What brass can I resize to 6.5 Jap

[corvette8n]

What brass can I resize to 6.5 Jap. My local gun store gave me a handful of brass someone else had stamped 6.5 Jap, I can't tell what the originals were, looks like some kind of military brass no caliber designation. I compared them to an original 6.5 Jap loaded WWII round, and they look good. I want to make more myself.

[Herb in Pa]

Privi Partisan now has brass available............here's there website listing.......would save a lot of screwing around.

http://www.prvipartizan.com/cases.php

http://www.grafs.com/product/266850

[TCLouis]

220 Swift is one that folks say can be used.
I have read of folks staring with 308, 30-06. I tried it and before I ever came up with a technique that worked, I stumbled across a supply of 6.5X50 brass.

6.5X50 brass is out there, though finding it can be a bit exasperating.

More exasperating yet is the size/shape of the Type 38 chambers. I guess the Japanese made them oversize so that dirty brass was not an issue. I have NEVER seen a decent chamber in one.

Years ago I saw a Type 38 carbine in perfect condition and wish I had been able to check the chamber on it.
I wish I had bought it, the truth be known, chamber issue or not as it had some very interesting variations.

[Jjed]

Just run 35 rem brass through your 6.5 jap die's worked for me.

[bart55]

Did you run it in one pass or did you step it down ,seems like quite a bit of reduction for one pass , I also note that all the 6.5 jap chambers seem to be overly large.My younger brother hunted with one for years here in NE pennsylvania and shot a number of deer with it .Never a quick kill usually had to do some tracking ,of course we were kids and all we could get were norma 156gr long pencil bullets .I doubt that there was any expansion to speak of ,and all of them went clean through. but we never lost one . lots of great memories of the early sixties .

[Sanchez]

The native T-38 chamber is grossly oversized/loose, as noted.
In the past, have used .220 Swift (lotta work, & they swelled-up @ base), .243/.308, & actually anything in the .30-06 family (cut-down, neck reamed/turned) a total PIA.
Key was: cut to rough OAL, then anneal necks. Follow w/ rough size (in 2-3 steps), final size, trim. If some came-up a bit shorter than 50mm, so what. It just meant a few more reload cycles before a trim was necessary. I would then cycle the newly-made empties thru the action at this point, & flunk any that gave resistance to bolt closing. These needed a minor lathe cut above rim area to reduce the diameter there.

A lotta work for sure, but economical & rewarding as all heck.

[mooman76]

Wouldn't 6.5x 55 swiss be good for this? It is slightly larger than 30.06 even though people use 30.06 brass to make it if I remember right. I've been thinking of getting a T-99 in 6.5 but don't want to deal with allot of brass issues.

[bob208]

from george c note's book cartrage conversions.

take a .30-06 swage body to .450 dia. leave rim fullsize. size full langth. ream neck. trim to 1.965. load use 23 dia bullets.

[madsenshooter]

There's an easy way to this. 35 Rem is ok, if you can live with short neck brass. The 308 family needs to be swagged down, a pain in the butt. Hornady and PRVI are undersized for the chambers, just like the old Norma brass. I wrote Norma a long time ago, and they show on their website the dimensions I gave them, but folks tell me all they're finding is the old stuff. Here's what I've found to be the easy way: Use .303 British. I've used 30/40 Krag too, but right now it's hard to find. First size the British down in a 308 die with the expander ball removed until you get a shoulder starting 1.480" forward of the top of the rim. Next size it in a 7/08 with the expander ball removed and don't push the shoulder back, next size it in your 6.5 jap die. Trim to length, which will vary, mine will accept a case 2.093" (53.16mm) long that has a nice long neck. Finally turn the rim down to .475". I've done this simply by chucking the case in a drill and running them carefully on a flat file, it's slow, but effective. For future sizing, the inside of a 44 magnum shell holder can be opened slightly so that the case fits. Mr. Dremel makes short work of this task. Don't worry if the shoulder on your case is a little short, the .060 rim makes the cartridge headspace as it should and it'll fire form on the first firing with no fear of excess headspace. The jap was meant to headspace on the rim, and Norma's old brass has a .050 rim instead of the .060 that it should have. Annealing the neck/shoulder would be a good idea. If you don't have the .308 or 7/08 dies, Lee sells die bodies alone. What you'll wind up with is just what Norma shows on their website, for a heck of lot cheaper, and a lot better than their undersized stuff that lasts 2 firings.

[Sanchez]

Wouldn't 6.5x 55 swiss be good for this? It is slightly larger than 30.06 even though people use 30.06 brass to make it if I remember right. I've been thinking of getting a T-99 in 6.5 but don't want to deal with allot of brass issues.

Nope, Mooman - yer thinkin' of forming 7.7x58mm Type 99 Arisaka brass there. BTW, 7.5x55 Swiss & 6.5 Swede would work well here, as well as 7.5x54 French.

