First Firing and Reloading Procedure

First firing brass prep
When loading new / unfired Peterson brass, we do not recommend any case prep aside from a light chamfer and debur of the case mouth.
We understand that many shooters like to set their neck tension prior to loading for the first time. Is there a benefit to this? Personally, I have not found any sort of benefit to running our brass through a die prior to loading for the first time. What this does accomplish is unnecessary work being done to the brass which can have a negative effect in the long run of the case life. The more you work the brass, the less life you will get out of that casing. In addition to this, our casings hold a very tight neck tolerance from the factory.

Uniformity is not a concern with our new brass. In talking with some customers, they size new brass to ensure that each piece is “uniform” prior to loading. In regard to new, unfired Peterson brass, each casing is run through the same set of die stacks in our process thus producing extremely uniform tolerances throughout that Lot number of brass. If we have a need to change dies, or one of our dimensions, this results in a Lot number change which also promotes uniformity for the end user. These are all very good reasons to keep from going down the road of extensive brass prep on virgin casings. Rest assured that the neck tension will be uniform across that entire lot with a neck tension between .004 and .003. The necks will also be true and concentric. All this being said, with our new brass, give it a light chamfer and debur, load and go.

Loading a ladder test and why we do it.
Starting load development with our casings, we recommend that you load a ladder test to be sure that your charge weights are safe, and to ensure that you are loading in the middle of a good velocity node for down-range consistency.
What is a ladder test? To put it simply, a ladder test is done to locate a velocity node that is both wide and consistent. When loading a ladder test, you start at the bottom of the load data or near the bottom. For example, I will use my 6x47 PRS rifle.

We start at or near the bottom of the charge weights. I am using Hodgdon H4350 with a CCI BR4 primer, and Sierra 107 Match King bullets. I begin my ladder test at 37.5 grains and work up. I load 10 rounds in .2 grain increments. I will list the muzzle velocity that was seen as well with each charge weight measuring it with a Garmin Xero chronograph.

1. 37.5 gr. – 2827 fps
2. 37.7 gr. – 2848 fps
3. 37.9 gr. – 2863 fps
4. 38.1 gr  - 2891 fps
5. 38.3 gr. – 2929 fps
6. 38.5 gr. – 2935 fps – Middle of the velocity node.
7. 38.7 gr. – 2938 fps
8. 38.9 gr. – 2964 fps
9. 39.1 gr. – 3043 fps
10. 39.3 gr. – 3076 fps (light pressure signs)

As you can see from the listing, the speed ramps up from 37.5 grains and then levels off from 38.3 to 38.7 grains before starting to climb again at 38.9. Where the speed levels off (green) and stays level for a few shots is a velocity node. It is best to load in the middle of this node. Here, the middle is 38.5 grains of powder. This ensures that a small error in your scale when throwing powder won’t result in a drastically different point of impact low or high down range. If you load at 38.5 grains and have a few drift .2 up or down, you will experience a very similar velocity to what you see at 38.5.

The ultimate goal of a ladder test Is to obtain a charge weight that Is safe, accurate, and consistent from shot to shot. Using the method that I explained above is a very effective way to land on a charge weight that will give you all 3 in very short order and it uses a very small number of supplies to complete the test.

 

Ladder test complete. On to bullet jump.
In my experience, I also like to test bullet jump. This is a very controversial subject these days when it comes to what jump is more accurate than the next. Our friends at Short Action Customs have done a very extensive test on bullet jump and that article is on their website if you would like to check it out.

What is bullet jump? Bullet jump is the distance that the bullet needs to travel from its seated position before it contacts the lands (rifling) and continues down the barrel. This distance can have a drastic effect on accuracy and consistency.

How we test this is simply shooting groups with different jump distances. There is a ton of information online now about what is best for a particular bullet, but I refuse to buy into anything I read online as the way, the truth, and the light. Every rifle is different and will accept different bullets in different ways. Just because my 6x47 likes a 107 SMK bullet at a .040 jump doesn’t mean yours will perform the same so it is always best to test this.

I start by loading 5 sets of 5 rounds at different jump distances. I will start by finding where my lands are using one of the many tools on the market for measuring this in your rifle. Once I have that value, I will load 5 at .010 off the lands, 5 at .020, 5 at .030, 5 at .040 and 5 at .050. Now it’s time to head to the range.

