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I'd be interested to hear more about your fire forming with the 280 ammo... Almost bought a box of 280 ammo just to see how it worked in the Nosler rifle, but the price tag kinda scared me off... 280 Remington ammo cost nearly as much as 280 Ackley ammo!

This was at the local Bass Pro... And it was premium 280 ammo, but it was all they had.
 
You might be sorry you asked as I tend to be a geeky numbers guy...

10 rounds of factory Nosler untouched by a die, 5 from two different boxes, average 2.126" to the shoulder with an ES of 0.008" using my Hornady tool.

10 Remington Peters brass after fire forming factory loads average 2.115" to the shoulder with an ES of 0.004", but 7 of the 10 measured 2.115". This is a difference of 0.011" to the fresh Nosler brass and 0.007" to fired Nosler brasss. I don't know how significant that is.

10 once fired Nosler brass average 2.122" with an ES of 0.001" (7 @ 2.122" and 3 @ 2.123").

Note that the key statistic here is the ES as Hornady tools are not known for their consistency from tool to tool so YMMV. It does appear that the Nosler brass will be more consistent on subsequent reloadings. However, I am also interested to see if the .280 Rem brass continues to stretch to what appears to be my chamber's 2.122" length to the shoulder. Since the .280 Nos AI is not a "true" .280 Rem AI, I expect this to happen.

For what it is worth the over all length of all this brass was within spec. This is especially true for the Nosler as it is usually at SAAMI length or below in my limited experience.

What fun!
 
So fire forming with factory 280 Rem ammo works fine?

It is common for it to take 2 firings to fully fire form brass (or so I have read)... Not sure exactly where your measurements are being taken from, but .011" could easily be the difference in fully formed shoulders and partially formed shoulders.

How does the bolt feel when you close it on 280 Rem round?
 
If they are full strength loads they should form up nicely.

Even COW should produce nice cases if you use enough powder.

Should be pressure on the bolt chambering a parent cartridge. It should be engaging the shoulder.
 
I expect the fire forming to work just fine and provide less expensive brass for my competition loads. Nosler stuff is great, but expensive.

No issues on closing the bolt on a .280 REM in the Nos AI. Since the shoulder is at a much steeper angle, I didn't expect it to. I suspect the next firing will finish the job of fire forming. When doing similar development for a .222 Rem mag AI I found one moderate load to work fine, but there is no factory brass for this load, so I don't have the comparison I do for the .280.

The case measurements were made with Hornady's Cartage length gauge using the head space bushing. It measures from the shoulder to chamber contact point to the base. I use the bullet comparator inserts to measure length to the ogive. There are other similar tools to the Hornady and some are probably better, but the Hornady is working for me and I believe they are worth the investment. Plus they are fun to play with.
 
RR,
I've shot factory 280 in both Remington and Federal in mine and it forms great from the factory loads. As usual, the fireforming loads are pretty surprisingly accurate also. :grin: Also fireforming is the way I initially got the rifle on paper with the new scope. Didn't have my Nosler brass yet.
Measured shoulders and length on the factory fireformed loads after first use. Did not require trimming (they generally shorten up just a hair in my experience)and the second firing (as a 280 AI) made no appreciable difference in shoulder or length so that leads me to assume they fireformed completely the first firing.
 
I've decided that Scotty is on to something.... I'm not gonna do the OCW just yet.

I'm gonna mess around with the OAL at 62 grains and see what happens.
 
Contrary to popular opinion.... Nosler brass IS NOT soft.

Based on a sample of 2 varieties... 280 Ackley and 270 Winchester.
 
I have used Nosler brass to reload the .257 R, .270 W and .340 Weatherby. Nosler brass is not soft.
 
For my range trip today my goal was to finalize selection of a bullet/load combination to start working up DOPE for silhouette loads. The contestants were 160 gr Sierra Game Kings vs. 140 gr Nosler BT's as these have shown promise in earlier trips to determine optimum seating depth and charge weight. Not totally fair maybe and I am going to try some Sierra Match Kings at some point, but I had 200 160 SGK's on hand, so this is what I used. The GK's did have uniformed meplats by the way.

Here is what the 140 BT's were able to accomplish at 200 yards from a bench on bags. These were seated 0.010" off the lands and used 60 grains of IMR-4831.

Temp .280 AI 1.jpg

The 160 gr SGK's didn't do as well and I didn't measure them, but eyeballing them they were 1 moa at best.
 
Excellent Whitesheep.
That load and level of accuracy will get it done.

JD338
 
Very nice.. 140 BT's in the Ackley seem to be making a good showing around here lately.
 
Just did a warm weather (85 degrees) test with 60 grains of MRP under a 160 AccuBond...

MRP disappointed me with this...its just as bad as Reloder 22.

66 degrees...3,003 fps
85 degrees...3,058 fps (and too hot, ejector marks)

2.9 fps per degree....completely unacceptable.

I will test it at 30 degrees too, if it loses the projected 100+ fps...I'll be moving on to something else.
 
Thank you for sharing Ridgerunner665. What change did this create in point of impact?

Temperature testing is something I need to do more of as during some hunts the temperature can vary 40 degrees during the day here in AZ.
 
Didn't test for POI.... But I know it will be unacceptable for long range work.


Decided to try RL26...

 
I could have gotten IMR7977... But I believe it is a little too slow for 160 grain bullets.
 
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