Sizing .308win down to .243win

Hitzy

Hitzy

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So I know back in the day that's how this was wildcatted, and I know there is plenty of .243 brass out there. Problem is, I just got 100 pieces of new Winchester, and the quality is abysmal, so I'm pissed and don't really want to spend more money for more brass. I never had an issue previously with Winchester brass, but I haven't bought any in quite some time. There are split necks, creased over necks, every case is short and well undersized, and a few have pretty good gouges in the walls.
So I have a ton of once fired Norma .308, ran one through and other then a short neck, looks pretty good. I imagine a few firings and the neck will stretch out to normal length.
Anyone else do this for .243? Any issues I'm not aware of?
 
You'll likely have to turn the necks - the brass in the neck will be too thick, possibly causing the chamber to squeeze the bullet when chambering, causing excess pressure. Check your neck thickness.
 
turning necks is not always needed. depends on brass thickness and chamber size.
i find that i seldom need to turn the necks on any of my formed 308 to 243 brass. you can make a dummy round to see how it chambers.
 
On the scale anyway, Norma is very close to Winchester which is on the light side compared to Remington and Federal. I'll load up a dummy and see how it feeds.
Edit:
Sized 10 up, look good, dummy chambered fine with no resistance, no donut after seating a bullet.... The Norma match .308 is actually pretty thin brass. I'll fire these off with light loads and see how it goes. Short necks don't seem to affect run out either...
 
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If it were me, I would be inclined to go to a 7mm-08 first..... It might make shrinking the neck a bit less susceptible to a lengthwise collapse. Unfortunately, unless you already have the tools, it means another die (usually set).

I've stretched necks from .308 to .338 with the intermediate steps of .311 and .323 (8mm). expanding necks is easier from the tooling aspect, since all I had to change was the expander ball on the resize die. Shrinking can be a bit trickier.

As someone else mentioned, you should check the neck diameter of a loaded necked down case to make sure it is not over max diameter.
 
I just resized some old army surplus stuff down. Other than being a lot of work for most of the cases it seemed to work fine. Im thinking better quality brass would have been a lot easier. The odd case was pretty easy to push through. I did about 125 cases and 25 would have been easy. Made some of that lanolin isopropyl alcohol lube and that made things a little easier. They are all a little short. No big deal. Measured the neck thickness and its within spec so should be good to go.
 
Factory Winchester 85gr psp is about 6.97mm outside the neck.
Resized Norma is about 6.99mm.
Oddly enough my neck sized once fired Win .243 loaded with the same bullets in the Norma cases is 7.01mm....right on the max.
Left is neck sized .243 Win brass with 100gr Speer, middle is the .308 Norma with the short neck and same bullet. Right is the factory 85gr Win psp.
 
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Collint2005 said:
I just resized some old army surplus stuff down. Other than being a lot of work for most of the cases it seemed to work fine. Im thinking better quality brass would have been a lot easier. The odd case was pretty easy to push through. I did about 125 cases and 25 would have been easy. Made some of that lanolin isopropyl alcohol lube and that made things a little easier. They are all a little short. No big deal. Measured the neck thickness and its within spec so should be good to go.
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The Norma was very easy to size, no more effort then regular FL sizing. Much easier then sizing .284 win for 7.5x55....

And tried priming 20 of the new win brass, some primers went in with almost no resistance.... Basically loose pockets on new brass so I won't get many loads out of them, while others were so tight I could barely get them in.
Way to go Winchester, you ####ed up the only thing I would ever buy!
 
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Hitzy.........I have made hundreds of 243 from 308 in every case available including a bunch of military. Never had to turn necks for my old 700 Rem, just loaded them up and went out and killed chit with them. If you are suspicious then just try and see if your bullets slide in a fired case without resistance.
 
Yeah, I'm not really seeing a downside to this so far. I would have bought Remington .243 brass from the start if I could find any, but all I could find was Winny.
 
As long as the rim specs are the same and the starting case is equal to or longer than the desired case you can use it. I have made 308 brass that has 243, 7mm Mauser, 8mm mauser, 30-06, 270 and 7mm-08 on the headstamp.
 
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kamlooky said:
Maybe try annealing a few of the crap brass and see if it helps.

Norma brass is always a pleasure to work with.
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The ones with split necks and creased shoulders are like that out of the bag.....lol it's not even from sizing them. The ones with minor dings and dents will be fine, but literally about 15% are junk out of the bag!
 
Hitzy said:
The ones with split necks and creased shoulders are like that out of the bag.....lol it's not even from sizing them. The ones with minor dings and dents will be fine, but literally about 15% are junk out of the bag!
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Have you contacted winchester or wherever you bought them? I'd be wanting a refund from someone on this... or at least an exchange.

Winchester might wanna know too,sounds like they had a bad batch that got past quality control...
 
Gone are the days of Win brass being the best non premium brass. I dont even remember how long ago it is that the quality flip flopped. I bought a few hundred of my common small calibers many years ago, well before the loss of quality, and super glad i did.

What out of the bag, virgin brass in the common domestic brands is now the best quality?

Even with a WSS here in town, the selection is hit and miss at best. WSS has a fair bit of virgin remington, and very expensive hornady. It would seem the guy from Zellers that would buy equal numbers of left hand and right hand golf clubs now does the ordering for WSS. Lots of brass for calibers that are threatening to become extinct/endangered, but none for common stuff like 308, 30-06,300wm. Brass for 243WSSM, and 358 Win. Bass lures in the fishing section, in trout and salmon country.
 
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