Forming 243Win from 308Win Brass

Ganderite

Ganderite

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I sold my 243 and have not made brass in that caliber for 30 years.

The son of a friend has a 243 and I have volunteered to help him to shoot better. He will be shooting the ORA sporting rifle shoots this summer with me. 100, 200 and 300 yards. 4 dates on the schedule, needing 130 rounds per date.

I have lots on once fired 308 brass, so will make the brass from that. I seem to recall I used to just run the 308 brass into a 243 die and out popped a good 243.

I now also own a 7-08 die, so I could do the forming in two steps. Anyone think that would be a good idea? Or is the one shot sizing good enough.

Will the resulting case be long? Or short? I did not make notes when I did it last time.
 
Anneal, lube well and use a FL die. Check neck thickness, that much necking down can thicken the neck so much that a loaded round won't have clearance in the chamber.
Buddy of mine made 243 out of Lapua 308, would lose 1-2 out of 50. I don't recall anything about case length after sizing.
 
30 (?) years ago I managed to run about 100 x IVI 7.62 NATO through a 243 Win FL die - don't recall loosing any - if I did it wasn't many. I do believe an intermediate step with a .260 or 7mm-08 would help if the "one step" was getting too great losses. I still do not own a neck turning tool - trimmed to length and reloaded those brass at least twice with 85 grain Speer Boat Tail and and fired them in a Remington 788 - new bullets will just so slide into those fired cases so the neck of that chamber was just so to match those brass neck walls. I believe most are still sitting in the bin for when I run out of the more recent "store bought" ones.
 
No need to use an intermediate step. I haven't shot my .243 in many years either but when I did, I converted hundreds of 308 Winchester cases to .243. A single pass through the .243 die was all it took. I don't recall having any failures either in reforming. It may be a good idea to anneal after reforming.
 
I would do two step Ganderite....... just because you can.... would likely put less stress on the neck and shoulder....

In theory, I imagine the cases will be short based on the shoulder taper....

Must admit I feel odd as a novice giving you reloading advice...... lol
 
I made 50 .243 cases from Lake City 7.62 cases, I wasn't happy about the thick necks and uneven neck wall thickness. I ended up turning the necks but have not fired any of the converted cases.

I went straight from 7.62 to .243 "BUT" this was machine gun brass so it was sized with a standard RCBS .243 die and again with a small base die.

If your using military brass fired in a machine gun a carbide .45 acp die can be used first followed by a standard .243 die.
 
Did a bunch of Norma 308 to 243.... Couldn't find any decent 243 brass at the time. Cases come out quite short, neck thickness was fine for my Weatherby. Single pass through the 243 die, held at top of press for a 5 count.
I will have a bunch of PRVI 7-08 brass to reform soon as I dump my Axis which I just don't like at all. Not sure if I'll go 243 or 308 with it yet...
 
I did up about 150 last winter. Mixed brand, once fired. Lee lube and dies. They first few I tried chambering were about 7 or 8/1000 too long, but the die was bottomed out on the shell holder.

I ground about 10/1000s off the top surface,ran them through the die and every one chambered after that.

Primer powder and bullet, good to go...
 
Done hundreds Ganderite, both military and commercial and my Rems never needed the necks turned.......case comes out about .030"-.040" short of trim length, so I just match them all up to the shortest and square the mouths. I have been using some of the IVI and DA and LC since I was 17 years old and I'm still using it. I used it to shoot out 2 different 243s and it's still ticking after likely 15-20 and maybe 30 loads.
 
Ganderite said:
I sold my 243 and have not made brass in that caliber for 30 years.

The son of a friend has a 243 and I have volunteered to help him to shoot better. He will be shooting the ORA sporting rifle shoots this summer with me. 100, 200 and 300 yards. 4 dates on the schedule, needing 130 rounds per date.

I have lots on once fired 308 brass, so will make the brass from that. I seem to recall I used to just run the 308 brass into a 243 die and out popped a good 243.

I now also own a 7-08 die, so I could do the forming in two steps. Anyone think that would be a good idea? Or is the one shot sizing good enough.

Will the resulting case be long? Or short? I did not make notes when I did it last time.
Click to expand...

Did a bunch for my Rem 783 project rifle. Started with 1F 308 Win which has pretty thin necks but I turned down to 10 thou before starting.... Easy as there was little force needed and no donuts. I ran the necks first through a 7BR die cause I had it.... then through a 243 Win FL sizing die set to bump the shoulder for my chamber.

I COW formed, turned again and have enjoyed some very nice shooting brass.

If using thicker 308 brass, all sorts of fun can be had when squishing down. I prefer to avoid but first making everything thinner so as it builds up, it isn't going to cause any issues.

YMMV...

Jerry
 
I have a 260 Rem neck die. I might run the 308 through that, first. I will load a couple dummies with a 6mm bullet and measure the neck OD, before going too far. I am pretty sure they will fit a Remington chamber.
 
I tried going straight from .308 down to .243 and the 1st 2 Lapua cases I tried buckled the shoulder. Then I went in stages, .308 to .284...then to 6.5mm...then to .243 with success.
A neck cleanup and fireforming, ready to go.
 
Have gone from 8x57 to 6.5x58 Portuguese. After trial and many errors found brass I was using was very hard and had to be annealed.
Best results were by stages, neck with 308 FL down to where I needed the new shoulder, then 7x57 to new shoulder and finally 6.5x58 Portuguese all the way.
The 57mm length cases ended up stretching to 58mm.
 
I tried sizing a couple from 308 to 243 in one step using an RCBS FL die. It worked okay, effort was fairly high and the resulting 243 case was short. I'd suggest using the 7-08 as an intermediate step. I'd also suggest he buy a few bags of 243 brass to get started. Doing a few is one thing, doing a lot of them is something else IMO.
 
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