I begin by checking my zero at 100 yards with a couple other rounds that I loaded specifically for this purpose. They don’t need to be perfect. We just need to be close. Once I have confirmed my zero, I again set up my chronograph to monitor speed and I begin shooting groups out as far as 600 yards after generating some simple drop data in my Kestrel. Again, all we need to do here is, be on target with the ability to monitor group size. If you don’t have 600 yards at your disposal, use whatever you have. If it’s 100 yards, go with that.  I will start by firing all 5 rounds from each jump distance from closest to farthest jump. After this is complete, I check group sizes down range. What I am looking for here is half MOA or better at the distance used. At 100 yards, half MOA would be .5 inches. At 600 yards, half MOA would be 3 inches. Test each jump distance and get squared away as to what jump produced the best group on target. You may need to extend this test if the distances I listed don’t produce for you. It is not unheard of to see people jumping bullets to .070 and well beyond.

For me, I landed on a .040 jump, and this produced a group at 600 yards that measured just under half MOA. Considering I am not great at shooting groups, this was more than good enough for my needs.
The final load that I have been running for over 2 seasons now through multiple barrels after all this testing is as follows.

• Peterson 6x47 brass
• Sierra 107gr Match King bullet
• Hodgdon H4350 powder at 38.5 grains
• CCI BR4 primers
• Bullet jump at .040 off the lands

Note: bullet jump can be tested prior to, or before running a ladder test. If you want to test bullet jump prior to finding your velocity node with your ladder test, load your test rounds to 80 or 90% of book max for charge weight. Some shooters prefer this method because pressure can change with different jump amounts. More jump results in less pressure. Less bullet jump results in higher pressure.  Whatever you decide, please keep these things in mind going forward.

After the First firing and beginning the reloading process.
Once you have fired all your brass for the first time, it’s time to start the process of reloading them. We will go through this step by step with the method that I personally use, and it has been working for me for quite
some time.

The first step is to clean the brass. At a PRS match, brass ends up anywhere and everywhere before it makes it back to your match pack. It usually brings with it sand, dirt, rocks, and anything else you can imagine. We don’t want any of this in our sizing die, so we need to clean the brass off in some way. I personally dry tumble all my brass as soon as I get home from a match. I will tumble in corn cob media for 3 or 4 hours to get them clean enough for the sizing process. After tumbling, I will make sure there is no media in any of the casings and wipe the outside down to remove any residue from the media.
My next step is to remove all the primers. Some refer to this as decapping. For this I use the Mighty Armory universal decapping die. You can also do this during your sizing process with a decapping pin installed in your sizing die. This is 100% personal preference. I decap before sizing because I want to get an accurate head space measurement with my comparator prior to sizing my brass so that I know how much I am bumping the shoulder back and if my die needs any adjustment. I remove the primer so that I am sure my caliper isn’t contacting the primer instead of the case head when measuring a fired casing.
Now that all this is finished, on to the next step. This brings up  another fierce debate in the reloading world, but I will do my best to explain the process that I follow every time I am processing brass.

Extending case life through annealing.
After each firing and cleaning, I anneal all my brass prior to sizing. Annealing returns the neck and shoulder area of the brass to an optimal hardness for continuous loading multiple times. The hardness changes when you seat your first bullet and when you fire that round. Brass “work hardens” and when seating a bullet, you are slightly expanding the neck. When you fire the round, the bullet leaves the neck and the shoulder of the casing is being pushed forward to take up the room in the chamber. This movement of the brass expanding when fired, is considered “working” the casing, causing it to harden. If you do this multiple times along with sizing, the casing will eventually become brittle, and you could experience neck and shoulder cracking. We anneal to keep this from happening.

So what method is best for annealing brass? Personally, I use an AMP (Annealing Made Perfect) machine for this process. These machines take all the guesswork out of annealing your brass such as temperature, and time. The people who flame anneal will understand what I mean here. If you are using an AMP annealer, you will know that there are codes that the machine generates based on the casing that you want to anneal. Normally you need to run a test piece in the machine where the machine completely burns the casing, to gather a reading for what code it needs to correctly anneal the brass that you are working on. When using our brass, you do not need to sacrifice a piece of brass to get the code set up. We have already done that for you. On our website, we list under ballistician testing data, the correct AMP codes for every piece of brass that we have ever made. When you make it to the ballistician testing data page, just search for your lot of brass and all the information will pop up for you.

