Originally Posted by
Bob S
Jeff,
I may have been one of the "well-meaning individuals" who told you it won't work. But I actually own a Winchester Model 70 chambered in 30-284; and in the real 3-D world, I can tell you that none of my 6 K31's, 2 K11's 2 96/11's and 2 1911 long rifles will chamber a 30-284 case because the headspace datum is about .015"-.020" longer than the 7.5 chamber. There is obviously less body taper on the 30-284, but the K31 chamber might tolerate that if it were not for the difference in headspace; the 1911 chambers would not. I have not tried to chamber a 30-284 case in either of the 1889's, or the Furter-Olten.
Bob, sorry this is soooooooooooo late
I looked at the K31 chambering of the 7.5x55 to be a sort of a minimum spec on a 30-284. As mentioned, the 30-284 will and can be spec'd out a lot of different ways. As are most wildcats.
If I may ask, has your carbine ever been checked with 7.5 headspace gauges, or 284 gauges (30-284 and 284 use the same gauges)? What brand are your 30-284 dies, and were they purchased new?
no on headspace
dies are a set of lee custom shop, they were brand new when purchased
K31's that have been rechambered to 30-284 do exist: see the 10th post in Buckshot's thread. The French could not own the K31 (or any milsurp, I think) in any military chambering; the quick fix to skirt that law was to rechamber them in the 30-284 commercial "wildcat". I saw one of these "French" K31's on this side of the pond many years ago, before K31's were commonplace, but I was not interested enough at that time to note if the carbine was marked to indicate the rechambering.
I suspect that if a guy faced .015-.020 off the base of a 30-284 die (or the shell holder) to get the correct headspace, it may work with a 7.5 K31 ... the result would be similar to the Redding "special K31" dies. I also suspect, but have not tried it (and have no motivation to do so), that a 7.5 x 55 cartridge could be fired in a 30-284 chamber without major discombobulation, if the extractor held the cartridge to the bolt well enough to get a good firing pin strike, or the bullets were jammed into the lands to hold the base of the cartridge against the bolt face at ignition.
If it's working for you, that's great ... but 30-284 will not chamber in any of my 7.5x55 chambers, and "neck up and shoot" 284's doesn't work in my rifles, either. And that's not based on just paper.
Bob, no offense taken and none meant here either, just a discussion.
When you mention the 30-284 will not chamber in your rifle. I presume you are speaking of a piece of brass that was shot in a 30-284 chamber?
I found this thread once again by accident. Summer is on us and wanted to refresh my memory.
I have a friends K31 at the bench along with his brass of reformed 284 and boxer primed 7.5. I ran it ALL through the 30-284 FL die. Just changing shell holders and bottoming out on the die. It just kissed about 1/2-3/4" above the web on all of them. I smoked one case then used a loop to look at the rest. I have no measuring tools to measure such a slight difference. However it does chamber noticable easier than a neck sized or unsized piece of brass.
FYI, the smoked case was marked all the way a round, so it just didn't drag the soot off of one side from friction. I size as much by feel as anything. There was a weee bit of resitance around the web.
I look at the 30-284 die as a large or standard base body die. Though it does size the neck at the same time and just kisses the neck shoulder junction. I do need to measure some of the mil ammo shoulder comapered to what it bumped at.
One last thing on annealing. I used to anneal only when necks sooted. I am know more towards some type of regular schedule on most everything. Yes it can be some what of a pita. But I take pride in my brass. It is as clean as it was when new and maybe even more. When I was still shooting the 7TCU, i was warned that milsurp brass was junk and should use commercial. Well, I found the exact opposite. I used LC 223 brass and had one batch of 250+ that are well over 25 loads and have been annealed numerous times. I am playing with a 6.5TCU and all of those were have been sized down from the 7.
jeff
Resp'y,
Bob S.