30-06 brass casings necked down to 270win

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Snake88

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Hello reloaders,

A friend of mine gave me around 40 brass cases for his 30-06 (factory ammo fired once). My friend does not reload so he gave them to me. I have a rifle that is in 270 winchester. I understand that the 30-06 case is the parent case for the 270 winchester. Have many of you guys necked down a 30-06 to a 270? And if so how did it work out?

I only have Full Length RCBS dies, and nothing in the 7mm range. I have heard that using a 7mm die and then using a 270 die after gets a better result.

True? False? And/or any opinions for the first couple of attempts to try this out would be helpful. The last thing I really want is to bugger up my dies.

Cheers

Snake88
 
I have done that with no issues. They may be a bit short, but they worked fine in my 270 A bolt when I had it. Be sure to lube well and run through your die.
 
Another potential area of concern is the thickness of the resulting neck. As the case is sized down, the neck tends to become thicker. Your example isn't a huge reduction, so it probably won't be a problem. If it is, there are tools to thin the neck to a uniform thickness.
 
I found no issues except I use a die grinder to remove the 30-06 numbers from the head stamp,they end up a bit shorter but have no accuracy issues in savage rifle but good thing is I can reload often without having to trim .-John -Montrock
 
ummm why do you grind the head of the cartridge? that sounds like the worst idea of the thread or forum. You can tell 30'06 and .270 apart by just looking at them. the neck is different and the bullet is smaller. Now I still suggest you mark them with a permanent marker or something if that seems hard.. but I don't seem to mix up my different calibre handloads in my pocket in the field, in a stressful enough environment to worry about it.
 
unstableryan said:
ummm why do you grind the head of the cartridge? that sounds like the worst idea of the thread or forum. You can tell 30'06 and .270 apart by just looking at them. the neck is different and the bullet is smaller. Now I still suggest you mark them with a permanent marker or something if that seems hard.. but I don't seem to mix up my different calibre handloads in my pocket in the field, in a stressful enough environment to worry about it.
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You carry different caliber handloads in a pocket at the same time?? That sounds like the worst idea of the thread or forum.

I don't like converting brass to calibers other than what is headstamped just to avoid one possible way to confuse them, even though the conversion discussed here is easy. Brass just doesn't cost enough to make it necessary, and .270 brass is everywhere. I have seen cases "colored" with a marker to signify a different caliber than the head stamp, but I have never done it.

I have fired a .22-250 round in a .243 during a gopher shoot once, so I am concerned about confusing calibers and don't mix up calibers and head stamps.
 
I guess my eyes are no longer as good as they once were I now have a hard time telling the difference of a few thousands of an inch but I never carry both on my person at the same time but I am also paranoid about mixing them up ,and yes brass is not that expensive to buy but when one has a lot of 30.06 then why not use it ,I also go from 308 to 7mm-08 and 270-308 as I have a lot of 308 brass.In my area we don't have shooting range the guys around here use a few different sand pits and I scour them for brass but seldom find 270 brass but a lot of 30:06 .308 and some 300 win,there are not a lot of reloaders in the area that I know of but there are a few and we all do the same at the sand pits. BTW I only remove the numbers and am carefull not to remove much material
 
30-06 brass seems to be everywhere, but good used 270 brass is harder to find. I have necked down the 30-06 to 270 with no problems. The thicker neck has been mentioned, but is a theory and I have never had it bother, though it is likely a bit thicker neck.
It ends up about .1" shorter, but like someone said, you can reload for a long time without trimming.
Regarding mix up, Winchester thought about that back in 1925 when they designed the 270. A 30-06 loaded round will not go into a 270 chamber. A 270 loaded round will go into a 30-06 and fire. But the 270 bullet will not expand to fit the bore, so it developes very little pressure. No harm will be done, except if you hit a moose with it the moose will say, "Damn, those miserable horse flies are still around!"
 
I just neck down the 06 brass and use them as is. Some of my most accurate loads in my 270 have been with 06 Brass.
 
I agree with H4831 there is a difference of more than 30 thousandths between the neck diameters of the 30-06 and 270 so the -06 would not chamber even in a loose 270 chamber.
 
Interesting... I guess I always thought this was possible, but never gave it much more thought. Seeing that I have a pile of 30-06 brass and no 30-06 rifle, I may give this a try.

