Hi,
A friend has an 8mm Nambu that hasn't been shot 20 times since it was brought back from overseas. I found a set of dies for it and bought some factory brass, as well as formed some from 40 S&W and 357 Sig. They all seemed to shoot OK. I was going to reload the fired brass and the case just doesn't look right. Here are three cases, as bought (unfired?), fired by us, and partially sized (L to R with the pic right side up).
Sorry, the pic is upside down and I don't know how to rotate it.
I am using a tool similar to a Sinclair Comparator to set the shoulder to the correct spot with the sizing die. I hope to push the shoulder back .005 or so from the fired case. That's where the problem comes in! The fired case looks like the case neck is pretty much gone. If the unfired case is set to .000 with the comparator, the fired case has the shoulder blown forward .054. The partially sized case has the shoulder forward .041 from unfired, but I pushed it back .013 from fired and created a little bit of a case neck. I don't really think it's enough of a neck to hold the bullet, but I also don't want to push the shoulder even farther back and risk case separations.
Are my fired cases "normal" for the 8 Nambu round? Any suggestion for where to set the shoulder?
Thanks!