How I convert 223 brass to 7.62X25 brass.

When I got my tokarev pistol about 20 years ago the only ammo readily available was Chinese steel case FMJ loads, which worked alright but I wanted to be able to shoot it even if the powers that be (The Clintons) cut off the ammo supply. Which they pretty much did do. Here is step by step instructions that will work. It makes what was the cheapest brass at the time into some of the most precious brass that you will ever see, if you count your time as being worth anything.

1. Take a 223 case and mark it at about 1 1/16" roughly from the base. I used a sliding bevel carpenters square for this. It does not have to be too accurate at this point, you will trim to length later, just don't make it too short. With a small tubing cutter cut the brass at the mark. Discard the funnel shaped piece. You can use any bad brass as long as the primer pocket is good and the head of the case is intact.

2. Lube the case and run it into your 7.62X25 sizing die to full length size and decap the case. It will look just like a 7.62X25 case but the brass will be really thick at the neck.


3. Ream the neck with a .311 reamer. This assumes that your expander expanded the neck to .308 inside. If you decap in a separate operation without an expander then you will need a .308 reamer. This may work the brass less. either way you want to end up with a reasonably thick neck that you can seat a .308 bullet into.


4. Trim to length. 25mm .


5. Full length size the case again and prime.

6. load and shoot. I found I could use 70 gr bullets that were for the 32 ACP.

7. Note on powder charges. You will want to start out really slow and light with charges that will probably not make the gun eject and load . The case you have made is very much thicker than the factory case and therefore has less volume inside the case, and therefore it will be easy to get into trouble with too much pressure. I used red dot and will only say go substantially below the minimum charge listed in the good old Lyman book. Load a few and try them for functioning before you load a bunch that you have to pull apart again.

Right after I made up a bunch of these things starline began making them for sale, but if they are behind on production here is a workable plan B.

BE SAFE!

Simpler conversion process if you start with 9 mm Win Mag; you'll still have to trim off about 4-5 mm, but you can use a case trimmer directly and do it all after sizing, and the resulting brass shouldn't require neck reaming or reduced loads (shouldn't be significantly thicker than factory 7.62x25). Since the 7.62x25 round headspaces on the shoulder, you could probably also get away with 9x23, 9 mm Steyr, or 9 mm Bergmann-Bayard brass, all about 2 mm short (though the 9 Win Mag is surely the easiest convertible pistol case to get).

That said, .223/5.56 brass is certainly easier to pick up at the range, hence cheaper, but by the time you're done converting, you'll be glad you started with 9 Win Mag.

I have actually never seen a 9mm win mag. But if it were available , why not use it ?

Yeah, availability is the big question, isn't it? Of course, the next time you can't by 7.62x25 brass, you might find .223 has quit appearing at the range by the bucket full, too -- and if you're going to buy brass to convert anyway, may as well make it as easy on yourself as possibly by starting with either 9x23 or 9 mm Win Mag...

Yeah, If you have to buy new brass it makes sense. I was using mostly old brass that was on the way to the scrap yard. Back in the good old days.

thanks i didnt know this could be done from any brass i have some s&b brass ill use some .223 if i need to from now on .... knowledge is power

Be aware that making pistol brass out of rifle brass will give a substantially smaller
internal volume due to the much thicker case head, so back off the loading data a
good bit compared to pistol brass.

Bill

Is it an acceptable practice to turn the outside of the neck, rather than ream the inside? That is, run it up in the die (with expander in place) then on the way down it expands it to the proper (internal) size where you can run it through a neck turning setup?

I have a neck turner setup, but not a reamer.

Also read in another thread where someone said they had to shave .04" off their .223 shellholder to get the shoulder where it's supposed to be. Is that still the case or was that an isolated issue?

I see what you are saying about the neck sizing. I expanded the necks to 308 and then reamed with a 311 reamer and then re sized the necks down again. I was doing the job with the equipment I had to do the job without buying anything new. It worked.

I converted 1,800 .223 cases back in the early 80's when there was no ammo to be found anywhere. I parted off the cases in a lathe with a slitting saw, sized, neck turned, trimmed and loaded with Red Dot and the Lyman 85 gr. RN. Works fine in the various Toks and Mausers out there.

I made quite a bit when I had my CZ 52. Hated that gun. All that work to make brass, and if you loaded it full power, rarely did I recover it. My gun ejected the cases further then it threw the boolit.

