Forums.NitroExpress.com

Well... not entirely. Its kind of a "loaded" question. Basically what I have found is the following, but just to clarify things a bit, I'm still working on fireforming my cylinder '06 cases.

To get the cylinder brass to proper spec, they are first full sized with the shoulder set to a slight crush fit in the chamber. Charges are made up to roughly 60,000 psi. Because the shoulder is so small, it takes a lot of pressure to form. It takes 2 turns in a very short distance. So, you are already at 60,000 psi. I'm not sure that needs to be exceeded. I could not get 400 grain X bullets seated deep enough with any of the recommended powder charges to push 2,000 fps and still fit in the magazine of the 95. I am currently working with some Woodleigh Weldcore's, but haven't shot them yet. I think those are going to work fairly well, because they are much shorter than the X.

Just a heads up, I ordered the cylinder brass from Quality Cartridge and had an extreme case failure on my last outing. Case seperation in the middle of the case, horizontally. It appears that, at least this one case, the walls are extremely thin when compared to factory 35 Whelen or 30-06 brass from Remington or Federal. I am going to section a few more cases before shooting anymore of this brass.

One other comment would be that all my cases have headspaced perfectly. Even the blown the case headspaced well. With the pushfeed, rear locking lever action rifle, I have yet to have any difficulties extracting cases or any problems with the headspace. Even pushing 60,000 psi I haven't had any brass flow, no loose primer pockets, no flattening or cratering of primers, no excessive stretching, etc... EXCEPT in that one case failure. I do believe it was caused by bad brass.

Post Extras