338 Federal die set recommendations

Hi all,

I am going to start a 338 Federal bolt action project rifle. I have not started reloading yet, and this will be my first venture into reloading. It will be a while before the rifle is together, as I will be having a rifle re-barreled. I am thinking that, in the interim, I can start building my reloading station and forming brass, since 338 Federal seems to be going the way of the CA condor.

Looking for recommendations for a die set that any of you have found to work well to reform 7.62/308 brass.
If you have found extra steps, and additional equipment, that increase your success rate in forming good brass, I am all ears.
Any general suggestions would be helpful as well.

Thanks,
-AZ

Smart caliber. I built one in the late 80's when it was in wildcat status. I made my own dies. I can't really help you now. I both blew the cases out with fast pistol powder/corn meal and used a stepped expander.

Any should work but RCBS is an easy choice.

Just lube your .308 case and run it in the .338 sizer. Simple as that.


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I use RCBS dies and 308 brass. Its super simple, lube and full length size.

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Originally Posted by dk17hmr

I use RCBS dies and 308 brass. Its super simple, lube and full length size.

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I do exactly the same for my father in-law and load with LEE 338 - 220 RN's and the Ranch Dog 200gr FN.

Hard to go wrong with RCBS rifle dies.

Robert

I've never had an issue with any of my 'green box' RCBS dies.

puddleglum: Most 338 calibers have a 1:10 twist barrel. This may not be optimum with cast loads, and might cause accuracy problems at higher cast bullet velocities. A 1:12 twist rate might be a better choice. I recommend that you do an online search for "338 cast bullet twist rate" and see what you can find. Better to have this information prior to building the rifle so you can make your own decisions.

I've used reloading dies from Redding, Hornady, and RCBS. I prefer the RCBS dies.

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Originally Posted by 405grain

puddleglum: Most 338 calibers have a 1:10 twist barrel. This may not be optimum with cast loads, and might cause accuracy problems at higher cast bullet velocities. A 1:12 twist rate might be a better choice. I recommend that you do an online search for "338 cast bullet twist rate" and see what you can find. Better to have this information prior to building the rifle so you can make your own decisions.

I've used reloading dies from Redding, Hornady, and RCBS. I prefer the RCBS dies.

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I am actually going to be going the opposite direction and going for a faster twist since I want to shoot some of the heavy copper expanding subsonic bullets. This gun probably wouldn't be seeing much use of cast bullets and, if I do try them, they will have to be coated since I will be using a can on it.

I was posting here looking for advice on brass forming, but I do have a thread in the coating forum about what I might be able to use if I did want to try cast in a faster twist rate and it looks like they would need to be harder and driven slower. If the gun and caliber prove to work for me, I could look at getting another down the line with a 1:12 twist rate that could be a dedicated cast shooter, as I would like to have that option. The 338 Federal seems like it would be a good cartridge for such work, it seems like a flat nose slightly softer boolit would do good work on deer.

My first choice for dies are Redding, I have Lee, RCBS, Lyman but find Lee dies work very well. The Lee dies come with a tapered expander for expanding .308 to .338. I have also created a selection of Lee Universal Decapping Dies with various tapered Lee EZ X Expander Decapping rods for case conversions, mostly 308 to 358. I would suggest that the bullets used in the .338 Federal will not benefit from a faster twist as bullets much heavier than 225gr cannot be driven fast enough to need a heavier twist. A 1-12, if available, would work fine for most bullets of 250 grains or less, and be better for most cast bullets.

Could I suggest considering the 358 Winchester instead? Much better bullet selection cast or J-words.

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Originally Posted by NObamain2012

Could I suggest considering the 358 Winchester instead? Much better bullet selection cast or J-words.

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If there were heavy subsonic expanding bullets for 358 caliber, as they have started to make for the 338, there would be no question.

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Originally Posted by NObamain2012

Could I suggest considering the 358 Winchester instead? Much better bullet selection cast or J-words.

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I did some more research and those long expanding subsonic copper bullets are way too long for a 338 Federal case, the ogive would be deep into the case. So I am reconsidering the .358, and definitely thinking of going to a more traditional twist rate.

For cast bullets the 338 Federal and 358 Win seem pretty close. The 358 will poke a little bigger hole, and the 338 will penetrate a little deeper.