.303 brass price

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supa

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I was cleaning out my storage and I found 300 pieces of Winchester 303 brass I intended to reload when I started reloading, a decade ago lol. Once fired

Sorry if this doesn't belong here, but I have no clue what they are worth or if I just bin them

Thanks
 
Is a thing about 303 British, and perhaps similar rimmed cases - some of the military 303 British rifles had really excessive sized chambers - so brass can really go silly wonky - a stretch on inside of brass, just forward of the solid case head - so different than most other cases that headspace on the case shoulder - makes previously fired 303 British case very "suspicious" to me, especially if the seller does not know if the cases are "stretched" upon that first firing - even if that was a factory shell, once fired. So, your cases would have minimal value to me for reloading. Others may think differently. You did ask ...
 
Potashminer said:
Is a thing about 303 British, and perhaps similar rimmed cases - some of the military 303 British rifles had really excessive sized chambers - so brass can really go silly wonky - a stretch on inside of brass, just forward of the solid case head - so different than most other cases that headspace on the case shoulder - makes previously fired 303 British case very "suspicious" to me, especially if the seller does not know if the cases are "stretched" upon that first firing - even if that was a factory shell, once fired. So, your cases would have minimal value to me for reloading. Others may think differently. You did ask ...
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I wouldn't pay anything for once fired 303 brass, for the reasons you noted.
 
Brassman66 said:
Yes .303 British Casings can be a one shot thing all depends how much Headspace the particular Rifle has. Just check all cases with a Wire Hook which will tell you instantly if that Case is still usable or not. As for Price good .303 casings come rarely cheap.

Cheers
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"Headspace" on a 303 British is the space for the rim to fit - has minimal to do with the incipient case head separation issue. The head space can check "perfect" - whatever you take that to mean - and the case may still stretch excessively for reloading, on the very first firing. About the only way that I know of to avoid that, is on the very first firing - to ensure that the cartridge face is kept tightly against the bolt face - essentially 0.000" "extra space" for the rim - that will blow the case body and shoulder forward to fill that chamber - in effect, firing it like that transfers the "head-spacing" from the rim to the shoulder in that rifle - that fired case may not fit into a next rifle's chamber, though. Military during war time were likely even more lax, but current SAAMI drawings call out .064" to .071" as the acceptable "space" for the rim, and then call out the case rim as being between .054" - .064" So even a minimum "head-spaced" rifle at .064", with a minimum SAAMI acceptable case rim of .054", still leaves .010" "extra" head-space. I am not aware of any head space gauges for 303 British that measure the chamber body diameter or bolt-face-to-the-shoulder - all that I have seen and used just measure for the space for the case rim. Is like for many belted magnum cases - headspace gauges measure the depth from bolt face to recess for the belt - have nothing to do with the case body dimensions.
 
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the field gauge is .074" so add a little more stretch to the cases.

one of the things to watch for is how centered the primer strike is and how bent the case looks, with the oversized chambers the case will sit on the bottom of the chamber and be stretched more on one side then the other.
 
A SAAMI compliant Field gauge will be .071". That .074" might be example of war time military?? Is odd - 303 British was being made at least 30 years (?) before SAAMI existed - is like the British military knew what they were going to gauge to, regardless what SAAMI might have had to say? Recall that British military not concerned with reloading - at all - they were concerned that a round could be fired once and the fired case extracted in more or less one piece - then on to the next "new" one.
 
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C'mon guys. Be nice to the OP

OP, there seems to be a flood of 303Brit brass on the market right now. I guess a lot of folks now believe their now, very expensive Lee Enfields are to valuable to shoot???

Not only that but most people who own 303Brit chambered rifles don't handload. I've collected several thousand, just from the scrap brass buckets at our range over the last three years. Most once fired.

If you're careful to keep you casings separated for each rifle it's going to be used in and fireform it properly, with a rubber band "O" ring between the rim and the chamber face, there isn't any reason that the cases shouldn't last as long as any other case, such as the 30-30 Win, etc.

I've got cases for one of my 303Brit rifles that have a dozen reloads on them.

The thing is, they've never been fired in any other rifle, they've only been neck sized and had the shoulder set back a few thou after every four loadings. I have an extra sizing die that is set up to bump back the shoulder .003in, which makes it much easier to keep under control.

I shoot one No4 and two Martini Enfields. One of the Martini rifles has Enfield rifling and the other has Metford riling. Thankfully the chambers are almost identical.

OP, when gun shows were still a thing we could count on, I put 100 count bags of cleaned, polished, once fired cases of mixed manufacturers on my table for $12. Couldn't get one person to offer the $10 I would have taken for them.

Now that 303 Brit has pretty much dried up??????? That will change.
 
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This is way too much for a simple question. I went to the store, bought boxes of rounds, fired them and forgot about them. All I was asking is if they were trash or not, simply because I know some people like to reload

Either way, I tossed them days ago so this thread is pointless now
 
supa said:
This is way too much for a simple question. I went to the store, bought boxes of rounds, fired them and forgot about them. All I was asking is if they were trash or not, simply because I know some people like to reload

Either way, I tossed them days ago so this thread is pointless now
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Don't blame you not one person except one really came close to answering your question .
 
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