So I was at the range a few weeks ago when I noticed a rather large case in the grass in front of the line. Being a curious fellow, I picked it up. On the base it says 338 LAPUA MAG. Well bingo…I shoot .338LM!
Nice find. It looks to be once fired, probably misplaced and not picked up by the shooter.
So I brought it home and promptly forgot about it until a couple of days ago. I de-capped it and wet tumbled it. I looks to be once fired. I really didn’t pay much attention to it, but I thought…why not anneal it? So I did. Then I was going to throw it into a Lapua case box with some virgin cases. And then I noticed….that neck looks a bit small…
Here it is next to a virgin .338LM case…(it’s on the left)…
You can clearly see the difference in neck diameter. I decided that maybe I should try and measure that diameter. Here’s my crude try (sorry, the caliper is all I have)…
And here you can clearly see the different shoulder angles.
And here’s a .338” 300gr SMK on that neck. That won’t work!
It looks like a necked down something. But what? Anyone care to chime in?