I’ve used the cream of wheat method. I just started light and worked up till they were forming properly. I do still prefer a real bullet if I have some junk bullets I don’t mind wasting, and better yet a fireforming barrel so that I’m not burning barrel life forming brass. The cream of wheat method is quite useful for saving components and barrel life.
Yes you can seat with your AI seater. You may or may not see poor accuracy while fireforming. Many competitive shooters shoot groups just as good during fireforming as they do after BUT a custom reamer for a benchrest shooter has a tighter back end than a factory chamber, and a tight neck as well. If you’re turning your brass to a total neck clearance of .001”(.0005” per side) and the back end is also tight, and you’re seating with a custom die made from your chamber reamer, then your ammo has very little runout, and it fits your chamber with excellent alignment even though the body is going to be blown out. I’ve had standard AI reamers give me very poor accuracy during fireforming only to yeild excellent accuracy after the fact. Using the AI seater to seat into unformed brass leave A CHANCE at more runout in your loaded ammo than you’ll have once it’s formed as the die will not center the unformed brass as well as it will the formed brass due to the sloppy fit. A 30-06 has plenty of neck, if you size them first, and seat the bullet deep enough to have plenty of bearing surface in the case, you probably won’t have much runout. If you seat them long enough to hit the lands well before the bolt is closed and your neck tension isn’t too high, the lands will seat the bullet squarely and your runout won’t really matter much. That won’t fix the sloppy fit in the chamber. Expect improved accuracy once it’s formed.
I’m guessing that Ben Lamb is using a universal neck sizer and seater. I guess that works. He MAY be leaving some accuracy on the table since both can contribute to excess runout of the loaded ammo. I would also think that closing the bolt would get a little tough after a few reloads if he isn’t able to size the body and bump the shoulder. IF the neck sizer doesn’t cause any excess runout, then his ammo will certainly fit his chamber well. Neck sizing can make it tough to close a bolt, but done right, it makes the brass last a long time and it takes a good match of your chamber and sizing dies to get the same accuracy while sizing the whole case.
IF I had dies for the standard cartridge AND I had a tight chamber, I would seat with the dies for the standard cartridge so that I had the best loaded ammo I could, and I would do my seating depth testing (with the bullet that I planned to use) while fireforming. If I did not have a tight chamber, or already have standard dies, I would just use the AI dies to seat the cheapest bullets I had on hand.
