Want a 30/223

[Lloyd Smale]

Necking up the Grendel will get you the 30 major. Kind of a 7.62 x 39 Ackley Improved. I think the fellow is thinking of doing what he is, is because he already has the reamer and dies, so he doesn't have to pony up the $$ for another reamer or dies. I suggested what I did because he would only need 204 Ruger brass (or 222 mag) to try what he is dreaming up. Otherwise, cheap 223/5.56 brass would be the way to go.
I converted my 300 BO to 30 Apache, but its in a bolt gun, so I don't have to worry about mag length. I have thought about running the Apache reamer in a bit farther and use 204 Ruger brass, but haven't yet, too many other things to tinker with.
Have a 30/357 max I played with a couple of decades ago, used a 30-30 length neck. Ended up shooting it in IHMSA to good effect.

that would be a great round but im set up for the 6.5 gredel, blackout and ham'r and i dont want to have ANOTHER round to load for and grendel brass is expensive and sometimes hard to find. 556 brass is everywhere and cheap so making brass for either the ham'r or the bo is cheap.

[popper]

30 hamr with BO die.

[rockrat]

I made Grendel brass out of x39 for awhile.

I hear you, don't want to load for another round, although the 30 major sounds good, its just shy of the 30BR and 308 bolt face actions are a lot more plentiful than X39 bolt faces.

[dverna]

My thoughts is a wildcat is a waste of time and money unless you just want to tinker. So many excellent factory rifles can produce the same or better results for a fraction of he cost/time and when you want to sell people tend more willing to buy rather than a wildcat.

Very true. In fact it can apply to many of the “new and improved” factory offerings. Nice to have a lot of toys but I never went down the wildcat rabbit hole. But then my needs are simple.

[Lloyd Smale]

30 hamr with BO die.

what are you trying to show there?

[Stephen Cohen]

I think the 30 tcu has a different shoulder angle and not as much taper to the case, more like an Ackley Improved design.

The 30 TCU I have in my hand is as you say, has very little taper and from what I see is a 7mm TCU opened to 30 cal, which is something like what I was trying to build. Regards Stephen

[popper]

ou can make 30/223, 40WT or 30 hamr with Lee FL sizer die. Whatever you want. With 223 FL sizer you could make a straight wall for 32/35ish cal. Even annealing I couldn't get 223 neck expanded reliably without splitting.

[rockrat]

My 30-30 Lee sizing die has a tapered expander. I can go from 22 to 30 cal in one swipe. I do have about a 10% loss on some cases, but others maybe 1%. Some brands are easily expanded and others , not so much.

Lloyd--I think he his showing that he can run the 300 BO reamer in a bit farther than the BO and come out with an almost 300 Ham'r. Think he just backed off his BO dies to where he could make a Ham'r near clone.

[popper]

Correct.

[Lloyd Smale]

ou can make 30/223, 40WT or 30 hamr with Lee FL sizer die. Whatever you want. With 223 FL sizer you could make a straight wall for 32/35ish cal. Even annealing I couldn't get 223 neck expanded reliably without splitting.

i just made 250 300 ham'r brass out of 223 using a lee 300 ham'r die. I lost 8 pieces of brass that split. the second batch i started on yesterday. I figured id run the first over a 250 savage sizing dies expander and lost more like that then i did with just using the lee die. that lee die is designed to do it with an extremely long taper to the expander. I didnt even trim them first like is recommended. Theres room in the die for a full lenght 223 case and i just trimed them to length afterward. Id bet if i trimmed them all first on my little chop saw there would be no splits. But my saw blade is about like a butter knife and wont even cut brass now so i have to wait for the new blades to get here. Tried trimming some on my rcbs power trimmer but that is agonizingly slow. did about 30 of them and gave up. All i used for lube was one shot. sprayed the cases and shot some in the necks to lube them. Sized like butter. i see what you doing now with the bo die. But the problem with that is if you want them to run in most ars youd still have to size the bottom half of the brass. guess i have to wonder why youd do that when you can get a set of lee 300ham'r dies for 30 bucks.

[rockrat]

I'll bet the 300 Ham'r dies would be a lot more than 30 bucks "down under". Besides, his build is on a bolt action, not an AR. I use 300 BO dies on my 30 Apache and been OK on the lower part of the case, not having to size yet, but then again, I only have three firings on my brass. When the time comes I need to size the lower part of the brass, I will try a 357 magnum size die or cut off a spare 223 size die and just use the bottom part of the die to size.
S.C.---if you build it, let us know how it works for you!!

[Lloyd Smale]

I'll bet the 300 Ham'r dies would be a lot more than 30 bucks "down under". Besides, his build is on a bolt action, not an AR. I use 300 BO dies on my 30 Apache and been OK on the lower part of the case, not having to size yet, but then again, I only have three firings on my brass. When the time comes I need to size the lower part of the brass, I will try a 357 magnum size die or cut off a spare 223 size die and just use the bottom part of the die to size.
S.C.---if you build it, let us know how it works for you!!

yup theyd work fine in a bolt gun. At least most bolt gun as what hes doing is about like neck sizing. Well maybe a bit more. Heres what i found out today. My factory hamr brass ran great. My 556 brass not so much. Seemed like it was going into the chamber just enough to alow it to fire but not all the way because about half the primers were blown out even with a pop gun load and I wasnt getting good extraction because the rounds were getting jammed in. Fooled around with it all day. Make 5 peices of brass load them and test them.

I think i finally got a handle on two problems. First the brass formed with one pass must have left the necks rough enough that the ammo didnt allways want to chamber. If i took the sized brass. trimmed it then ran it back through the die the problem went away. I was also having problems with the bolt not locking back. Did some research and found that the gas port on wilsons barrels are on the small side and only work with FULL power ammo. Which mine did. Any down load or any powders other then cfe blk or 1680 didnt have enough gas. I opened up the hole a drill bit size at a time and now it not only runs full power fine but runs a load i had with 20 grains of wc297. which is a near full power black out load but mild in the ham'r.

Lots of farting around but still not near the time i had into my grendel before it ran right. One thing ive learned about ars in odd calibers like the bo grendel 50 beo 9mm and the ham'r is if you dont know how to tweak an ar your better off staying away from anything but a 556. But i guess to me the challenge is half the fun. took my full power (jacketed level) 130 cast bullets to the sand pit and put up a target at 50 yards to sight it in and first 3 shots at about 70 yards went about 4 inches low but shot into less then an inch so it will shoot them even at about 2300 fps accurately. Well enough rambling for today. I know not to many are even interested because theres just not enough guys shooting the ham'r.

[KLR]

I reamed a 300 BO Handi rifle to 30-223. It worked fine with full-power loads. With reduced loads the shoulder moved back and I was getting misfires by the third loading.