99's were only produced in cal 7.7 - the T-38 & all other WW2 Japanese rifles were in 6.5x50mm

[dstamps1]

I spent hours trying to reform 308 cases and several other calibers to a 6.5 Jap with no sucess whatsoever! Go to www.grafs.com and buy you some loaded 6.5's for less than $25 a box. This will save you from saying a lot of bad words in your attempt to reform your own brass plus you will have brand new cases of the correct specs!

[3006guns]

+1 on the Grafs brass. After years of forming just about anything to make 6.5 Jap, I found that 35 Remington worked the easiest but you ended up with a short neck. Not a problem really, but not worth the effort when you can get new, properly marked brass...OTHER than Norma.

Just a quick note: The Jap chambers are NOT oversize. It's the other way around. The ammunition is undersized and has been since the 1920's when the spec was changed for reliable extraction in the early Nambu machine gun. The earlier cases were considerably larger. The Japanese didn't care if the fired case looked awful...they didn't reload. Norma copied what they thought was a normal Jap case for their commercial ammo after the war, and it's been "bulge city" ever since, with everyone assuming the gun was at fault.

[madsenshooter]

Hours, I spent days, probably have 500 or so I swagged down from 308. Each case went through 7 dies on it's way down. I took out a $300 ad in American Rifleman, glad I only sold 4 or 5 hundred. I think Nonte used an arbor press, I never did figure out a way to leave the rim full size, .466, like the old Norma brass was as good as I could do, with the head forward of the extractor groove being .4575. I used GI brass, which didn't help matters. Bought the biggest reloading press I could find to make a little less of a chore of it.

[georgewxxx]

For another $4. more you can buy 50rds of Winchester 35 Remington's from Graf & Sons. They are so easy to reform to 6.5Jap it's about like sizing once fired jap brass. By the way, as of this morning it's in stock too. Almost a better solution is go to Buffalo Arms and buy a bag of 50 Hornady 6.5's for $23.00 http://www.buffaloarms.com/browse.cfm/4,5477.html If it's in stock, they don't say..Geo

[FickleThings]

What is the advantage of using 35 rem brass over the ppu jap brass?

[Sig556r]

6.5J are semi-rimmed thus, 35Rem is an ideal brass to reform, though a tad shorter after resizing. 22Swift can also be used but kinda tricky if your breech is on the larger side (they swell at the base). Getting the right shellholder depending on headstamp can be a pain too. I separate my brass between my 38s & 44 as they fireformed differently. I just necksized to avoid overworking the brass. YMMV

[FickleThings]

I intend to neck size and keep brass dedicated to a specific rifle. I will give the 35 rem a test

[Harter66]

For me 35 Rem wouldn't stay on the extractor .

The easiest I did was 243 . I really just ran it in the FL die all but the last 1/4" pulled it back out lubed the body again and ran it all the way up and held the cam over for 10-15 seconds and with draw . Then make a flat line about .1 from the extractor groove up to remove the swell check fit , repeat .

It's Dads rifle and needs a .272 bullet . A Hornady 270 WSM sizer is gold here as it hits neck dia awfully close without moving it more than once . I shot it with light loads to figure out where to head for load data the .270-140 NOE wasn't great but was a start . A paper patched 266469 core sized .265 showed some promise .

I've been passively seeking 6.5 CM brass if for no other reason than to annoy the modern new is better guys . 260 Rem would probably not be a bad choice . I think based on the trim requirements of 243 that the Savage and CM family brass would be very close to right for length when the body and taper move up/forward . It may also eliminate reaming ..... I haven't tested that yet however as there hasn't been a lot of that brass laying around to try out . I may break down and sacrifice a piece of virgin 22-250 .

Edited to add that I'm using a Big Max A4 for forming this brass so applied force may not be equal in all cases .

[ascast]

making brass can be fun, or a real pain in the butt. buy some and go shooting, you may find the gun won't shoot. one box should not break you dollar wise.

[Larry Gibson]

I've a bubba'd "sporterized" 6.5 jap that had a horribly oversized chamber. The bore was reasonably good, and it still shot ok but Norma cases would split open on the 3rd firing even though I was just NSing the fire formed cases. At the time I was using a 6.5-308 based on 308W cases being sized and necked down to just the shoulder in a shortened 6.5x55 Swede die. I compared the formed 6.5-308 case with the fire formed 6.5 jap case and it appeared the 6.5-308 case would just clean up the chamber. I then loaded the magazine of the jap with 6.5-308 cartridges and they fed fine. A friend had a 6.5x55 finish reamer so I borrowed it and finish reamed the jap chamber for the 6.5-308 to headspace on the shoulder. It didn't take much by hand to do it.

With some old Hornady 160 gr RNs the jap rifle shot 1 1/2 moa....I was astounded. With 140 Hornady SPs or RNs she does the same. A while back Hornady made a run of .268 bullets for the Carcano at .268 and they also shoot very, very well in the 6.5-308 jap. The BRP 268-469 drops bullets at .270 so I just seat and crimp a GC then lube with LLA. Over 14.5 gr of 2400 they shott very well.

