What was the first brass you converted

[ol skool]

375 Ruger to 338RCM required neck turning. Great intro to "wildcat" or "orphaned" brass.
300 RCM to 338RCM easy.

[frogleg]

45/70 to 40/65 And 30/06 to 8mm/57

[coyotewacker]

7mm BR from 308

[walkingjay]

7.5 x 55 from 284 winchester.

[kdbarker]

Surplus 7.62 NATO to .260 Rem... then to .22-250

[Idaho Sharpshooter]

Fl 30-40 Krag to 25 Krag Improved. Neck down in FL sizing die, and then fire form.

[NavyVet1959]

I think my first was probably converting a damaged .308 to .45 ACP for use in a .45 SUPER +P+. The only one after that was converting .223 to .300 AAC and I've probably done a couple hundred of them.

[Budzilla 19]

First conversion was 284 Win.to 6mm-284. Not my last one, but certainly one of the best ones! Just my .02 cents.

[Mytmousemalibu]

30-06 to 7.65x53 Argentine and 5.56 (mostly LC & FC military brass) into 7.62x25 Tokarev. Both around the same time and both using modified Lee dies. A tubing cutter makes short work of a large trim jobs and annealing and good case lube are your friends. I like pure lanolin and Imperial sizing wax for those jobs. Both of the above conversions require case neck turning too. Both of which I use a standard style hole reamer to inside ream the cases, no sharp step in the neck that way. I have made a "collet" to hold standard 1/4" shank reamers in my Redding 1400 case trimmer for this job. The Tok brass likes a form-ream-form-ream again to get the brass right. I also enjoy converting berdan to boxer. Even as far as trying 7.62x54R steel to LR boxer which requires swaging in a primer bushing ring from copper tubing.

I like all this stuff! In fact it has created a shopping list for guns I'll have to make brass for! Wanting a Martini Henry, Swiss Vetterli, Beaumont, 43 Spanish, etc, etc. Its too fun! And something to be said for bringing an obsolete gun back to one you can enjoy!

[gwpercle]

284 Winchester to 7.5 Swiss
1967 had a 1911 Carbine and the only ammo to be found was expensive . Didn't know squat about reloading, but had CH dies and a press, and all my empty cases, so decided to roll my own.

After bending a pin on the first one , and getting nowhere , the gun shop owner taught me all about Berdan and Boxer primers . All the ammo available , and all my empties were Berdan primed...no boxer cases to be had. So he sold me once fired 284 Winchester cases, and explained the process of reforming them ...TA DAH ! I did my first.

Gary

[missionary5155]

Greetings
My first venture was in 1978 reducing caliber .308 Winchester down to the .243. Learned a lot about neck thickness and clearance in a chamber.
Mike in Peru

[flint45]

.30wcf TO .357 Herrett.

[Lever-man]

My first was 5.56 to 300 AAC., then 308 to 358 Win

[Cosmiceyes]

1st,. 308 win to 308 inch and a half


2nd. 30-30 to 30 Herrett

[edctexas]

30-30 to 30 Herret. I have made cookie cutters for pan lube out various cases. First anneal the case then expand or size down. Anneal after each process and lube, lube lube. Work and was fun.

Ed C

[snowtigger]

My first was 338 Win to 308 Norma. Still have that rifle. Later learned that 7mm Rem mag is a lot easier. The necks run a little thin, but 7mm brass is plentiful in my area. I make 280 rem brass from 270 Winchester. Even made some from '06. Used to make 350 Rem mag from something, can't remember what. No matter, brass is now available. Made 300 H&H from 375H&H. Daughter got rid of that husband, so don't make that any more.

[Engineer1911]

223 to 222 for a TC Super 14, next was 30-30 to 30 Herrett. Both were deadly on prairie dogs in the 1980's. Oh those were the days!!

[rintinglen]

Back in 1984 my best pal Rick bought a French 1935 A. Knowing that I was a hard core (or hard-headed) reloader, he enlisted my help in making brass. After measuring his one cartridge, I went to my 4th edition of cartridges of the world, and discovered we needed a rimless 32 S&W Long case which we did not have. But since I had a bunch of old Korean war vintage 30 Carbine brass, we decided to make do. The 30 carbine cases measures (supposedly).3548 at the head which was too big. to reduce them to size, we drilled a hole in a piece of half inch steel using a 21/64th's drill and then polished the holes out by hand, using 220, 320, 400 and finally 600 grit sand paper wrapped around a piece of 5/32nd dowel rod. After lubing the cases with STP Oil treatment, we drove them through are sizer using a 5/32 flat punch and a hammer. Then we trimmed to length using my old Forster trimmer.

A wicked problem arose.
The inside wall thickness was so great we couldn't seat a boolit that would chamber, so we had to drive all the cases back into our "sizer" and ream them, one at a time with a custom reamer that he dug up. I believe it was a 5/32 reamer that he stoned down to size. We cleaned up the extractor grooves and the rims by chucking the cases in a drill and using a triangular file. However, once reamed to a depth of about a quarter inch, we were able to cobble together 50 cartridges using RCBS 32ACP dies, Lyman 84 grain boolits, (I think they were 313-249's, but I'm not sure. We used Unique, but I don't recall the load.
I do recall we spent the best part of two weekends nearly a month apart making those darned cases.

[Point-Man]

First was 270 to 7.7 Jap- 30-06 to 8x57 and 8x50 lebel to .41Swiss .

[tndrfttom]

It was either 7.62 Nato to 7.92x33mm or .348 Winchester to 8mm Lebel.

The 7.92 Kurz was done for a friend that had an MP44. (I made him 1,000 rounds and he gave me a very nice M1903A3 for my efforts). Reaming the necks by hand on a thousand pieces of GI brass was a chore!