Odd Reformed Cases

[lightman]

A shooting buddy just gave me a can of old, odd, misc cartridges to look through for my collection. There were a few 9MM's formed from other cases. One was made from a 38 auto and one was made from a 38 special case. There were also a couple of 30 Luger cases made from a 38 special case and a 30-30 Winchester case. Very interesting. He said that they probably came from an old time gunsmith that was locally famous.

[country gent]

A lot of the old timers did it because they could not because they had to. It was the challenge of doing it.

[17nut]

I have .455 Webley made from 45-70. Now that is a lot of work!

[CaptainCrossman]

A lot of the old timers did it because they could not because they had to. It was the challenge of doing it.

I think we all still are doing it for the same reason today...
it sort of like cheating death, but it's cheating "the man" on a small level...
ammo costs money and pull the trigger "bang" it's gone, all you're left with is an empty case..
so we all subconsciously try to wring a few more cents or nickels of value out of the cast that's left, for kicks...
rather than ante up and pay the man for more ammo again.
it's a tally we keep in our head, if we reload it, our side of the score just went up a few digits...(laughter...)

[EDG]

We are just being good politically correct green citizens by recycling brass.:kidding:

[Good Cheer]

Thought about using range brass belted magnum cases (7mm Mag and such) to make utilitarian Mauser "A" base.
The way that the actions and bolt heads are typically set up it should work OK for the rim to be offset.

[TRX]

I used to make 9mm Largo by cutting the rims off .38 Special cases, cutting extractor grooves, and trimming to length.

Back then Largo was obsolete unobtainium; Norma had made a small run years before, but had been sold out a long time, as was the old Spanish milsurp. If you wanted to shoot, you either had to bush the chamber down to 9x19 or finagle Largo brass.

Made a lot of 7.65x53 Mauser out of .30-06 for the same reason; couldn't buy any anywhere at any price.

The not-so-good-old-days.

Now if you're lazy, all you have to do is click until you find someone making whatever weird old cartridge you're looking for.

[samari46]

Way back about 1967 I had a 1891 Argentine mauser. Making about $1.95 an hour left little money for reloading. Bought some once fired 8mm Israeli 8mm mauser brass. Got a deal on the form and trim die so proceeded to make some 7.65x53mm brass. Worked well and still have about 80 or so 8mm cases left. Back then you had two choices for ammo. Argentine surplus berdan primed or Norma which even back then was expensive. Did have to inside ream the case necks due to thicker brass. Now with some exceptions brass for many cartridges that had to be made up from existing cases and many mil surp cartridges is now commonly available. Frank

[BP Dave]

Hard to believe these days, but in the mid-60's 7.62x39 was hard to come by. My Air Force dad ran a radio intercept site in the mountains of northern Thailand and had a sniper problem. The Thai police dealt with it and delivered to him an SKS carbine with a bullet-shattered stock. He had a local woodworker make a new stock out of some local wood--I believe it may be monkeypod. He used to feed it with cases formed from RWS 6.5x54 Mannlicher Schoenauer cases. That would be the expensive way to go today, but at the time it was one of the only ways.

[Tom W.]

I've done it ( and sometimes still do) to form brass for my 30-06 A.I. I know I have .270, .280 and 25-06 brass so headstamped that are loaded for my rifle. Sometimes it's just to see that one CAN....

[DCM]

Most of the cases I have reformed have been due to my hair-brained odd thought process followed by a trip to the lab just to see if it will work. The majority of them just sit in a pile for someone to look at and go what the???
Once in a wile they serve a useful purpose but usually not, as this is usually followed by some research only to find someone else beat me to it or that I honestly already have this ballistic niche covered.
Nothing ventured nothing gained, even if it is just a bit more knowledge.