cartridge conversion 308 to 243 win -- HELP!!

lazicki

lazicki

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Hey guys. Looking for some advise on what I'm doing wrong.

Here is step by step what I am doing.

1 clean brass with scotch bright
2 anneal brass with torch until greyish - blue below the shoulder (tried a few different levels of heat including minimal heat and over hot where brass was just glowing red on the case mouth)
3 air cool until brass will not sizzle going into warm water
4 lube with paste wax case lube
5 bring shell to top of stroke on press (lyman t-mag 2)
6 screwed down lyman full length 243 win resizing die to touch top of shell
7 incrementally tighten die and stroke the brass maximum 1 turn to start and less once I feel sizing pressure down to 1/6 rotation between strokes


When the case mouth starts to taper to start the new 243 mouth the pressure become greater. And before I see a neck begin to form the 308 shoulder crushes. Did the same thing on 6 attempts. Like I said tried different annealing Temps and lengths. I tried taking out the sizing ball from the die and running it with out that. I got the same results every time

Any help or advice would be much appreciated! !

Thanks!!

Lazi.
 
I'm not sure you are annealing right ( I torch heat in darkness until I get a red glow and dump into cold water immediately), but likely the main thing is that resizing necks SMALLER always sucks, period, IMO.

Personally, I just don't do it anymore, as it has such a high failure rate.

Opening up necks to make 35 Whelen from 30-06, for example, is easy peasy, but trying to smash down .308 to .243 is pretty much folly without specialized equipment AND lots of experience AND you'll still have quite a bit of waste.
 
Try going to 7-08 or 260 first and skip annealing until after the brass is formed. By annealing the shoulder you are making it soft and allowing it to crush. I made many 243 brass from 308 years ago when I had lots of 308 brass and several 243's.

Neil
 
I will try your annealing process tonight. And I will see if I can find some dies in between 308 as 243 to stage it. I would gladly buy 243 brass if I could find some. But short of ordering it from across the country I have found none. But I have access to a few hundred 308 brass for free from cleaning up a local crown area where someone turned into a shooting dump.
 
It is head stamped 308. It is not 7.62 cartridges. And it is not a matter of money. It is a matter of availability of 243 brass. I can not find any. I am going to buy 80 rounds of factory winchester to break in my barrel and have some fun. So I will have 80 rounds eventually. But I wanted to play with my reloading and make some hand loads while I wait for a scope to come in.

Ps. I refuse to pay $80/100 for nosler brass or anything crazy like that. Frickin more than loaded factory ammo.

-Lazi
 
You may find that the case necks are too thick, and require turning or reaming. You should check.
Reducing from .30 to .243 may require intermediate stages, as mentioned.
I have a RCBS .243 forming set. It provides for reaming at the .25 stage.
 
Size down in steps, 7mm, then 6mm and anneal after sizing in the dark to a burgandy colour. As soon as there is a slight burgandy douse them in CLR.

I prefer to buy cheap winchester loaded ammo (20 bucks or so per box) or federal blue box, fire them off in the rifle they will be used for and then reload from there using these cases for that rifle only.

Have fun! :)
 
Outside neck turn the 308 brass to 9 thou.. yes, paper thin.

Now size in steps.... 7mm, then 6.5... check thickness and likely outside turn again but now keep to 11 thou.

Next step will go to 6mm.

Anneal, size, turn if needed, trim. Away you go.

by the way when annealing, colour has nothing to do with proper temps and heat cycles.

If you are using Win brass, this process will be far easier then with Lapua.

Enjoy...

Jerry

PS, the range of dies you will need to control all the sizing, forming to keep things concentric and not collapse shoulders will buy you a whole bunch of NORMA 243 brass. I have been wildcatting for many years so have mucked about getting brass this way and that... it is alot of fun and you learn a bunch.

For personal knowledge, awesome... if you consider how much brass you have and will destroy along the way, that quality Norma brass starts to look pretty darn cheap.

If you using older fired brass, this will be an even tougher journey.
 
Greyish-blue below the shoulder is too hot. Red hot is waaaay too hot and the brass is now too soft. Air cooling doesn't anneal either. You need to heat the necks and shoulders in a pan of plain tap up to just below the shoulder, until the brass changes colour, then tip 'em over into the water.
Far less fuss to buy .243 brass. Not worth the effort.
You also have no need whatsoever to break in a barrel anyway.
 
Like above, step it down bit by bit. Use a neck bushing die so you can pick your sizes. I go from 6.5 to 22 in about four goes and twenty two to twenty about the same. One step and they will crush for sure.
 
sunray said:
Greyish-blue below the shoulder is too hot. Red hot is waaaay too hot and the brass is now too soft. Air cooling doesn't anneal either. You need to heat the necks and shoulders in a pan of plain tap up to just below the shoulder, until the brass changes colour, then tip 'em over into the water.
Far less fuss to buy .243 brass. Not worth the effort.
You also have no need whatsoever to break in a barrel anyway.
Click to expand...

Yea this seems to be a waste of money and time. And as for break in I have a bore snake so a quick swab with that and clp in between the first few rounds is all I wanted to do. Build up a bit of copper in the barrel and clean out carbon fouling and any metal shavings (if any) from factory lapping.

Fire 1 shot .. bore snake. Fire 5 bore snake the repeat 5 and clean until 30 rounds pass and done. That's all I was planning. Build up a light copper layer and clean out the carbon.
 
I did 200 last nite from 308 to 243. One failure. Turn necks uniform to about 10 thou.F/l size to 308, then 260 then 243. Anneal.These are for 243a.i. So I load with 700 x and Kleenex and fire. Shot them in yard. Sized with lee collet and they are ready to load..these are federal cases. I did 400 of these with Norma brass in Nov. Getting ready for S.D. Dog shoot in June.
 
358 said:
I did 200 last nite from 308 to 243. One failure. Turn necks uniform to about 10 thou.F/l size to 308, then 260 then 243. Anneal.These are for 243a.i. So I load with 700 x and Kleenex and fire. Shot them in yard. Sized with lee collet and they are ready to load..these are federal cases. I did 400 of these with Norma brass in Nov. Getting ready for S.D. Dog shoot in June.
Click to expand...


Only issue is I would have to go buy dies. I am new to reloading. And only have 30-30. 243 win. And 223 rem dies. So the cost outweighs the benifits to me at the moment. I was hoping to be able to size them from a 243 die only. My friend has a 270 die he offered me to borrow. Is that a caliber that I can step down with? I still have no way to turn the neck down at the moment
. And I'm sure my work will not like me using our cnc lathe on company Time to turn brass :) I'm lucky I can putz around on here all day while my machine is turning :)

-Lazi
 
I wanted to do this early in my reloading days. A friend had a handi-rifle in .243 so I told him I would load him some rounds. Borrowed a set of .243 dies, crushed the first dozen, asked for help, had case forming (both up AND down) explained in detail, borrowed a set of forming dies. Hardest part after that was going back and forth to get the necks thinned.
Haven't done it since. Easier (and cheaper) to get .243 brass.
I do, however, still make 7mm-08 brass from .308 brass, but I made my own step die by polishing out the neck of a second 7mm-08 die.
OP, you are wasting your time without some fairly specialized equipment. I can make this easier, I have a couple of hundred NEW winchester cases I haven't gotten to yet (my wife shoots far less than I do) and I would be willing to part with a pkg of 50 for what I paid for them plus $5 for shipping. That'd be 28.00 plus tax, for 29.40 and $5 would make it 34.40. If you are interested, PM me.
 
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