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Literally YEARS after I had a Marlin 336 rebarelled and chambered to the Francis Sell/Chick Donnelly/P.O. Ackley wildcat .25-35 Tomcat, I finally got it to the range and put some light loads through it to form the brass. The load was 28 grains H4895, WLR primer and Hornady 60-grain JFP in Hornady brass. I got the load from the 2017 Hodgdon manual, which showed a starting load of 26 grains at 2,796 fps and top load of 30.5 grains at 3,014, using Winchester brass. The WW brass weighs about 136 grains per case vs. 127 for the Hornady. I was a little surprised to lose two of the Hornady cases to side splits. No big deal, just a surprise -- but I have heard complaints about Hornady brass in other calibers.
By the way, I am eager to try these new .257 bullets out of the .25-35 TC. These are the monometal 90-grain FPs from GS Custom of South Africa, shown with a couple of 117-grain Hornady RNs. A friend tried them out on Texas whitetails last fall and said they were the bomb.
While I've never fire-formed brass before, I've been reading about it much lately due to that German Martini that I've acquired.
I recall reading several postings where the users reported much better results on the brass (fewer losses) when they used "no bullets" but only a medium charge of powder, covered with Cream Of Wheat (per the "COW Method") and covered by a thin felt wad or a wad of tissue.
It might be worth a try for you, as possibly the expansion of the case when using COW is less abrupt/violent than when pushing out a bullet. At least that's how it seems to make sense in my mind...
Cracks in the case body is factory defect when brass was made. I was expecting the neck or shoulder to be bad. Fireforming would not cause that unless your chamber is way oversize! Todd/3leg
30/30 Winchester: Not accurate enough fer varmints, barely adequate for small deer; BUT In a 10" to 14" barrelled pistol; is good for moose/elk to 200 yards; ground squirrels to 300 metres
250 Savage... its what the 223 wishes it could be...!
Darryl, good idea. Another thought I had was to use Trail Boss for a much milder load.
Todd, the chamber is "oversize" compared to the standard .25-35 chamber by quite a lot.
Bill, even that far back. I know that you are removing a lot of taper compared to the 25/35, cannot see it happening is that area unless the brass was really brittle when Hornady made it.
30/30 Winchester: Not accurate enough fer varmints, barely adequate for small deer; BUT In a 10" to 14" barrelled pistol; is good for moose/elk to 200 yards; ground squirrels to 300 metres
250 Savage... its what the 223 wishes it could be...!
A few years ago Sixgun gave me a load to fireform 30-30 to 38-55. I think it was just a few grains of Unique and some cream of wheat and a little piece of paper towel in the case to seal it, point the rifle up and fire. I lost two case out of 25.
JerryB II Corinthians 3:17, Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
I will try milder loads next batch, including some with Trail Boss and the 60-grain pill and some with cream of wheat. One thing of interest is that with this much case expansion, case length grows shorter upon firing. The case on the factory Winchester 117-grain load is 2.030 before firing, and is shortened to 1.996 after firing. The virgin Hornady cases are 2.033 or so out of the bag, and 2.007 -2.011 after firing. I think I will trim formed cases to 2.00 just for consistency, even though spec for the .25-35 is 2.043 according to Cartridges of the World.
I have a 257 Roberts A.I., I always used heavy bullets with mid range loads for fire forming. That said I never had any split in the body, I too feel that was a flaw in the cases.
If memory serves ya gotta have the pressure to make the brass flow...
D. Brian Casady
Quid Llatine Dictum Sit, Altum Viditur.
Advanced is being able to do the basics while your leg is on fire---Bill Jeans
Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up---Robert Frost
3leggedturtle wrote: ↑Wed Mar 14, 2018 11:38 am
Cracks in the case body is factory defect when brass was made. I was expecting the neck or shoulder to be bad. Fireforming would not cause that unless your chamber is way oversize! Todd/3leg
Wonder what would happen if you neck sized a 30-30 or 32 special down & fired it? a lot less taper
Them cast bullets look sweet, the little 75 gr. fp speer bullet does a great job on antelope & will shoot through them
even on a slight angel in the 25-35, the 117 Hornady is great on deer & some folks I know say its good on Elk
Ollogger, those cast bullets are lathe-turned of copper. My report is that they cut a nice channel and exit -- through a lot of flesh.
Piller, I don't think annealing a case way down the body is all that good an idea. Don't want any extra softness getting near the web and primer pocket. This is virgin .25-35 brass. Hornady gets a lot of stuff right, but brass seems not to be the company's strong suit.
Appreciate the thoughts, guys.
Brass is supposed to be brass...I always thought. Small inconsistencies in the copper/zinc alloy, age of the brass, the initial drawing/annealing changes everything. Sometimes you just have to experiment. Olloger had a great recommendation with 30-30/32 Spl brass. It's cheap .......but most of the 25-35's or 219 Zippers I've played with needed the base swaged down a few thousandths but in your case that may not matter.
As for fireforming, either Unique or Bullseye with some toilet paper will work fine but like Gunny says, a midrange load will work fine too.-----6.
1st. Gen. Colt SAA’s, 1878 D.A.45 and a 38-55 Marlin TD
Ouch! That doesn't look real good for Hornady brass. Or at least that batch of the Hornady brass. Really good brass certainly should have been able to conform to the Tomcat chamber without splitting. I had been happy with my Hornady 25/35 brass so far but I didn't give it that kind of test -- it necks down to 22 Hi-power just fine, but the taper is pretty much unchanged there.
Looks like making your Tomcat cases from 30/30 will be more satisfactory Bill. I make Improved Zippers from 30/30 with no case-loss problem, and the Tomcat would be even easier (I use intermediate steps of 7mm and .25 when making the Zippers; you would have one less intermediate step and might be able to skip even that.) I do have to cut off some neck and also turn the neck for the Zipper, and that is another couple of steps I'd bet you would not need with the Tomcat. And be sure to start with a perfectly round neck on the 30/30 brass to avoid neck-wrinkle loss.
The greatest patriot...
is he who heals the most gullies. Patrick Henry
Gracias for the advice, Earl, and Ollogger. I have some Winchester .30 WCF brass I can play with -- just hope I don't have to turn the necks as I don't have neck-turning tools at this time. I wish Winchester would spin up another run of .25-35 and my guess is my problem would be solved.
What powder and velocity you gonna get out of the 2 bullets you show! What kind of groups did you get with the 60 grain bullets? Todd/3leg
30/30 Winchester: Not accurate enough fer varmints, barely adequate for small deer; BUT In a 10" to 14" barrelled pistol; is good for moose/elk to 200 yards; ground squirrels to 300 metres
250 Savage... its what the 223 wishes it could be...!
I know reading from other gun forums guys aren't too pleased with Hornady brass. Biggest complaints are primer pockets loosening up on 6.5 Creedmore after 3 firings. I tried some 308 brass in my LRB M25 and after just two firings a few of them had loose primer pockets, same with a batch of 358 Win and loads weren't that hot.
Todd, I am thinking about LeveRevolution but CFE 223 also looks good; hoping for close to 2600 with the 117, 2800 or better with the GS Custom. The little 60s were cutting one-hole groups, but that doesn't mean much at 25 yards. I was just getting the scope -- a 2-7 Redfield -- zeroed while doing the fireforming.
Brass is not all equal, and some is harder than others and will need annealing prior to fire forming. I've had brass from Bertram that I lost 50% on the first firing, and I wasn't even fire forming it! It's unusual for the cases you are fire forming to split, as it's such an small change to the case dimension. But knowing you had some split, I'd simply anneal the next batch prior to fire forming.
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