Most guys I hunt with use 30-06, so I get a pretty steady flow of once fired 30-06 brass.
 
the big issue being a 270/30-06 being formed to work in a 280 rem. had a 740 years back that I bought as a 270. the 7 was actually an 8 that had been gouged. 1 shot was all it took.
 
H4831 said:
30-06 brass seems to be everywhere, but good used 270 brass is harder to find. I have necked down the 30-06 to 270 with no problems. The thicker neck has been mentioned, but is a theory and I have never had it bother, though it is likely a bit thicker neck.
It ends up about .1" shorter, but like someone said, you can reload for a long time without trimming.
Regarding mix up, Winchester thought about that back in 1925 when they designed the 270. A 30-06 loaded round will not go into a 270 chamber. A 270 loaded round will go into a 30-06 and fire. But the 270 bullet will not expand to fit the bore, so it developes very little pressure. No harm will be done, except if you hit a moose with it the moose will say, "Damn, those miserable horse flies are still around!"
Click to expand...

Agreed. One of the possible (not necessarily the best) methods of obtaining 7TCU brass is to fire a 223 in the TCU chamber. As the majority of the case except for a small portion in the shoulder/neck area is supported, no harm is done. I'm not so sure I would advocate any die-grinder modifications though, especially on the case head.
 
H4831 said:
30-06 brass seems to be everywhere, but good used 270 brass is harder to find. I have necked down the 30-06 to 270 with no problems. The thicker neck has been mentioned, but is a theory and I have never had it bother, though it is likely a bit thicker neck.
It ends up about .1" shorter, but like someone said, you can reload for a long time without trimming.
Regarding mix up, Winchester thought about that back in 1925 when they designed the 270. A 30-06 loaded round will not go into a 270 chamber. A 270 loaded round will go into a 30-06 and fire. But the 270 bullet will not expand to fit the bore, so it developes very little pressure. No harm will be done, except if you hit a moose with it the moose will say, "Damn, those miserable horse flies are still around!"
Click to expand...

Had this very thing happen to a friend of mine ( not the moose part) had a box of 3006 factory that we were target shooting with and I noticed a slight difference in the sound of one round and sure enough it was a 270 mixed in with the 3006 shells, he does not reload so it was not an error on his part, they were factory
 
Canuck223 said:
Another potential area of concern is the thickness of the resulting neck. As the case is sized down, the neck tends to become thicker. Your example isn't a huge reduction, so it probably won't be a problem. If it is, there are tools to thin the neck to a uniform thickness.
Click to expand...

When I bought my first .243, a model 100 Savage, less than $100 at Army & Navy in Vancouver, I would take .308 brass, use my el cheepo Herter .243 dies to take the neck down to the correct outside diameter. Then, I used a #ed drill to "ream" the necked area very slightly to more or less correct inside diameter. I still have the drill.

The 100 Savage was the most accurate .243 that I ever owned, even with my .308 > .243 brass. I sold the rifle and bought a used but excellent condition big named mauser patterned rifle which would not come close to my Savage rifle. Those who are using the Savages of today, all grandsons or even great grandsons to my Savage know what I am saying, changing barrels and calibres with the same case head, taking advantage of the great Savage trigger.

There is a moral here. Don't ever sell a good rifle for another, said to be better until you have verified the improvement actually exists.

This is becoming a rant, no apologies but the most accurate .30-06 was a Winchester pattern 1917 that I bought for $65 with the stock only altered for a 'sporter.' I cut the long barrel back to get rid of the front sight, replaced it with a Lyman slide on front sight, by hack saw and file, took the rear sight ears off as well as the ladder peep, filed the rear of the action to the more or less top contour of the Remington Model 30, drilled and tapped for a Lyman 57 peep, filled in the egg shaped hole, had a friend cut and weld the trigger guard flat, no hump, cut back the magazine, buffed the barrel & action and hot blued several times with my own mix of bluing salts (SOF is an old pharmacist/chemist), brought in a very nice Bishop blank, completely finished it but still a heavy sporter that outshot any other .30 calibre that I ever owned. I replaced it with a M77 Ruger, big mistake. Scoped, finally the WW1 Winnie would out shoot the Ruger, and I like Rugers.

What is the point of all this? Newer is not necessarilly better. I have made many mistakes in this life. As far as firearms are concerned, in retrospect, I almost always made a mistake in selling too soon.

Learn from the mistakes of the old guys, don't repeat them.

:cheers: is deserved if you got down this far.
 
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