Looks like it can work either way, ream or neck turn.. the other question is, do I need to shave .040" off the top of a shellholder to get the shoulder further down? I'm using the Lee die set. As was mentioned elsewhere, I'd rather hose up a 223 shellholder (which I have several of) than a die.

Absolutely, alter the cheaper part if alteration is necessary! I had a Lee die set that came with a shell holder so it was not a mismatch issue for me. The fun continues!!


I do wish I hadn't gotten rid of the old Tokerev when I did. There was something else that I just had to have.

I've been watching this thread for a couple of days now. I had someone ask me to make some of the cases last week and that's how I stumbled on this thread. I have some S&B cases I've had for years, I checked the neck thickness and came up with .01-.011 thick. Now since I make 300 Blackout brass all the time I grabbed 1 and checked the brass thickness at the neck, came up with the same thickness on those as I did the S&B brass. So am I not understanding something when you guys either ream or turn the neck?

It just has me stumped, I haven't cut down any 5.56/223 brass yet but I don't think the brass gets all that thick on those cases to that point. Although there are some makers of 223/5.56 brass that are thicker, but those I would shy away from anyway.

From my experience the brass at the neck appeared to be quite thick. I did not have a way to measure it but the test round that I made with no reaming done would not chamber in my gun. It was too tight at the neck with a bullet seated. Others may have a different experience and indeed that is the only round I ever had that required any reaming of the neck. I have made 8mm out of 30-06 and have a 6.5X257 that I have made brass for also from 30-06 and 270 brass , I have made 6.5 jap from 35 remington also. I have also, just to try it, made 308 from 30-06, I wanted to get some more use out of some LC match brass that had begun to split at the necks. So I have a batch of LC 61 7.62X51 Match brass. I also have a 7.62X51 case that is marked LC52. Keeps me busy, and out of the bars.

Yep, I'm no stranger to this either; having to make 300 BLK out of LC brass, and the biggest booger of them all - 6mm PPC out of 7.62x39. I've got a buddy with some Tok ammo and I've asked him for a spent case or two along with a loaded one to measure off of to verify when I get loading. I can chuck my shellholder up in my micro lathe if it needs to be shaved down. Need to cut my little jig I bought to chop 300 BLK down a couple of mm's so I can use it to make this stuff!

Thanks for a really informative thread. This is exactly the kind of information I come to this site for.

Well I had a few minutes to spare and trimmed the head off of a 38spl case. Put in a new extractor groove and turned out a pretty good piece of art work. I didn't have a case gauge for it but I had 3 pieces of loaded rounds as well as spent cases, so I made a gauge based off the loaded rounds. Then I put a couple of spent cases in the gauge and the heads stuck up out of the gauge a good .020 so that had me scratching my head. Maybe the case deforms that much after firing, I don't know I don't own anything in that particular configuration.

I wanted to use a 38spl for 2 reasons. 1) I have 38spl brass overflowing my bucket 2) That's another method described in my book.

After doing the 38spl I wouldn't recommend it, you need a lathe and tooling for it and frankly I think using 223/5.56 brass is less time consuming in the end, just need the reamer. I went and split a 5.56 case and measured with my blade mic's and the brass gets a tad thicker the further down you go. Now I understand better about the reaming part.

Dunno if I would make a hobby out of making this brass though, but if things got scarce at least I would know how to do it.

I guess I'm pretty lucky I just started reloading the first round of 223 brass I cut and resized it slid right into the chamber without turning the neck or reaming it I cast my own bullets and size them to. 309 I didn't measure the id of the sized case so I loaded a round with a bullet after I flared the neck but without the primer and powder to my surprise it fit without any resistance then I cut 3 more one was a little thicker at shoulder and wouldn't seat all the way in so I used a small brass shim I put it in the Shell holder to lift the shell a little I resized the case again I checked the fit and it fell right in so far I have loaded about a hundred rounds and they shoot great I don't know if it's just my tok but before going through all the extra steps make 1 dummy round to see if it fits in your gun it saves a lot of time I use lee dies by the way

