Anyone shooting 220 Russian?

waderthemudder said:
Thank you for the thoughts guys. Gene can you comment on case stretching on the 220r vs Beggs?
Click to expand...

While we're waiting for Gene's response, I can tell you that with the .060 radius at the neck/shoulder junction, I can't remember the last time I ever had to trim the neck on my light turn .269" 6mm Beggs. It never seems to lengthen or grow.

On the other hand, Lou Murdica says that the downside of the 220 Russian is that the case does stretch and needs to be trimmed each time it's loaded: http://www.6mmbr.com/BRschool.html (A third of the way down this page.)
 
Ok.... I shoot cases from 220R up to 338 Lapua and NONE OF THEM STRETCH!!!

YES I can shoot a case 50 times and never trim it.

(((I know, I know, now a bunch of self-professed "experts" will jump in with stuff about how "XXX Hall-Of-Famer Shooter trims every time, do you think you're smarter than heem???")))

David Kiff knows and understands this.... Gene Beggs knows and understands this..... and about 5 other people in the world understands this...... and now YOU ALL CAN if you'll pay attention.

(none of you will)

The smaller the radius at the n/s junction the harder it is for brass to turn the corner when FL sizing.

Read that 9 times.

Read that until you know what it means..


read it until you UNDERSTAND what it means...

"Case stretch" is caused by brass being extruded through the resizing die when you resize for reloading. Brass doesn't "flow under pressure." Cases don't "stretch" unless they're spec'd wrong and YOU RESIZE THEM WRONG!

Here's the mechanism from start to finish, ALL the fault of the shooter or builder/designer-

screwup #1, you fire a case with excess headspace. The case is driven forward by the firing pin and STAYS THERE while the casehead stretches back until it stops on the bolt face.
........."stretch"........(this is the first mistake, and the first stress on the case)

screwup #2, you screw a resizing die into your press and set it to touch your shellholder (Because someone said it was supposed to because it's "better :rolleyes: some inadequate fluff about "press linkage") and you SHOVE the shoulder back a couple-five thou....... because you HAVE to........ there's no other alternative. Ohh you can "grind" or "shim" or "use washers" or otherwise get the thing set up to touch on a given day (you can even buy incrementally ground shellholders for crying out loud!) and make yourself happy. Maybe even get it RIGHT that one day...... but the next day is different. And then you switch shellholders. Or buy another press..... Now you can anneal every time or otherwise come at the problem from above or sideways or even creep up on it from an alternate dimension if you so wish, but if you want to SOLVE the problem lissen to Gene Beggs! ((alternatively you can lissen to ol' alinwa but you'll find yourself frowned upon then by the "real shooters" and the "real" machinists here on the keyboard. Folks will mutter incomprehensibilities behind your back and then smile brightly when you turn....)) So ennyways, you resize the case which forces it up through the die and in the process you re-set for the excessive headspace A'gain.
......."stretch"...... (you've now compounded your first mistake)

screwup #3, you do this over and over
........."stretch".... "stretch"...... "stretch" .....and se until something gives.

((((This BTW is perfectly normal.. you fit right in with the masses of humanity scuttling about rock-to-rock on the face of the land, mumbling.))))

You wanna' be DIFFERENT?

You wanna' FIX IT???

REALLY???

Then learn how to set your dies and have Kiff grind your reamer with minimal radius (I'm still trying to talk him into giving me knife edged corners, NO radius except a light stone-cut on the outside corner...at this point he's still successfully resisting LOL)

I'ma' go shoot now....... with NO case stretch..... on my silly ho'made range....with my silly ho'made chambers from my silly ChiCom piece-a-junk lathe setting on concrete.....

With NO case stretch (read it 9 more times)

tater
al
 
Al,
You missed one. Even if the shoulder stays where it was after firing. When you FL size, and the diameter of the body of the case is changed, that moves brass into the neck, and lengthens the case. Of course if you make your own dies, or spring for expensive custom dies that are very tightly matched to your chamber, this can be kept to a minimum, and I am pretty sure that this describes your situation.

