now. I've got 20 rounds of 105 HPBT's loaded up with 40 grains of IMR4064 for fireforming, if I get sharp necks I'll load up 70 more and shoot all of them before working up loads.
I had planned on already having loads worked up by now, but waiting on the stock has me behind schedule.

[ShaneG.]

Loaded up a few rounds today. 87g vmax with 50g of H4350 went 3625fps. 58vmax over 52g of H4350 went 3975fps. Need to do some more work up.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v392/sgregory/Mobile%20Uploads/20140326_194054.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/sgregory/media/Mobile%20Uploads/20140326_194054.jpg.html)

[Hotolds442]

Got my stock today, in my previous post on the 25th when I thought it should have been here by now, it didn't get accepted by USPS until the 28th, so the seller took his sweet time mailing it out. It's in better shape than I thought it would be, but I need to fill in the mag well so it'll accommodate a centerfeed mag, it was originally a centerfeed stock but was modified for a stagger feed. When closing the bolt, the front of the mag tilts up and the bolt glides over the top of the round. I'll need to fill in the front of the well with steel Devcon after I build a dam for it. Fortunately I knew it was this way. I decided I wasn't gonna wait until I got the well filled so I grabbed a 16mm socket and some 150 grit and went to work on a Tupperware stock I had laying around. It went fast with my Dewalt cordless. Got the barreled action mounted to the stock, and I loaded up a magazine full of fireforming loads for testing. 40 grains of 4064 fireformed nicely, leaving sharp shoulder angles so tomorrow I'll go out and fireform some more. Later tonight I'll load up another 50 rounds or so and get ready for a solid day of fireforming. The 5 I shot tonight will also be loaded up with 105's, working up to a maximum powder charge with H4350. I'll be doing the same thing with my 243 AI, I've got 3 boxes of new rounds to fireform and 15 rounds of Varget loads using 3 different 75gr bullets looking for max charge wt. It should be a fun day!

[Hotolds442]

Made it out to the range today, fired some rounds and formed some cases. All shots were at 100 yards. My fireforming loads are a little hot, leaving a faint ejector circle in the brass. It's barely noticeable but still too hot. I took 45 rounds for fireforming, and 5 rounds of 105 Hornadys with powder charges ranging from 47.0 to 49.0 grains of H4350 in 1/2 grain increments. I shot those first, and had a nice, tight vertical string on the first 5 rounds measuring 1" vertical with a horizontal spread a little larger than 1/4". None of them showed any pressure signs, so I'll load some more up going higher in charge weight. I shot 10 of the fireforming loads in about 10 minutes, letting the barrel cool some between shots. As the barrel progressively got warmer, my groups started opening up vertically and to the left. I ran a piece of paper under the barrel and found a high spot in the stock, but had no way of fixing it there, so I finished the box of ammo I had, ending up with 35 rounds into a 2 1/2" group as the bullets walked their way up the target. The barrel temperature never exceeded 100 degrees, shot with a laser every 2 rounds. I finished the afternoon on the 243AI working up 75grain loads and fireforming 85grain Remington factory loads.
Once I get the stock issues taken care of, I need to do some testing with IMR-4064. Other than being a little hot in my fireforming loads, it seems like it might be shooting a tighter group than the H4350. With the case volume opened up after fireforming, that load just may work out to be pretty accurate.