Forming 270 from 280

trapoholic

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Likely very straight forward and a stupid question. I sold my 280 a while back and got a bunch of brass hanging around just wondering if it is as easy as the rest of the 30-06 family to resize?
 
It's not difficult to do, just make sure you anneal the neck and shoulder areas before trying to swage the 280 cases down to fit the 270 chamber, which is .050 shorter.

If your cases are nickel coated, I would put an ad in the EE to trade them for 270 cases.

280 Rem cases can be hard to find on occaision, but 270 Win brass seems to be in good supply, so you shouldn't have any difficulty making a trade for already formed cases with proper head stamps.
 
It's not difficult to do, just make sure you anneal the neck and shoulder areas before trying to swage the 280 cases down to fit the 270 chamber, which is .050 shorter.

If your cases are nickel coated, I would put an ad in the EE to trade them for 270 cases.

280 Rem cases can be hard to find on occaision, but 270 Win brass seems to be in good supply, so you shouldn't have any difficulty making a trade for already formed cases with proper head stamps.

They are nickle plated and to be honest with you I don't feel like doing the whole trade thing unless it's local cause I don't trust people enough that way. I mean if you ship first and I recieve it for sure I'll send it off to you same day but I doubt anybody will wanna do that. I'm also not real horny about shipping prices these days holy moley.
 
The nickle brass should handle it, it's a small bump and size down in the neck....284 to 277.
Try 5 or 10 and see how it goes before processing the whole batch.
I use 280Rem brass for my 7x64, it's just a run through the FL die, only brass where the shoulder is just far enough ahead that I don't have to do the false shoulder expansion.
 
OP - as mentioned above - what you propose is a pretty minor alteration - like 30 years ago I was given a shoebox mostly full of IVI 7.62 NATO brass - it required a snipe on the handle of my RCBS JR press, but I reformed some of them in one pass into 243 Win. I think I did 50 cases, and do not recall losing any - but that was like "work" - making the neck go from .306" ID to .241" ID, or so - you would be trying to re-size much less than that. If I was to try that again today, I would probably anneal the cases and try for an intermediate step - like to 7mm-08 or 260 Rem, first - but I did not do either step back then. For many years, that was my only 243 Win brass - I must have reloaded and fired it perhaps 5 or 6 times. I used just ordinary RCBS-2 case lube on the case walls for the reforming - which should not have changed shape, much, at all. As mentioned above - just try a few and see what you get. It might help to lube the outside case neck walls, if you don't do that normally (which I don't).

As mentioned - your re-formed cases will likely be too long in the neck - so you will likely need to trim them to length and chamfer, before using them. You might also find that the case shoulder gets pushed back - perhaps 0.050" - so excess lube on case walls will likely "dimple" the shoulders as you resize them - I would expect a bit more "grunt" needed to press those shoulders back, compared to simply reducing the neck diameter. Then likely will have to fuss a bit to determine if your rifle's chamber will accept those re-formed brass with a .277" bullet seated inside the case mouth - perhaps goes to neck wall thickness, which likely varies one brand of brass to another.
 
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Iirc the shoulder on 280 is slightly further forward than 270? Would that require any special consideration or should it go through the die and resize without much issue other than maybe a bit more force?
 
Iirc the shoulder on 280 is slightly further forward than 270? Would that require any special consideration or should it go through the die and resize without much issue other than maybe a bit more force?

That might be a concern - as part of the former parent case shoulder will now be part of the new neck - so it might be thicker brass - or not - sort of have to try some, to see. Is at least several ways to ream ID or peel OD off necks that are too thick for bullet seated, then fit or not into a chamber - almost have to try to know - I can not measure consistently or repeatably enough to know for sure, without actually trying for fit.
 
Sizing the neck down won't cause any issues whatsoever.

Bumping that shoulder back .050 is where you're going to find some issues if your brass is to hard or to soft.

I've had issues with such things with nickle plated cases before, that's why I mentioned nickle plated brass.
 
I am not particularly fond of nickle plated bottlneck rifle cases. As BH notes, resizing the 280 cases
to 270 requires pushing the shoulder back a bit, an operation that can create difficulties. If the plating
starts to flake off or peel, there is a risk of scratching your FL die. You should anneal before you
attempt to resize these. Dave.
 
Just be aware that your resized 280 head stamp 270 rounds will chamber into a 280 rifle. Some one who doesn’t know what you’ve done may try using them in a 280 rifle but they probably won’t fire due to the shoulders being so far ahead that the firing pin may not detonate the primer.
 
Just be aware that your resized 280 head stamp 270 rounds will chamber into a 280 rifle. Some one who doesn’t know what you’ve done may try using them in a 280 rifle but they probably won’t fire due to the shoulders being so far ahead that the firing pin may not detonate the primer.

Luckily that shouldn't make for an unsafe situation, just real bad accuracy lol
 
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