Hi everyone. Just registered on this forum so I could add my experience on this subject in the hopes it would benefit someone.
I used 9mm magnum brass 20+ years ago for converting to 7.62x25 brass and it works great, but back then it was at closeout prices because it wasn't popular and Winchester no longer makes it. 7.62x25 boxer ammo or brass was almost nonexistent back then. The situation has changed and you can buy new Tok brass by Starline cheaper than the 9mm mag brass ($22 per 100), without the hassles of forming. I know its cheaper to make your own from surplus .223. I wouldn't use cases shorter than 25mm because the case neck is only .155" long to start with. A 23mm case would give you a neck length of only .075" .
About brass thickness; the neck of a .223 case is not necessarily going to be the same thickness as the body of the case where the new neck will be formed and when a case is necked down the brass has to go somewhere, i.e. neck gets thicker or longer. Care should be taken to ensure there will be enough room in the chamber for the case neck to expand and readily release the bullet or pressures could rise to dangerous levels. Just because it slides into the chamber doesn't mean it's good to go. Compare all the finished cartridges necks to the chamber dimensions or just ream the neck thickness to about the same as factory brass. Cases I've measured mic out around .012" thick.
Another Tok component unavailable back then was bullets. I used lee bullet sizing dies to size down 85 grain .312 diameter XTP's , you need to lube jacketed bullets before sizing. Still a good option as it allows use of all the 32 caliber pistol bullets. There still aren't many .308 pistol bullets available. I've also used 110 grain 30 carbine bullets and they were very accurate but max velocities only about 1200fps.

I recently started making up some 7.62x25 cases out of surplus .223 casings.
I cut the .223 casing to 1" long.
Run the casing into my Lee 7.62x 25 sizing die.
Then I use my drill press to drill out the neck using a size "N" drill that is .302 diam.
Then I trim the cases to length.
Then run them thru the neck internal sizing or flaring die.
The only issue I have had so far on only a few cases is.
To drill out the case neck.
I held the casing in a pair of pliers.
If I didn't hold it tight enough.
The case would spin a little and scratch some minor grooves in the case.
Those damaged cases will get thrown out.
But so far.
The cases I have loaded and fired with 100 gr powder coated cast Boolits over 5.0 of Unique.
The ammo fired great , and fire formed the rear section of the case to chamber dimensions.
Not the case head but the case body.
The cases resized really nicely and now fit the chamber a lot better.
Next thing is to work up loads and see if the smaller interior dimension case does not Up the pressure with better loads.

Nifty!

This is very close to what I was doing to create 7.62x25 cases back when nobody was manufacturing them. Just as I was happy with my procedure they started to become available commercially. I was using a tubing cutter to cut the 223/5.56 cases to length and carried that over into my 300 BO making. Fun fun fun, carry on!!

You are correct that there are several manufactures of the 7.62x25 currently.
But the price is way up there and availability is Low.
Plus the Tokarev ejects them so far , it is hard to find all the cases to reload.
To cut my .223 cases to length.
I made a sleeve tube out of brass tubing that fits over the case.
I mark them at 1" long.
Then I chuck them up in my Poor Man's Lathe held in my vise.
Then with that mark at the end of the drill chuck.
I just spin them and cut the casing with a hack saw while spinning.
I just got done doing a 175 casings and have them all reformed and primed for reloading.
Next project is a net to catch the fired casings when I shoot at the range since my wife can't make it to the range with me all the time.
She is my "Range Chicken"
She is the one that pecks around and picked up my casings.

i have a 3d printed x25 cradle for the mini chop saw that i use for making the B/O cases and i have a trim die that i can trim them after they have been sized in the x25 die

I made a rig to use tubing cutter that can adjust where to cut using drill on hex on opposite side of cutter Attachment 310583Attachment 310584Attachment 310585Attachment 310586

I used 38spl cases many years ago and made a hundred or so. I made a tool for a lathe to remove the rim and cut an extractor at the same time. Then sized and trimmed. Since then I have acquired several hundred s&b cases. I have a tok and a cz52 and both have tight throats and groove diameters around .314. If I load a 315/315 boolet, I have to turn the necks a bit to get them to chamber. The 38spl cases don't have the thick walls like 223 and are close to the same capacity as the x25 cases.

Thank you rbuck.
I will have to look into making up some cases out of .38 SPL cases.

