Good afternoon Gents,
I am getting a Ruger No.1 re-barrelled from 25-06 to .243... only because the .25 burned out, and I have lots of .308 brass and time to neck it down. The only problem is I have never done it before and have only seen it done on YouTube.
I ran the .308 through the .243 sizing die (with the expander removed) and slowly bumped the neck down to 6mm using once fired federal brass. It went through slick as could be... and all the measurements come out fine except the overall length. My info here has the min. measurement for .243 as being 2.035" My OAL after the operation, for five cases at random:
2.018
2.021
2.026
2.015
2.018
Do I need to fire form the brass, or is that too short to safely shoot? Can any of you gurus wade in and maybe help me out?