doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion Classic & Custom Single Barreled Sporting Rifles @ doublegunshop.com 25-35 Ackley Improved?

A friend bought what he thought was a nice Savage 99 TD in 25-35 WCF, with a fancy stock and a barrel a bit heavier than stock. It turned out to be a 25-35 Ackley Improved. Now we are looking for case forming dies and a FL die set. Can anyone help?

Thanks,

waterman

It is my understanding that all of the AI cartridges could be made by fire forming the standard shell in the gun. That is the beauty of AI shells. You can use standard calibers in there place

Jerry
PS I just built a .35 whelen AI

Also I am pretty sure you can get the dies from Hunnington's
Jerry

You can apparently form all Of the AI cartridges except the 25-35 AI by fireforming factory ammo. That method does not work with the 25-35 AI. I was rangemaster when my friend tried the process. 10 shots, 100 % case loss. But the bullet holes were at the proper place in the target.

My friend priced RCBS dies. Price of dies > value of rifle. We are hoping to find some old dies that are surplus to their present owner's needs.

$78.25 from CH-4D.

www.ch4d.com

Scott

If you will anneal the case necks & shoulders before fire-forming, your case loss will shrink to nothing. I use a propane torch and rotate the case in my fingers, heating the neck quite hot quite quickly and dropping the heated case onto a COTTON towel. No case loss.
Regards, Joe

Joe
How do you anneal a loaded ctg?
Tom

I don't! Pull the bullet, dump the powder and be VERY fast in the heating of the neck. VERY fast! Then, with the decapping pin removed, resize the case if necessary and reload the dumped powder and bullet.

I DO NOT recommend annealing primed cases but have done it myself many times. Have had only one primer pop and that was my first 22 Hornet, it proved to be quite a stimulus to proceed faster with the heating! The heat transfer speed with the smaller cases means the operator has much less time before the head becomes too hot. Needless to say, any case that pops a primer should be discarded.

Using this method I've repeatedly sized 30-30s down to 219 Zipper Improved, shot them for years in the Improved chamber and then sized them BACK down to standard Zipper (later, for another rifle) with absolutely no case loss whatever.
Good luck and regards, Joe

Joe
I have always stood the cases in a pan of water and tipped them at the rite temp.I always work with unprimed brass. Im still using cases I made from 06 brass when I first started shooting my 7mm ack. They were sized to 7x57, neck turned and fire formed.
A friend of mine had his shop burn down with a variety of amunition in it. The boxes burned away with no detination. Only thing that went off were the 22rf. A whole case of 50cal bmg survived
Tom

It's quite possible your friend's rifle was improperly chambered to the Ackley Improved version of the .25-35. A proper chambering to an Ackley Improved chamber generally requires setting the barrel back and the chamber is actually cut somewhat shorter (I'll not debate how much shorter, opinions seem to vary) than the factory chamber. If the new Ackely Improved reamer is simply run into the existing chamber without setting it back, you'll end up with excess headspace, which could certainly cause the 100% case loss you mention.

I am not insisting that this is what happened in this case, just raising the possibility it could be.