When flame annealing, most say that 650-700 degrees is the temperature that the brass needs to make it to for a proper anneal. Others say 800 degrees is more like it. In this case, who is right? If you are flame annealing, we recommend that you use a temperature indicator such as templaque so that you don’t over anneal or under anneal your casings. Over annealing your casings and making them too soft can have a very detrimental effect on the life of the brass. This could cause case failure right away if it is taken too far. This tends to happen all too often when flame annealing. I am not saying you can’t flame anneal with good accuracy or effectiveness, but it is a far cry from an induction setup like the AMP.

Once the annealing is finished, now it’s time to size all your brass. Yet another operation with a number of options and methods that you can follow. I will share the method I use and why-along with a few others that I know reloaders use frequently.

Sizing casings for precision and longevity
So, in the beginning of this article, we loaded and fired our rounds. What happens to brass when it is fired in your rifle? The answer is, it basically becomes a mold to the inside of the chamber during the ignition and firing process. The thing we need to reverse is how the brass grows when fired. The casing expands and grows in this process and in order to be able to use the casing again, and have reliable fitment in the rifle, we need to resize the casing. We accomplish this by pushing the shoulder back down slightly so that it’s not an incredibly tight fit in the rifle. We also want consistency when sizing so that the dimensions of each case are the same or very close. Aside from the shoulder, we need to size the neck of the casing back down to our desired diameter so that it can reliably hold a bullet again. This is called neck tension, and we want this to be as accurate and consistent as possible also from case to case.

First, I will cover the sizing method that I personally use. We will touch on a few other methods as well.

The first step in my process is to apply lube to the casings. This is an area where the options are seemingly endless. There is dry lube in an aerosol can, sizing wax, the old school method of putting lube on a roll pad and rolling the casings across the pad to apply the lube, etc. The method I have adopted and stick to is a lanolin / alcohol mixture in a normal spray bottle. I count out 100 casings and put them in a plastic bowl. Next, I lightly spray some of the lube on the casings. You don’t need much here to get the job done. Maybe 2 or 3 pulls of the trigger on the bottle and call it good. I then mix them up by hand in the bowl which distributes the lube evenly. I spend probably 3 minutes mixing them. After mixing, I let them sit for around 5 minutes while the alcohol evaporates creating a sort of dry lube on the casings. My reason for using this method is because lube consistency is very important when sizing brass. If there is a variation in lube from case to case, you will experience a varying shoulder bump amount, with the die setting being the same. If you are consistent with your lube, your shoulder bump will be consistent as well. I set my die up for a .003 shoulder bump and I will accept around a +/- .001 variance. Anything beyond this means I am doing something wrong with my lube amounts and / or application.

Now to get down to dies and setup. Again, I will go with my personal setup and give examples of other popular options as well.

My press of choice is a Short Action Customs (SAC) Nexus press which is a single stage co-ax style press. The Nexus is an extremely accurate and robust design that is on the cutting edge of reloading press technology. Designed by Mark Gordon, he has successfully put together a system that changes the way we think about our press and how it influences the accuracy of our sizing. I have used many different presses in the past and the Nexus by far is the most reliable, accurate, and well-made setup I have ever used.
Moving on to the dies. I use the Short Action Customs modular sizing dies for every caliber that I load. These dies are very versatile and offer the ability to run a bushing with a specific size, to set neck tension. You can also run a mandrel in tandem with those bushings in the modular sizing die if you so choose. Gone are the days of sizing and running casings through a mandrel in separate steps. To determine your bushing size or mandrel size, you can go to www.shortactioncustoms.com and use their calculator to determine your sizes based on the neck tension that you want. If you plan to use a bushing only, you can simply take the loaded neck diameter which you can measure yourself or find that spec for your lot of brass on our website at www.petersoncartridge.com and subtract your desired neck tension to get your bushing size. For example, my 6x47 loaded neck diameter is .270. If I want .002 of neck tension which is what a lot of shooters use, I would go with a .267 bushing. Why .003 under for .002 of neck tension? We need to compensate for “spring back” of the brass and sizing down an extra .001 will take care of this. Using a bushing only, also helps with case life because we are not working the brass as much as we do when using a mandrel. Also be aware that running the bushing only does not yield the same consistency in neck tension that a mandrel does, so there is a give and take with what setup you use.
 

