PDA

View Full Version : 30-06 to 308 military brass, What I did



Savage99
01-24-2015, 03:40 AM
This is what I did. I have a lot of military brass just sittin' around, no caliber designation. The 308 idea came from some where in my head. Anyway.
I took some 30-06 and sized them down to 308, without the expander plug and decapper in the sizer die, since I didn't know what was going to happen. I did this very slowly and carefully since this was my first attempt at this. I ended up with this very long neck. WOW was the least of what I thought. I then went to the trimmers and what a pain to try and trim so much. So to get the neck to within an 8th of an inch of case OAL, I used a very small pipe cutter to cut off about 3/8" of brass off, which appeared to shrink the inside neck diameter a wee bit, due to the pressure of the cutter I guess, the pilot on the trimmer didn't fit. I then ran this brass, with the 308 expander from the size die set in a universal decapping die, since at the time I wasn't sure of total neck outside diameter and didn't want anything to get stuck in my 308 size die. I then trimmed down to correct length and ran each through a case gauge and then measured everything out and now I have 100 or so 308 brass. I was surprised that the neck didn't need turning with using the mil brass. What an exercise that was a cool learning experience and fun. I plan to now do 22-250, 243, 250 & 300 Savage and maybe 25-06 just for fun. I have these rifles so this brass I will use to reload, maybe sell the commercial brass. I will use my single and dual Herter's and Rock Chucker for these.

CastingFool
01-24-2015, 09:30 AM
I tried making .243 brass out of .308, and the process left a large step on the case, due to the length of the angle on the case. I think it would require fireforming to completely reshape the cartridge. Not something I want to try, besides, I don't have a .243.

rockshooter
01-27-2015, 01:25 AM
might look into the harbor freight 2" chop saws that people use for making 300 Blackout- it makes fast work of trimming cases to length. I finish with a WFT drill-mounted end mill.
Loren

Lead Fred
01-27-2015, 05:23 AM
Cuttem down before you size them, and dont forget to anneal the necks, since they werent necks before hand

ballistim
01-27-2015, 06:02 AM
might look into the harbor freight 2" chop saws that people use for making 300 Blackout- it makes fast work of trimming cases to length. I finish with a WFT drill-mounted end mill.
Loren

I bought one to cut down 45-70 cases to be legal for deer hunting where I live and it worked great until the blade dulled after about 10 cases. I'm hoping to find replacement blades that are better than the original.

kweidner
01-27-2015, 07:07 AM
I bought one to cut down 45-70 cases to be legal for deer hunting where I live and it worked great until the blade dulled after about 10 cases. I'm hoping to find replacement blades that are better than the original.


You must have gotten a bum blade. Mine has cut thousands with no issue. I don't force it through and let the saw do the work.

Good Cheer
01-27-2015, 07:31 AM
Trim dies are the cats meow.
Concerning annealing the new neck area... it's a learning process to get it right. Too soft is easy to do, depending upon the brand of brass.
I've made .308 from 30-06 that the bullet would dang near fall back out of until it got shot a couple of times.

Oh, about the long necks, run an -06 into a .338 Federal die. It looks like it needs a little more neck than what comes from the factory. I got the mold, dies, brass and a rifle to have rebored. Just need to do it, to get it done some day.

justingrosche
01-30-2015, 03:53 PM
Trim dies are the cats meow.
Concerning annealing the new neck area... it's a learning process to get it right. Too soft is easy to do, depending upon the brand of brass.
I've made .308 from 30-06 that the bullet would dang near fall back out of until it got shot a couple of times.

Oh, about the long necks, run an -06 into a .338 Federal die. It looks like it needs a little more neck than what comes from the factory. I got the mold, dies, brass and a rifle to have rebored. Just need to do it, to get it done some day.
I pick up trim dies when ever I can for case forming as well.