What does Ackley Improved mean?
- Thread starter jdp3
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Ackman
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Well ACKMAN, I have shot them and have owned a few 257AI. I also have a pretty good idea what I am talking about when it comes to tha AI cartridge. I may not have the amount of post you have here however I have been reloading a lot longer than the amount of post and the amount of time I have here at PM. Most of my family shoot them and are fans of the AI. It does take extra time to load them because you have to load them once for a standard load to fireform then you have to reload to have a AI round. So that is twice the load time to have a AI round. You are right fireforming is just part of shooting and the gun is just as accurate, but the first load is not AI even though you are shooting it out of a AI chamber, so if you are wanting to shoot a AI gun you have to run through a few rounds to create a case for reloading. That seems like a waste of bullets to me. Sure you can go out and shoot all the standard cases you want out of an AI gun but thats not the end result a person is looking for when they build an AI rifle. Alos there is extra powder involved, how do you think the bullet gets its extra velocity.
Well BKH.....Hard to imagine ideas like that coming from anyone who's actually used them. "Twice the load time..." are you nuts? My fireform loads for the .257AI are with 85/87's at 3650 to 3775.....that's pretty close to what you get with formed brass, and the std. 257 doesn't even compare. Fireforming loads for the .243AI are at about the same velocity as with formed brass. The "extra expense" of more powder? With the .257 it's what?.....about 3gr extra powder, not even worth mentioning. You have some screwy ideas about this stuff.
Some people just don't get it. With an AI there are about 4 choices.....
1) Believe the nonsense that's posted about AI's. Shoot a std. cartridge.
2) Post nonsense about AI cartridges.
3) Use powder and primer to fireform with Creamowheat, get crap down the barrel and a case that's likely not perfectly formed. Then use more bullet/powder/primer and shoot again to get a completely formed case.
4) Shoot bullets fireforming at velocity well faster than what a std. cartridge will do, and get a perfectly formed case in the process.
I choose #4.
Well ACKMAN, I have shot them and have owned a few 257AI. I also have a pretty good idea what I am talking about when it comes to tha AI cartridge. I may not have the amount of post you have here however I have been reloading a lot longer than the amount of post and the amount of time I have here at PM. Most of my family shoot them and are fans of the AI. It does take extra time to load them because you have to load them once for a standard load to fireform then you have to reload to have a AI round. So that is twice the load time to have a AI round. You are right fireforming is just part of shooting and the gun is just as accurate, but the first load is not AI even though you are shooting it out of a AI chamber, so if you are wanting to shoot a AI gun you have to run through a few rounds to create a case for reloading. That seems like a waste of bullets to me. Sure you can go out and shoot all the standard cases you want out of an AI gun but thats not the end result a person is looking for when they build an AI rifle. Alos there is extra powder involved, how do you think the bullet gets its extra velocity.
Well BKH.....Hard to imagine ideas like that coming from anyone who's actually used them. "Twice the load time..." are you nuts? My fireform loads for the .257AI are with 85/87's at 3650 to 3775.....that's pretty close to what you get with formed brass, and the std. 257 doesn't even compare. Fireforming loads for the .243AI are at about the same velocity as with formed brass. The "extra expense" of more powder? With the .257 it's what?.....about 3gr extra powder, not even worth mentioning. You have some screwy ideas about this stuff.
Some people just don't get it. With an AI there are about 4 choices.....
1) Believe the nonsense that's posted about AI's. Shoot a std. cartridge.
2) Post nonsense about AI cartridges.
3) Use powder and primer to fireform with Creamowheat, get crap down the barrel and a case that's likely not perfectly formed. Then use more bullet/powder/primer and shoot again to get a completely formed case.
4) Shoot bullets fireforming at velocity well faster than what a std. cartridge will do, and get a perfectly formed case in the process.
I choose #4.
White Eagle
New member
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And PO never advertised increased velocity as a primary reason to improve a cartridge. He was more interested in controlling bolt thrust and cartridge length growth with his designs in a time when a lot of suspect (in terms of strength) liberated military rifle actions were being used for sporter conversions than he was with building "hot rod" cartridges. Others grabbed the "more velocity" mantra and ran with it much more than he ever did...