The .220 Russian has a relatively large .120 ( if I remember correctly) radius where the neck meets the shoulder, and with the relatively modest shoulder angle, makes it very likely that with even a minimal shoulder bump that the case will be driven forward as it is fired.

As you know, benchrest shooters have found that a small amount of clearance between chamber and case is desirable to reduce the disturbance of the bags when shooting rapidly, so a certain amount of sizing is required for best performance in that situation.

If your reamer has a tighter radius, then it may not take any prep, but it is not really a .220 Russian, perhaps a .220 Alinwa but not the Russian. I think that this is an important distinction to make, especially when the discussion is about how the Russian behaves, because it is very likely that the reports of others' results probably reflect the properties of chambers with the larger radius.

Your point about the importance of small details in reamer design is well taken. So many times I think that some performance is unnecessarily given away because of oversights in this area. As with auto racing, there are designers, builders, and drivers. Very seldom are they the same person, and it takes them all (and more) to win races.
 
With regards to the 6Beggs. I can tell you, if you size your brass right, the cases won't stretch. Start bumping/pushing the shoulder too much, and it will. Ask me how I know.......

If there is no "feel" closing the bolt, you're pushing too much. It doesn't have to be a lot of feel, just a feel.
 
Boyd Allen said:
Al,
You missed one. Even if the shoulder stays where it was after firing. When you FL size, and the diameter of the body of the case is changed, that moves brass into the neck, and lengthens the case.

.
Click to expand...

well,

no

simply not true IME

:)


Of course YES, perfect die fit goes without saying

al
 
Wayne Shaw said:
With regards to the 6Beggs. I can tell you, if you size your brass right, the cases won't stretch. Start bumping/pushing the shoulder too much, and it will. Ask me how I know.......

If there is no "feel" closing the bolt, you're pushing too much. It doesn't have to be a lot of feel, just a feel.
Click to expand...

YET, guys who DO NOT get your results will argue with you!!

weird huhh?

al
 
I invite anyone to do this test. Measure the length of a fired case, (one that has been fired at top safe pressure a couple of times) and its length from head to somewhere on the shoulder. Choose a die that you know will reduce the diameter of the body of the fired case by some measurable amount, both near the head, and at the shoulder. Remove the decapping stem to remove that possible influence, and carefully size and retest until the head to shoulder measurement is identical to that of the fired case. Remeasure the length of the case, and verify the reduction of the body diameters previously mentioned. Report your results here.

Cases that are repeatedly fired with warm to hot loads will become tighter in their chambers, eventually to the point where the operation of the rifle will be affected. The usual solution is to ease the fit, to the point where the rifle functions without undue friction, by FL sizing. This reduces the diameter of the case slightly, as well as reducing the distance from shoulder to head by a small amount.
 
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OK, I came in for some lunch.....

and Boyd is right, my "case made from the 220R" would better be called something else because it will no longer be looking like a virginal 220 case and it will no longer fit into a standard 220 chamber.....I've skipped a bunch of steps. In my world "cases" are just starting points for making chambers around which to build rifles. But the point I'm trying to make is that case growth IS NOT UNAVOIDABLE.

Rifles may be chambered using cases ranging in size from 220R to 338L in such a way that brass life is long and maintenance is easy. But it's a SYSTEM, it requires spec'ing an entire system like Gene Begg's has pioneered.
 
Right on!

Thanks to Al, Boyd et.,al, I can't add a thing to this conversation; they have covered it perfectly. :D

Thanks guys. There are those of us who greatly appreciate your input. :)

Best regards to all.

Gene Beggs
 
I've been out of it for six years now and very rarely check the forums. When I do, I just see the same ol things happening. Finally progress........ Well done Gene! The "system" is what really matters.

