Brass

[Siringo]

How far down inside the Hornady case does the inside ID stay the same. For instance, after firing, it would be .452 for what depth? Same for the the 284 case.

My reason for asking has to do with cast bullets and their length and my thought here applies only to cast bullets. I have a 45-90 Black Powder Cartridge Rifle (Ballard Pacific No. 5 -- that is for sale by the way), that I had accuracy issues with my loads. Recovered slugs revealed gas cutting on the bases. I used an over powder wad and it baffled me why that would be happening. The dies I had been using were Redding (really nice dies), but on fired brass they put a slight shoulder or sized only the first 1/2 inch (est) of the case. As a result, only 1/2 inch (est) of the bullet was actually gripped by the case walls. The remainder of the bullet was unsupported, upon firing, the gases went around the unsupported portion of the bullet and the case wall -- damaging the back of the bullet. It wasn't unit that got another set of dies from Lyman that this phnenomon stopped happening and accuracy improved to the minnute or minute and a half realm.

This is the reason I am asking about the dimensions. Could this be happening to the cast bullets in the 450 case. Are the lead bullets fully supported by the case wall for their entire length. If not, that may explain some of the accuracy issues. I have read on 458S posts of horrible accuracy with lead bullets -- even with gas checks. In that case design, a major portion of the bullet is not supported by the case.

Maybe with the 284 cases and the proper reamers, we can alter the case to be more cast bullet friendly.

[thebrassnuckles]

do you have to have fired 284 brass to ream it or can it be done with new brass?

also, where is a good source for 284 brass?

[Siringo]

My fired 450B cases measure .453". The wall thickness at the mouth measures .015 inches. The fired case mouth should be larger than the diameter of the bullet to insure release. I would think that as long as the case wall thickness of the 284 case is .015 inches, it wouldn't matter if it was fired or not. I may be wrong here. Maybe others can pip in.

[BD1]

If you're using a .452 reamer, you'd want to be reaming fired brass. If you reamed sized brass to .452, you would eliminate case neck tension.
BD

[Siringo]

BD -- do you find it unnecessary to expand the cases after sizing?

[BD1]

What I've been doing is using a lyman "M" die to expand the Hornady brass to seat .453 cast boolits. I've been using cut down .284 brass for both .451 and .452 jacketed bullets without any expander die. i also seated 100 FTXs using the Hornady brass with no expander and they worked fine. This seems to give me the best neck tension in either case, and just about everything chambers. I tried a few reamed .284 cases with the .453 cast boolits last week so I could use large primers and everything up to 350 grainers would chamber. I tried some 425 grain ranch dog boolits and apparently I hadn't reamed the case deeply enough as the heel bulged the case to the point where they would jam in the chamber.
BD

[Siringo]

Thanks for the insight. I ordered at .452 and special .453 from Forster yesterday. The .453 was for just experimenting. I am anxious to try these.