.357 to .256

[Texas by God]

I messed around yesterday making some .256 Winchester cases from .357 brass.
I used RCBS case lube and CH FL die.
Going slowly, and turning the case between pushes worked out ok.
I did ruin a couple of the nickel plated cases; I won’t use any more of those.
It’s amusing how the case
cannelure becomes a “shoulder marker” after a trip through the die!


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[MarkP]

Looking good. If using a TC Contender you can change the extractor to a 223 Rem and make them from 222's. I made mine from 222's but 223's would work. The Contender Vendor out of OKLAHOMA told me that trick 30 yrs ago.

[cwtebay]

Looking great TBG! What are you firing them from?

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[turtlezx]

nickel never seem to form as well in any case

[Texas by God]

Looking great TBG! What are you firing them from?

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I’m putting together another stub rifle like my 44-40 and .218 Bee Toppers.
I test fired three of them with Unique and 100 gr bullets and all is good.
I’ve wanted a 25-20 for years but the .256 makes more sense for the brass situation.


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[stubshaft]

Looks great! I never had much luck reforming nickel cases myself.

[rbuck351]

I scrounged a set of 256 forming dies and they work fine with brass or nickel cases.

[Bazoo]

Awesome work, thanks for sharing. Be nifty to have a Winchester 92 converted to handle it.

[ipopum]

I have a Win model 92 but what I have read they do not recommend 256 in that gun.

[country gent]

When sizing nickel cases your forming 2 different metals with different strengths, hardness, and flow rates. brass is softer and bends flows easy the nickel plate is much harder and dosnt flow as well.

The .256 win is an interesting round in that it should be able to be loaded light almost to 22 rimfire levels or up to small / medium game.

[Jedman]

I have found that sizing the 357 first thru a 300 blk out die with the neck sizing stem removed works good as a first step before sizing again with the 256 die. I use just a touch of Imperial sizing wax wiped on with my thumb and index finger and both nickel plated or natural brass size good but prefer not to use the plated brass as it doesn’t hold up as well.
I have not shot any cast lead bullets in my 256 yet, but find it shoots 75, 87, and 100 gr. jacketed bullets great from a 1 - 10 twist barrel.
In my handi rifle I can load the bullets out long and use more of the case volume for more powder space and get a bit more velocity than what most loads for a Marlin 62 show in most load data for rifles.
I have read of many deer, antelope, and even mountain lions taken with a 256 carbine.
With 75 gr. hollow points I have shot 200 yard groups , ( 3 shot ) under 1 3/4” and they shoot quite flat.

Out of all the smaller centerfire rounds I have played with the 256 impresses me the most !

Jedman

[firebyprolong]

I cheat and use a 30 mauser die as first step, then follow up in my 256 die with the decap removed and replaced with a gm valve stem turned down to a slip fit in the case neck while in the die, it’s an old trick and really cut down on my case loss.
256 in a H&R is a lot of fun, i really want to short chamber a stub barrel and cut down a set of dies to use a 38 special brass, basically a 25 badger to go with my 30. The badger uses 32-20 load data so the same case necked to 25 should be close enough to start with 25-20 data.

[Rockindaddy]

Nice forming job on the 256 Winchester cases from 357 mags. Frank Barnes discusses the 256 Winchester in his book Cartridges of the World. Frank describes forming the brass out of 357 Mag. Had fellow working for me many years ago who shot a pile of deer with his 256 Winchester. Do you use the 25 cal 60 gr Hornady boolits?? If you don't speed em past 1800 fps a cast boolit should work too.

[endwrench]

Looking good. If using a TC Contender you can change the extractor to a 223 Rem and make them from 222's. I made mine from 222's but 223's would work. The Contender Vendor out of OKLAHOMA told me that trick 30 yrs ago.

That's a cool little piece of information I'll need to remember!

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[dverna]

Neat little cartridge. Too bad it never made it commercially.

[Rapier]

I have not had much luck with resizing 357 brass to 256, but never had a reason to do much but to just try it. I had a few 256 guns and still have a bit of factory once fired brass and about 3 boxes of factory loaded. One thing about the 256 brass is it reloads many times, unless you get to the 87gr SP bullets and try to load them up to take 200 meter rams down. Finally got the Contenders loaded up to the point that a horn or high rump hit would take the rams down. Shot the Contenders and two of my Hawkeyes in a few silhouette matches just for S&Gs.
Guy cam buy a couple years ago, with a new 16" carbine barrel he had bought, had no ammo, so gave him a box, he, about 80, loves it for shooting deer that jump his fence and get into his garden, true turnip eaters. I think the loads I gave him were the 75gr cast flat points.

[cwlongshot]

Did this quite a while back. I was also able to o well with nickel cases.

This was when I established Annealing BEFORE necking down and Annealing AFTER expanding or necking UP.


Cw

[Texas by God]

After ruining 6 cases that split at the neck(out of 31)- I followed CW’s advice and annealed the rest of the batch.
Things are better now. The 6 that split before were 5 Remington and 1 Starline.
I’ve done a few of each now and haven’t split any- no matter the head stamp. Here’s the progression from .357 to a loaded .256 Winmag.

Thanks CW!


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[cuzinbruce]

It has worked for me, .357 to .256. Starline brass, with the RCBS forming dies. Length seemed OK, no need to use .357 Max.

I did have an issue with new Winchester brand brass (not once fired), Sized, then expanded. When I tried to seat a J-word, the shoulder collapsed. Same setup worked fine with the formed Starline. Never figured that one out. Only thing I could guess was that the new brass was too soft???

I always thought a Ruger 77/357 rifle, converted to .256, would make a neat gun. Should be an easy conversion, just change the barrel. Magazine should be OK.

[Kai]

I just ran brass .357 cases lubed with rcbs case lube straight into the rcbs 256 sizing die. Pretty straight forward. I do have a bunch of factory 256 brass I'd let go if anybody is interested.