I'm not sure if anyone can utilize this yet, but CNC turning will allow you to produce the brass, chamber and dies to work together without the restrictions that come with using chamber reamers. What's more is you can roll form the brass on a lathe controlling concentricity, material stresses and the hardness of the brass in specific areas. In my experiments I was able to harden the shoulder and neck area to a near spring temper. This also prevents brass flow during sizing and the spring temper alows the necks to maintain their properties throughout many loadings. I feel the reason people have success with annealing is because it creates consistency. Problem is, the brass hardens when worked and soft brass has the greatest opportunity for change. Hardened brass has the least.

260 cartridge brass is only just so strong so your next limitation is the base swell with high pressure loads. I produced cases from a phosphor-bronze material that had much higher strength allowing hotter loads and new tuning nodes. I don't recommend this due to safety concerns.

Imagine an absolutely perfect batch of brass that stayed exactly the same shot after shot with no sizing. This can be done with 260 cartridge brass IF you have a chamber and brass that work together and pressures don't exceed the strength of the base material. For hotter competiton loads that pushed the limits of the base material I used dies dimensioned to maintain the changes in the base area.

Gene, I'm not sure how much testing you did with that brass I sent you years ago, but that .100 short ppc was formed on a CNC lathe. The process hardened the shoulder and first .100 portion of the neck area. Since the forward portion of the neck was unchanged annealed brass you were able to size with conventional die/button neck sizing but the base of the neck should have always maintained its size.
 
Welcome back Joe!

Joe Woosman said:
I've been out of it for six years and very rarely check the forums. When I do, I just see the same ol things happening. Finally progress........ Well done Gene! The "system" is what really matters.QUOTE]



Hey Joe, thanks for joining the conversation, hope you will stay with us. :)

Yes, things get a bit boring around here once in a while but we sometimes get into some very interesting projects. This is one of 'em. :p

BTW, for those of you who do not know Joe Woosman, he is the space-age machinist guy who several years ago provided us with some terrific CNC pre-formed Lapua cases for the .100 short 22 PPC. Dr. Larry Cohen used Joes cases to set his world records and of course Mike Ratigan has for many years sung the praises of the 22-100. I just had to have one! :p I ordered a reamer to Larry Cohen's specs. :cool:

After chambering my barrel, I obtained 100 pre-formed cases from Joe Woosman. Life was good! It shot terrific! All was well until I ran out of Joe's beautiful cases and had to start forming them myself. :mad:

Now don't misunderstand, I'm no stranger to forming and prepping cases, but nevertheless, I found them to be a pita to do to my satisfaction. After pushing the shoulders back and trimming to length I always had an internal ring about middle of the neck which I found unacceptable. The only way I could eliminate it was to internally ream the necks before neck turning. All this was just too much work for a lazy man like me so I abandoned the project. :( But I still wanted a 22 with the same case capacity as the 22-100 but without all the case forming hassles. :mad:

After much brain storming, I asked myself; why not use the Lapua 220 Russian case just as it comes from the box? Why blow it out and then have to shorten it by .100 to make it shoot? Lo and behold, I found the internal case capacity to be the same as the 22-100. Hmmmmmmm? Well, as Paul Harvey used to say, now you know the rest of the story. This led to the 220Beggs and some time later, the 6Beggs. No case forming hassles at all, everything is designed to fit and work together; accuracy is limited only by the quality of barrels, bullets and gunsmith workmanship. :D

Joe stay with us and keep in touch. You're the type of guy we need in benchrest. We all have to take a little sabatical once in a while to keep from getting burned out, but what the heck? Where else could we have this much fun? :p

Best regards

Gene Beggs
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Thanks for the compliments Gene. I'm not sure if I could get back into it though. I had a very rough year that lead to me abandoning the sport. My business wasn't as healthy as it should have been since I was spending every waking minute working on benchrest stuff. Then I got pulled into a ridiculous lawsuit. My business got hit with a flood, (no flood insurance). Then I was faced with a divorce if I didn’t change my ways and priorities. Something had to give and it was shooting.

With my knowledge of machining and case metallurgy, I’d say the direction you went with your case design and application as a “system” is wonderful news especially for new shooters. I think much of the benchrest community greatly underestimates how important this it. Mixing and matching components may provide an adequate solution for good accuracy, but a well-designed system approach should be able to eliminate variables and at the very least, allow your precision crafted cases to last a great deal longer.

