Question about blank 308 cases.

[wallenba]

Question, are the surplus blank cartridge cases suitable for reloading? I'm concerned that they may differ metallurgically or in wall thickness to save costs, as they are only for training purposes. I can get some 308 cheap.

[DeanWinchester]

It's a LOT Thicker in my experience.
I had intentions of doing a full length resize and neck ream, neck turn for the sole purpose of 10.0g of unique loads but decided to pitch them in the recycle bucket. No way of knowing where pressures will be and 308 brass isn't exactly 'rare'.

[dbosman]

There have been threads on this question.
Someone finally made a phone call to engineers at Lake City. Two, there, said the only difference in blanks was fewer annealing stages. They don't have special brass devoted to blanks. Web thickness is identical to standard hardball.

To load as .308, besides trimming, you should plan on annealing the neck and shoulder.
You might need to neck ream, depending on how much you trim.

[wallenba]

Reason is, it's a lot cheaper than the 308's if you are willing to do some work on them. Compare them here http://www.evergladesammo.com/brass.html

[NickSS]

Years ago I got a mess of them given to me and I reamed the necks and trimmed them to length and reloaded them. They worked fine but as 308 bras was really abundant and the work to get them re-loadable was just not worth it so I scraped them out.

[Shiloh]

+1 to DeanWinchester post. .308 brass isn't rare, can be somewhat scarce at times though.

Shiloh

[Coug91]

There's an excellent thread on arfcom on loading M200 556 with ball.

Short answer - it's the same brass. All of the brass plug every US military 556 ammo maker uses to form their cartridges out of is made by Winchester. The OP of the linked post put some time and effort into solving the riddle, with lots of pictures to document his work.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_6_42/362105_Can_5_56_M200_blanks_be_reloaded_as_live_am mo__Completed_6th_firing__With_video_.html

[Mk42gunner]

Well I for one would not use blank brass for loading cartridges, even if the blanks the case is formed from is the same.

One reason being if it is the same; just where does the brass for the extended crimp come from?

I saw a heck of a lot worse looking fired blank brass get turned in than I ever saw of ball ammo brass; even from M-60's which were notoriously tough on brass.

As others have said, 308 brass isn't all that hard to come by, even these days.

Robert

[Scharfschuetze]

One use that I've found for and feel comfortable about with 7.62 NATO blank brass is making 45 ACP shot loads. RCBS markets a form and size set for same and it turns your 45 auto into a pretty effective little shot gun out to 10 feet or so. That said, I've never considered using the blank brass for reloading rifle rounds as has been noted above, 7.62 brass is available without too much searching.