This morning I made a few cases out of .38 SPL cases.
I no longer have a lathe.
But I just used my poor man's lathe that is a drill motor mounted in my vise.
Spinning the case and filing down the case head and cutting in the groove with a hacksaw blade worked really good.
I ran them thru my Lee 7.62x25 case sizing die then trimmed them to length
I will have to do a light load and fire form them a little bit to fill up the chamber.
But Hay.
This looks doable for an average person.
I will try and keep you guys posted on how they turn out after I fire them.

https://i.imgur.com/DashJfd.jpg

I have a bunch of 300 ACC cases that I can use to convert to 7.62x25 casings.
I am sure I can order some new cases off the internet.
But playing with things like these projects provides knowledge to others that either can not find what they need or can afford them for use in a gun that they don't use that much.
I don't have any 9mm Magnum casings.
And I think the .38 Super cases that I have are just a little too short.
But I will check it out when I can find my old casings.

You must have the patience of Job and like to work with your hands. I stand in awe......

I do have patients and have always worked with my hands.
I have also kept shooting thru those Ammunition Shortages were around.

I spent some time this summer making some from .223 brass that had split necks, or other issues that made them unsuitable for reloading.

I trimmed them down to just around 1", then formed in a 7.62x25 sizer. I 3d printed a cradle to hold the rounds in my machinist vise for the drill press, and drilled with an N bit. But what I found is that they seemed to not have enough neck tension to hold the bullets reliably. So I'm thinking a neck expander for a slightly larger caliber die might solve the problem.

I used to make these quite a bit back in the day, but I can't remember what bit I used. I'm going to have to tinker with this some more. I always have plenty of scrap 223.

To make sure the neck tension is tight enough.
I bought a Lee neck crimping die that crimps the last 1/16" of the neck rather than roll crimping it in the seating die that came with the die set.
So far I have not had any issues with the original seating die rolling the neck of the case where it expands and then won't just drop into the barrel chamber.
Right now I am shooting bullets that I sized to .309.
But because the bore is close to .311
I am going to start sizing the bullets to .310 or .311.
I resize Boolits that are .312 jacketed bullets down to the size I need or want.
The cast bullets I am loading are cast from a .312 Lee 100 gr mold also.
Those I cast out of Linotype and then Powder Coat them.
The late friend who left me the pistol use to get the 100 gr cast and coated Boolits from me.
I just have not refined or worked up the best load that he used.
But I believe the only powder he used was Unique.
So far loads up to 5.5 gr have worked well.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by LAGS

To make sure the neck tension is tight enough.
I bought a Lee neck crimping die that crimps the last 1/16" of the neck rather than roll crimping it in the seating die that came with the die set.
So far I have not had any issues with the original seating die rolling the neck of the case where it expands and then won't just drop into the barrel chamber.
Right now I am shooting bullets that I sized to .309.
But because the bore is close to .311 I am going to start sizing the bullets to .310 or .311.
I resize Boolits that are .312 jacketed bullets down to the size I need or want.
The cast bullets I am loading are cast from a .312 Lee 100 gr mold also.
Those I cast out of Linotype and then Powder Coat them.
The late friend who left me the pistol use to get the 100 gr cast and coated Boolits from me.
I just have not refined or worked up the best load that he used.
But I believe the only powder he used was Unique.
So far loads up to 5.5 gr have worked well.

---

Thats a good idea on the neck crimping die. Ideally I'd like to get it right so that I don't have to worry about it. But that may be a good workaround.

I took out a bunch of reloads that I did from the .223 and 30 BLK cases.
They were loaded with 85 gr Hornady and some with the cast 100 gr Boolits that are PC'ed.
All shot pretty good and functioned great.
Now that the cases are fire formed.
I will reload them and focus a little more on the accuracy with different powder loads.
The powder I used was Unique.
I loaded them from 4.5 to 5.5 grains

If any is to be found near you, experimentation with AA#5 might deliver better performance with projectiles weighing 90 gr. or more.

What type/brand of dies are being used to resize the cut .223 cases? Are these regular resizing dies for reloading 7.62x25 rounds, or are they special-application resizing dies?

I do not have any AA#5
And haven't found any lately.
I do have a pound of AA#2 but don't have any loading info for it with 100 gr boolits

This MIGHT help.
https://makarov.com/tokloaddata.html

I thought that AA#5 would work better, b/c it is more dense, so you won't have to compress the charge (as might be necessary w/Unique). It is also a bit slower-burning, which seems to be the safe way to go when reloading with heavier-than-usual projectiles. AA#2 MIGHT work, but it it much faster-burning than Unique or AA#5, so I'd expect trouble.