-BCB
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif
The way I took it was he knew that an increase in chamber pressure was inevidable but like you said efficientcy,case streaching and bolt thrust were I think more of a concern than simple velocity gain.... He just took a case and made it more efficient (improved)There are some cases that even though improved do not attain much improvement from his design so a carefull search would be advised before you change your chamber
Quote:
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And PO never advertised increased velocity as a primary reason to improve a cartridge. He was more interested in controlling bolt thrust and cartridge length growth with his designs in a time when a lot of suspect (in terms of strength) liberated military rifle actions were being used for sporter conversions than he was with building "hot rod" cartridges. Others grabbed the "more velocity" mantra and ran with it much more than he ever did...
-BCB
/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ooo.gif
The way I took it was he knew that an increase in chamber pressure was inevidable but like you said efficientcy,case streaching and bolt thrust were I think more of a concern than simple velocity gain.... He just took a case and made it more efficient (improved)There are some cases that even though improved do not attain much improvement from his design so a carefull search would be advised before you change your chamber
bea175
New member
Ackman, when i used the the cream of wheat the case formed as well as firing the standard load for the cal. as far as the barrel being hard to clean it cleaned up as easy as shooting bullets down the barrel. I wasn't trying to save bullets or powder i was trying to save some time because i was getting ready to go to Missouri on a deer hunt and needed Ack brass in a hurry. If you have time to shoot 50 rounds fine if not then the cream of wheat method works very well , just use enough powder to get a good formed case. I have five rifles chambered in the Ack , 257, 280 , 338-06 and two 22-250 heavy and sporter , so have a little experience with them .
Ackman
New member
bea175,
If COW cases have formed well for you, that's fine. You're lucky. Over the years there've been a whole lot of posts on different boards about people not getting a well-formed case using fillers and wondering how come. There've also been posts about dirty residue with COW, but I didn't say it was hard to get clean..... I said I didn't want that crap in my barrel.
Ok. so you load some new cases with COW and fire less than 50rounds.....20? 30? 40? Doesn't matter. Now you've fired them once and have formed cases. Unless you just guess and pull some numbers from the air or a manual, you're gonna have to go shoot and find a working load for your particular gun. That means putting some more loads together and doing a sequence to find what's accurate. So now you've loaded and shot twice. Then you load up ammunition and go hunt.
Or......take that same new brass and do that same load sequence until you find accuracy. You're gonna have to shoot to find an accurate load anyway. Then put some more together and go hunting. That fireform load will be way faster than the std cartridge..... pretty near as fast and just as accurate as if you'd used those cases formed with COW. So, almost top AI performance and a perfectly formed case with one step. Now you've found what works and accuracy loads with formed brass will be the same only with a little more powder.
This isn't complicated and I just don't get the reasoning behind fillers. People think they've saved a step when they've haven't. They've spent time and components on a step and got nothing back except noise.
If COW cases have formed well for you, that's fine. You're lucky. Over the years there've been a whole lot of posts on different boards about people not getting a well-formed case using fillers and wondering how come. There've also been posts about dirty residue with COW, but I didn't say it was hard to get clean..... I said I didn't want that crap in my barrel.
Ok. so you load some new cases with COW and fire less than 50rounds.....20? 30? 40? Doesn't matter. Now you've fired them once and have formed cases. Unless you just guess and pull some numbers from the air or a manual, you're gonna have to go shoot and find a working load for your particular gun. That means putting some more loads together and doing a sequence to find what's accurate. So now you've loaded and shot twice. Then you load up ammunition and go hunt.
Or......take that same new brass and do that same load sequence until you find accuracy. You're gonna have to shoot to find an accurate load anyway. Then put some more together and go hunting. That fireform load will be way faster than the std cartridge..... pretty near as fast and just as accurate as if you'd used those cases formed with COW. So, almost top AI performance and a perfectly formed case with one step. Now you've found what works and accuracy loads with formed brass will be the same only with a little more powder.
This isn't complicated and I just don't get the reasoning behind fillers. People think they've saved a step when they've haven't. They've spent time and components on a step and got nothing back except noise.
bkhcj8
New member
Ackman, I guess I am nuts about twice the load time. You load them once or do whatever to form the brass then you reload as a AI that seems like you load them twice. So that is typically stated as twice the loading time. Basically its not worth aruging over how good they are or arent, or what it takes to make one. Its kind of like which brand of gun is better, or which truck is better Ford or Chevy. And yea your right it takes 4gr at the most to make the new load but when you load severel hundreds or thousands of loads that 4gr adds up fairly fast. It really dosent matter if its 1gr or 10gr, I simply stated it takes more powder and it does.