308 neck down to 243, How?

tigrr

tigrr

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Hi
I have 400 - 308 cases and 500 - 7.62 and I was told that 243 is a 308 necked down.
What steps are taken to neck down a 308 to make it fit a 243. Can it be necked down in one stroke or does it take several strokes to shrink the neck. I was thinking neck it down to 7mm-08 then to 243. Anyone tried this? Anyone heard of this? Is it worthwhile doing this?

I've done it with 30-06 down to 270! works Ok, in a pinch. Good enough for gopher hunting.
 
I have a RCBS .308 to .243 from die set which I picked up years ago.* It uses a reamer at the .25 stage to thin the neck.* While it is certainly possible to reform .303/7.62 to .243, given that .243 brass is readily available I do not think that it is all that worthwhile. Perhaps it would be simpler to just sell your .30 brass, and buy .243.
 
The problem with necking down your .308 to 243 (as I found out when asking about necking .308 to .260) is that you will have a bunch of brass that will need to be reamed out of the neck.

243 brass is easy enough to come by that you should just go buy a few hundred cases.

If you are going to try and neck 308 to 243 then I would think it would have to be done in 3 or 4 steps. .308 --> 7mm --> 6.5mm --> 6mm with inside neck reaming and possibly outside neck turning thrown in there somewhere.
 
Have taken hundreds of once fired .308 cases down via 7mm08 sizeing die and then into a 243 sizeing die... because like you I had hundreds of them and that's reason enough to do it.

Have hundreds of 243..7mm08..308..358 loaded ammo all wearing different caliber head stamps and place them in ammo boxes/mtm plastic containers indicating what caliber and load etc they are...so its not an issue for some to read the label before you take the appropriate box of ammo to go with the corresponding caliber of rifle.
 
I make 22/308 cases. I have only used DA60 brass. I remove the expander from my 308,7mm08,243,dies.I lube the cases with STP. I size the cases 308,7mm08,243,then I neck ream. Then I size cases 22/308 with the expander in place, and out side turn the necks.
 
Conclusion
Looks like I will be buying a 308 target rifle so I will be using the brass for practice loads. Looking at a Savage 12F/TR in 308.
I also bought 200 factory 243 so I have brass for the 243 now.
 
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