Various near net shape items have been produced by superplastic forming and thixoforming magnesium alloys. Fine grained EA55RS magnesium alloy has been superplastically formed to produce sabot petals and various other items without obvious increase in grain size. Although the laminated appearance of the starting material was less pronounced after processing, the microstructure of superplastically formed material varied throughout any particular piece. ZC71 magnesium alloy has been thixoformed to produce items with a finer grained microstructure than that of the start material. The thixoformed items had an average grain size of about 25 gm and exhibited only a little local variation in their microstructures.