is going to Ackley Improved worth it?

[huntingfamily]

"Some of the newer powders have changed the scene enough, that 'Ackley' performance could, conceivably, often be achieved in the existing cartridge."

Use these newer powders in Ackley cartridges as well.

A couple of things I'm looking forward to with a 280 Ackley chambered rifle is extended case life and more velocity over my factory 280 Rem.
My 'smith assures me there will be no feeding problems whatsoever. I trust his expertise.

He also says requests for Ackley cartridge rifle builds has never been higher...

[Dubious]

It’s important to remember with the ackley cases real world physics will get ya, we know potential velocity only increases at one-fourth the rate of any powder capacity increase. So the marginal case capacity gains will lead to minimal gains on velocity. The real bonus of the ackley cases is the brass life that can be ruined by an over zealous reloaded hot rodding them stretching the primer pockets to failure. With most chambering you will see velocity gains with a longer barrel if building an ackley AND do it with a new barrel you could add some length to add to the minimal velocity gains giving you something more than what you had in a standard barrel say a 22” factory to 26” aftermarket barrel you will see gains there. Another bonus of the ackley is the ability to safely fire the parent case ammo when you get in the dreaded I forgot my ammo at home situation, most parent case ammo can be easy to find these days but with out a false shoulder that brass is just begging to have premature case head separation I never reload parent cases that haven’t been fired with a false shoulder.

Then there is fire forming and barrel life sure you can use the COW method and build false shoulders so you can shoot cereal in your basement annoying your wife with the smell of burnt cream of wheat and loud pops with scraps of toilet paper everywhere for ever saving some wear (seriously you’ll find cow and toilet paper for years it won’t ever go away not one round not even once take that outside to the range) or you could also reload with a false shoulder on the original case, or seat the bullet out into the lands for the required crush fit. There’s also hydro forming it’s expensive and won’t give crisp shoulders requiring them to be fired anyhow don't wast your time you’ll never recover the hydro forming expenses. I now just build a false shoulder and have a very accurate 70gr blitsking load I use for gophers. I also am on my second barrel and keep the mostly burnt out one just for fire forming if I need brass fast. You’ll want to anneal to help form brass at some point.

Resale of your rifle will suffer if you decide to sell as an AI, I dont see that as a drawback I can always just select any other same bolt face cartridge, ream the barrel screw it on headspace it and voila resale value is back or move on to the next experiment recycling all the other rifle parts with no bolt work.

Henery Remple built my rifle on a trued 700 action I did have to buy a reamer and the head space gauges I wouldn’t expect most gunsmiths to have Reamers on hand for some of the crazy ideas I dream up for my death ray tinkering projects. I had issues with PT&G they will likely never sell to me again after having a very difficult time to recover the costs for there mistake I now only deal with Manson precision they have been very helpful they put out a great product with great service.

I know this is wordy but I think it shows a snapshot of the things I’ve been through building an ackley rifle from a stripped bare 600$ receiver its worth it if you want to learn from doing.

[fps plus]

One major plus for the Ackley is they just look cool😎

Experimenting and tinkering definitely expands ones knowledge and as a hobby is fun an entertaining . Realistically Most of the calibers we have really are redundant but what fun would it be to limit ourselves.

[eric2381]

It’s worth it for me.

[DLab]

Also, not all Improved cases require forming false shoulders ,COW method, etc., some are just as simple as load and fire.

[slopeshunter]

Originally Posted by sns2

And this is why I got my one and only Ackley 280ai.

same

[209x50]

I have 2 a 260 and a 7/08. Never a single feeding issue and never and I mean never have I trimmed a case. I'm very happy with my choices.

[Faststeel]

Nice to see some more people in our world who have taken the Big risk of having, owning, and shooting AI rifles

[David Henry]

I was experimenting with a 7mm 08 Ackley a few years back and was quite surprised to read the results from the chronograph when pushing a 139 gr Hornady with 52 grains of Winchester 760 and CCI 200 primers that yielded 3170 fps.
This load I considered to be maximum after working up and checking for pressure signs. The Remington model 600 had an RKS 22 inch barrel and the group shot into 7 tenths for what its worth. D.H.

[huntingfamily]

Originally Posted by David Henry

I was experimenting with a 7mm 08 Ackley a few years back and was quite surprised to read the results from the chronograph when pushing a 139 gr Hornady with 52 grains of Winchester 760 and CCI 200 primers that yielded 3170 fps.
This load I considered to be maximum after working up and checking for pressure signs. The Remington model 600 had an RKS 22 inch barrel and the group shot into 7 tenths for what its worth. D.H.

A sheep hunting buddy owns a 7mm-08 AI. He had it built on a Browning Mountain Ti action and just loves it.

[fps plus]

I was playing around with a 30-06 factory Ruger m-77 I wanted to see the difference between the cartridges 30-06, 30-06 ackleyand 30 Gibbs using the same barrel. With 180 gr bullets the ackley was 150 FPS faster and the Gibbs was200fps faster than the std 30-06 . An interesting note is that the standard 30-06 fired in the ackley improved chamber showed no change in velocity from the 30-06 fired in the factory 30-06 chamber

[Maxwell78]

i always thought of making my 6.5x55 into a AI. It's a sako chambering

[sns2]

Originally Posted by Maxwell78

i always thought of making my 6.5x55 into a AI. It's a sako chambering

Give the money to The Salvation Army. You will be way further ahead.

[rem338win]

Originally Posted by GWN

Suggest you don't,

As others have mentioned there is a minimal gain, I recall a couple articles (Kenny Jarrett as I recall) where PO Ackley himself felt the 280 AI was the only one that really was worthwhile,

If you have to have one (I know the feeling as I have a 280 AI) I suggest getting a Remington donor action, generally easy to find and relatively cheap and getting it rebarelled, more money but you wont regret changing your rifle

Whatever you choose good luck and have fun,

The 243 AI is equally more better just like the 280AI but only with long pills.