Thus, if your Type 38 is not a 'collector' but just a shooter with the simple finish ream, a set of shortened 6.5x55 dies and plentiful 308W/7.62 NATO cases available might be a viable option.

Here is the 6.5-308, the 6.5 jap, the 6.5x55 and a 7x57;

297547

And the rifle.....[I'd laugh with you if the darn thing didn't shoot so good.....]

297548

[FickleThings]

Rechambering my arisaka to 6.5x55 had crossed my mind. I read about a 6.5 257 rechambering for type 38s done when the 6.5 jap ammo was not around.

[M1fuzz]

Just buy the PPU brass and be done. Everything else is just a big pain in the butt. I was having a hell of a time w/ a T38 carbine I had a while back. Nothing I tried worked in reference to brass. Then the discovery was made…. Someone (probably the Chinese) rechambered and rebarreled it 7.62x39.

[skeettx]

compare to the 220 Swift necked up to 6.5 and fire formed

BUT get these

https://www.grafs.com/retail/catalog/category/categoryId/700?

[Harter66]

The fly in the ointment if you will is the grooves .
If I had the tool to "freshen up" the bore ala' Pope and I cut just .015 out all the way around I could get by with .277 dia bullets and not have to "fix" the throat to make it happen , otherwise they would make a dandy 260 Rem .

[jason280]

Will a .260 reamer effectively clean up a 6.5x50 chamber?

[Texas by God]

Yes, it should. It's close to the 6.5- 308 mentioned earlier. I recut the shoulder on mine so I could use .250 Savage brass fireformed up. Mine wouldn't shoot that well so I had a gunsmith re- thread a Shaw 8x57mm and fit it. I did the action modifications. Commercial ammo will fit in the magazine but milsurp ammo is single shot only. A neighbor traded me out of that rifle; I should get it back sometime......Sorry for the drift!

Sent from my SM-A716U using Tapatalk

[Japlmg]

I have a T96 LMG, and eat up a lot of hand loaded 6.5x50sr Japanese.
I have a swager die that converts 308 brass (commercial brass works a lot better than military brass) to 6.5x50sr brass, with a very nice semi-rim.
This is a push in die, all the way to the top surface of the rim, then push the brass out via a rod down through the neck.
Once formed it is just trim and load.

[Larry Gibson]

Will a .260 reamer effectively clean up a 6.5x50 chamber?

You might try feeding some 260 cases from a fully loaded magazine first. They did not feed well from the magazine of my jap rifle. However, a 308W case formed in a 6.5x55 FL die [the decap pin removed and case lube and tapped in to form the case then tapped out with a rod ala a Lee wack-a-molie die] fed much better because of the tapered case as it will fit into the taper of the magazine better. First shorten a 6.5x55 FL die so a 308W case is formed down with the neck at 6.5x55 length. The formed case is same case capacity as the 260 rem or 6.5-308 so that load data can be used. Use the formed case to headspace on the shoulder cleaning up (basically finish reaming) with a 6.5x55 Swede finish reamer. Easy to do with no real case forming as such other than FL sizing the cases and maybe a final trim to length. Just FL size 308W cases in the shortened FL 6.5x55 die. I also shortened a NS die and a Seater the same amount. The bore on my Bubba'd jap is really pretty poor and it was shortened to 22". Using 7.62 LC 73 cases I push a 129 gr Hornady SP at 2670 fps with less than 2 moa accuracy.

A 266455 cast of COWW + 2% tin left "as cast" at .268 with the GC just crimped on and lubed (2500+) in a .268 H&I die loaded over 10 gr of Unique runs 1460 fps with the same less than 2 moa accuracy at 100 yards. Given the condition of the oversized bore (for .264 bullets) I've not even uniformed the neck thickness. I have annealed the neck/shoulder area after several firings with jacketed bullets loads though.

Here, left to right, are the 6.5 on the 308W case with a 266455 as described, a 6.5 jap Norma cartridge and a 6.5x55 cartridge with a 129 gr Hornady SP.

298511

My Bubba'd Jap rifle

298512

[nightwolf1974]

308 Winchester...

[iron brigade]

Just made a bunch using 6.5 creedmoor brass. After running into the FL die you have to chuck the brass in a drill and file off the belt. Work great

[Geezer in NH]

What is the advantage of using 35 rem brass over the ppu jap brass?

NONE I would buy brass when available rather than convert another hard to come by brass

[JFoster48386]

Good thread. We were just discussing what the best option would be for forming Jap brass. New stock may be the best option...

Jon.

[Rapier]

Sounds like buying the PP 6.5 Jap brass would be a very good place to start. Wish it was around in 62 when I started fooling with Japanese surplus rifles and making ammo for them. My experience with Norma, in the 60s was not good, as it was very soft.