Next, we will go over my personal setup. I run both the bushing and a mandrel. I prefer this method because the mandrel ensures consistent and very accurate neck tension. Mandrels can also help work out any imperfections on the inside of the case neck. When using a mandrel, you need to size down the brass farther with the bushing. We do this because we are going to employ the mandrel on the upstroke of the press to finish our neck tension setting. Instead of just subtracting from our loaded neck diameter our desired tension amount, when using a mandrel, I size down a total of .005 and then open the neck back up to my desired neck tension with the mandrel. My current setup is, bushing diameter - .265 and mandrel diameter - .2405. this will achieve between .002 and .003 of neck tension in the end. Keep in mind that the mandrel diameter is based in the inside diameter of the neck and the bushing diameter is based on the outside diameter of the neck.

Final tumble and cleaning
So, we have made it this far in our process and we are now in the home stretch. The next step is cleaning off the lube that we used for sizing our casings. I use the same dry tumble method that we used before with the corn cob media. For this step, I add in a small amount of new finish car polish (the stuff in the orange bottle). I turn the tumbler on and put in 4 drops of polish and let it run for 5 hours or so to mix in the polish really well. Next, I will add in my brass and normally I will tumble them over night which ends up being around 8 hours. I like my brass to not only perform well, but look good also. The end result is nothing short of jewelry-level shine. After the brass comes out of the tumbler, I make sure all the media is removed from the inside of the casings, and I give them a quick wipe down to remove any residue left behind. A very simple but necessary operation in our process.

Once I determine my sizes for my bushing and mandrel, now its time to set up my die for the correct shoulder bump. This is another operation where we have many options. This can also promote case life or degrade our case life drastically. Remember back when we reviewed annealing, and we talked about how working brass makes it harder and more brittle? This is where that applies the most and a lot of reloaders end up off the rails here and kill the life of their brass. Overworking brass is a real thing and it is detrimental to the life of our casings. Using the correct amount of shoulder bump along with a good annealing process will ensure that you get the most reloads possible out of each casing.

The standard today seems to be a .”02 s’oulder bump when resizing. Using this method has a couple benefits. The first is that it doesn’t overwork the brass so this is a solid option to promote case life. The second benefit is that you are bumping the shoulder back far enough so that it fits in the gun without any interference when closing the bolt on a loaded round. This bump method can be measured and confirmed using a set of calipers and a comparator kit. You first measure a fired casing at the shoulder prior to resizing, then zero your calipers on this casing. Once you have your die set up correctly, your calipers should read -.002 after sizing the brass. During the sizing process, I tend to check every 5^th casing or so, to ensure nothing is moving on me and that my bump is consistent. I personally set my die up for a .003 shoulder bump so that there is no question on fitment in the gun during a match. When you are under a time constraint and multiple problem-solving scenarios, like you are at a match, a tight bolt close is the last thing you want to have to deal with.
Now that all our sizing is finished, we need to clean the lube off the casings prior to finishing off the process. In the next section, I will go over my process of doing this.

The final steps for loading our once fired casings.
The last few steps I will lump into one section because we have already gone over them previously. Step one would be to trim if needed, along with chamfer and deburring the mouth of the casing, so that there are no imperfections that could catch on the bullet when seating. The second step is to reprime all our casings using the same method we did in the beginning. I personally use a hand priming tool, but the bench mounted, or press mounted priming methods work fine as well. Our last 2 steps go hand in hand with each other. I throw powder and seat bullets at the same time. Once I get into a rhythm, this goes rather quickly. When seating bullets, I personally use the Short Action Customs “The Seating Die” for everything. There isn’t a more accurate seating die on the market today. It features a Mitutoyo micrometer head built in to dial in your seating depth. The die body is drilled for concentricity. The die also has a spring-loaded cartridge centering sleeve that ensures the case remains concentric during the seating operation. The centering sleeve is paired with a precision-guided bullet seating stem to round out the die components. Using this die has eliminated the inconsistent seating depths that I have fought
with in the past and it also produces very little run-out between the bullet and the casing.

And there you have it. We have successfully loaded, fired, and reloaded our ammunition by working through my personal process that has been working very well for me for quite some time. I am sure there will be many out there that do things much differently and that’s ok. My methods are not the only way of doing this. All I know is that they work, and work very well. When I shoot a match and miss targets, my ammunition and rifle are never to blame. The unfortunate misses are due to the guy behind the rifle. I am always happy to know that my equipment and ammo are an eliminated variable in this game of precision rifle shooting. The variable that is always at fault for me is absolutely me. I have 100% confidence in my rifle system and my ammo going into every match. Now I just need to build that same confidence in the computer that’s running the show. If anyone out there knows of an upgrade for that, let me know!