[F. Guffey]

pathdoc, I said Seaweed thought I was going about forming wildcat cases in a rather risky manner. The load I used was at or over maximum, I explained when forming ‘time was a factor’. Before pressure inside the case can get serious the case must fill the chamber, meaning the rest of the shoulder must be formed and the case must expand to fill the chamber, by that time the bullet is on its way past the throat. I explained to him if the cases were formed to the chamber it would take less time for everything behind the bullet to get serious.

I am not the fan of seating bullets to or at the lands because I am the fan of the running start, I do not like the ideal of the bullet setting at the lands, I am the fan of bullet jump. I do not want my bullets to start from a dead start when setting at the lands, I want my bullets hitting the lands a-running.

I have no ideal how the ideal got so convoluted as to cause someone to think the difference was about volume, it is possible when dealing in milliseconds time is never thought of as a factor. Out of respect for Seaweed I called Hodgden, I will not take the liberty of saying they agreed, but they did caution against using the fire forming load as the starting load, they suggested dropping the powder charge 4 grains and start from there. The cases shortened .045” during the forming and fire forming process;

The case did not run forward until the shoulder of the case ran into the shoulder of the chamber. If the case had run forward to the front of the chamber I would have experience case head separation. My cases did not stretch between the case head and case body.

F. Guffey