I am not familiar with the dimensions on the Beggs system, but I can tell you what I was trying to accomplish with mine. Brass is more or less elastic depending on its hardness. (Elasticity being the materials ability to stretch and return to its original size). If the brass is stretched beyond its elastic distance it will yield and return to a larger size. Why the brass becomes tight in a chamber after firing is because the steel in the action and barrel stretch under the chamber pressure both in length and diameter. In a BR barrel and action this would be a condition of a significantly hot load.

This case yielding also happens in the reverse direction with a FL die. This is why the case is tight in the die no matter how many times you run it in and out. If you look at the shoulder area of Lapua brass you can clearly see the areas that were annealed during their manufacturing. Those areas will yield much quicker than further down the case body where the brass was left hard. I designed my chambers with minimal clearances over the case. I designed the die not just based on the chamber, but on how far that area of the cartridge was predicted to elastically spring back. In an ideal setup, the case enters the chamber with minimum clearances. The cartridge expands with the barrel and action and returns to its original form. The die squeezes the case in all the right areas and distances bringing it to the edge of the predicted yield point, but not causing yield, and the case again returns to its original form. If loads are fired too hot causing yield, the die will bring them back to minimum clearances with minimal working of the brass.

Here I cite Wayne Shaw’s statement “If there is no "feel" closing the bolt, you're pushing too much”. That slight feel allows a hotter load without the case yielding in length. If it yields in length it must be pushed back and that material has to go somewhere. It will plastic flow to the area of least resistance, typically the annealed shoulder area. This can transfer to the neck causing the case to grow in length. The small neck radius of the Beggs cartridge will cause greater resistance to material trying to flow into the neck increasing the length. I have cross sectioned cases to measure wall thicknesses during this process. I have seen shoulder areas grow in thickness without case length growth.

A good die should also keep the base diameter in check. It doesn’t take much, but without it, under repeated hot firings the base diameter will grow until that dreaded bolt click occurs.

Sorry for the length of this one.
 
Joe Woosman said:
I feel the reason people have success with annealing is because it creates consistency. Problem is, the brass hardens when worked and soft brass has the greatest opportunity for change. Hardened brass has the least.
Click to expand...

This is a gem. Using hardened brass flies in the face of conventional BR wisdom, but is based on sound metallurgy. Unless you are annealing every time, hardened brass should be more consistent.

Thanks for stopping by after all these years, Joe.

Keith
 
Joe, thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge and experience with us. Sorry to hear about the misfortunes and difficulties. :( Hope things are better now. :)

Look in on us from time to time, keep priorities in order and know that there are those of us out here in the boondocks who appreciate your help. :D

Best regards

Gene Beggs
 
mks said:
This is a gem. Using hardened brass flies in the face of conventional BR wisdom
Click to expand...

There is much to be said about hardened brass. Conventionally, anything that hardened the brass in reloading degraded the quality and consistency because it was unintentional and uncontrolled. Those that have experimented with expanding the necks on a 6PPC or better yet the 30BR, may have noticed the necks don't always expand uniformly around the diameter. Evidence can be seen by measuring the neck wall thicknesses before and after expanding. You could also see this by coloring the outside of the neck with a marker and after expanding, the color will have a more stretched look in some places more than others. With a good system and GOOD BRASS, this problem should be kept to a minimum. Shape of the mandrel, friction and speed all affect the outcome. When it does happen, I have observed the yield lines to be along the length of the neck.

If you apply the knowledge of brass work hardening, I think we can call it a fact that the more neck sizing you do, the less consistent the pressures will be around the neck along with stronger brass and a resistance to sizing. I think it's well known some people must change button sizes as their brass gets older in order to hold the bullet properly. Imagine if the necks and shoulders were hardened in a controlled manner, then machined to perfection inside and out, then maintained with a matching die and chamber system. What will change? Even bumping the shoulder back in a FL die will yield the softer material in the body of the case rather than flow forward.

Once you are able to swallow this, you might be able to imagine the endless configurations of machined bullets. Then we can create bullet/throat systems to eliminate in bore yaw. Then move to phosphor bronze cartridges and monitor chamber pressures with strain gages and data loggers so we can push to new velocities and tuning nodes. On and on and on and on….

What will really happen is only a few people will have the technology and resources to create the components, and it’ll cost $5 a shot, and the sport of BR will suffer in the form of participants and motivation. I know this goes against the spirit of BR, but maybe it’s best not to explore Pandora’s box. I think Gene is on the right track with his system. Simple and effective.
 
A couple of things that I have noticed are that bullet pull, as approximated by force required to seat a bullet tends to be more of a minimum value thing. As long as you stay above a certain value, and all the cases have a similar feeling,when seating bullets, any differences that occur over time can probably be adjusted for with powder charge and seating depth. Having said that, the size of a neck bushing is small enough to keep necks over this minimum value over the life of the case, it seems to me that the number of variables used to keep in tune can be reduced by one. Also, in the discussion of causes of case growth, I would point out that the needless reduction of shoulder diameter is somewhere near the top of the list, and unlike the amount of bump, is pretty much locked in by the relative sizes of the chamber and die. I use a die that does not reduce the shoulder diameter at all. I can keep an eye on bump, and the bottom of the case is only reduced by a half a thou. As long as I don't get sloppy with the bump setting, my case growth is inconsequeitial. They grow, but at a much slower rate than with a die that reduced the shoulders by about .0025 and and the base about the same as the other die.
It seems to me that of the under appreciated areas in the area of bolt click, is the difference in coverage of chambers and FL dies. If the chamber contains the case farther from the shoulder than the die, there is a very small band that is only sized by being pulled smaller by the adjacent part of the case. Reversing the situation makes the click go away. I have done it. One little trick is to have a die that has no shoulder or neck, a very tight radius at the opening, and combining this with a ground down shell holder, so that you can reach farther down the case then the coverage of the chamber. It is a neat trick to have up ones sleeve.
 
I'm attempting to attach a link to a photo of a case in a die. I've been having a heck of a time trying to attach anything to this post.

http://i1251.photobucket.com/albums/hh547/Idealpmt/3c6acd25.jpg

This is a cross section of a 30BR in a FL die. This is what it would look like if your die was designed to size the base of the case. No ground shell holder required with this one.

Boyd, I agree with your observations. I would like to emphasize that you have a system that controls your brass sizing to your chamber pretty well, and to a minimum. If my memory serves me, I think the number was about .0015", the amount the shoulder area of a typical case will spring back. It might be possible your die in the shoulder area is a bit smaller than the case measures after sizing.

I've been away so long I don't even know what's out there now. Is anyone making truly custom dies? I know people were modifying FL dies like installing bushing systems. Has anyone been able to readily produce custom FL dies to customer specs?
 
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Comment on the picture: IMO this only works if the die and barrel are chambered so that when the shoulder bump is correct, the die covers the case as shown. For many, if not most, this is not the case. With My Vari-Base die, I can get there by unscrewing the base insert a half turn, but I still need the ground shell holder. Handy feature.
 
Boyd Allen said:
Comment on the picture: IMO this only works if the die and barrel are chambered so that when the shoulder bump is correct, the die covers the case as shown.
Click to expand...

The distance the die and barrel are chambered is an exact known measurement. It's a function of headspace. There is no guesswork on what size or where to end the radius at the mouth of the sizing die. If you have to unscrew that variable base thingy, or grind away your shell holder, it wasn't manufactured to do a proper full base sizing. The case in my picture is a new case and was pushed in with my thumb until it stopped.

I had to look up the Vari-Base die cuz I never heard of it till now. It seems to me the purpose of the different bases would be to accommodate variations in chambering jobs, mainly base diameters (very common). Seems like a one size fits many product. Could be wrong though. I've never used one and I'm sure it'll get the job done just fine.
 
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