"This all started out with picking up a $15 set of dies at a gun show and it snowballed from there. " Very relatable, Steve! Sounds like most of my gun projects.
This is why I love Brownells; you guys seem honest about getting good information out there, even if it means telling us to go buy from a store that isn't yours if it means we'll find what we need. As a consumer and hobbyist, this is such a breath of fresh air in today's world. Thank you! Keep doing what you're doing!
Yes and odds are they end up selling the product too. they know good and well that if the industry is robust and people are doing a lot of DIY stuff on their guns they're going to want gunsmithing tools and brownelks is the place to get that.
@@xxxm981 easier said than done, sometimes the ability to make something is overshadowed by just spending a few dollars. Tried making a .22 lr ar bolt, spent probably 30 hours on it, should have just bought one. I could make reamers I can buy, but it's so much faster and easier to just buy it and not increase the risk of scrapping an expensive part with a cheap tool. Jmho, ymmv.
@Doom Maybe, but I find it odd that Starline went and did .32 French, but they don't make any .30-40 Krag brass. Like, which is more likely to sell? Obviously .30-40
Steve... is like the dad I wished I had. A little stoic at times which I am as well, succinct, consistent, methodical, and calibrated - obviously a master gunsmith, but seems like a no nonsense, save me the fluff, kind of guy. Tip of the hat to you, sir.
I been doing that for years I turn 3006 into all kinds of stuff even 8 mm Mauser and 45-60 out of 45-70 brass. My dad showed me how back in the early 60's when he had a British Bull Dog and a few other obsoleted cartridges like the Webley 455
John Q. Public Starline, never cheap, and never inexpensive. But quality costs money, and you’re never likely to need more then a few hundred pieces of brass for your antique gun so $300 should sort you out no matter what.
I get goosebumps thinking about delving deeper into hand loading! I only just started reloading 12ga shot shells. I'd love to start reloading .380 Auto, .40S&W, 5.56x45mm NATO, and .30-06 Springfield. I'm saving up for a Dillon 550c progressive reloading press. I really only have room for one press as I live in an apartment, so I figure I should get a press that can do just about anything with the right dies, and churn out rounds at a very high rate, as I want to shoot A LOT (and can, because the range I go to has a range for everything, even 1KYD shooting, and is only $50/year to use the range). I figured 12ga is the cheapest and most forgiving to learn hand loading due to how common and low pressure 12ga is. It's been amazing, and I almost have my 1 oz of 7 1/2 shot target loads tweaked to where I want. I think it may still have a couple grains too much powder, as even with a full choke, my pattern is shooting about a foot or two high (maybe about 2 front sight beads above the bead) when shooting clays, and the pattern is about 4 feet wide at 50 yards on the patterning board. My guess is the velocity is too high, and the lead shot is deforming into disks during acceleration, causing them to spread out faster. The velocity being too high I think would also be why the trajectory is effectively causing the beads to be "zeroed" too low. I'm using a 12ga Mossberg 500 FLEX with the 28" hunting barrel configuration. Works just fine when using factory Winchester Universal 1 1/8th oz. 7 1/2 shot shells, which is rated 1,600 fps. I want to get very familiar with hand loading so I can buy antique and obscure firearms without worrying about ammo availability. I even want to get into making my own black powder (charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur, if I recall). I'm very into bushcraft, and a long term goal is to make a functional firearm entirely from nature. Smelt my own iron ore I find, forge my own barrel and parts, carve my own stock (a nice one, none of that amateur crap), find my own flint, and make my own powder. Ultimate self-reliance. Why? Because it's a challenge, and how cool would it be to have your own one of a kind flintlock you ACTUALLY made from scratch? I've even been learning how to do engravings and inlays, so when I make that flintlock, it's gonna look stunning and of professional quality.
I reload lots of old cartiridges. Before jumping to a big progressive i'd suggest getting an o-framr single stage. Progressive is great for volume but its very hard to trouble shoot when learning. A singles give you the ability to focus on one thing at a time and dial in exactly what you're doing. I do large bulk batches witb my single (9mm, 223 and m1 safe 30-06) as well as old stuff ( 38 smith, 43 mauser, 41 swiss and 8mm french ordnance). When reforming messing around to make obscure cases you really want to focus on one thing at a time, Its makes it harder to screw things up.
@@sheslikeheroin1661 exactly, I have rock chucker, Hollywood and an a 550, I normally use the 550 for small handgun, like the 45 acp and the rock chucker for most things, the Hollywood is set up right now with a antique black powder/shot thrower. Keeping it simple and methodical is the key, especially for a new reloader or for someone doing wildcatting or case forming for obsolete cartridges. I have done both, and sometimes it's the little things that trip you up, and you don't want to spend you day pulling bullets.
Thank you to both you two fellows and Brownells for this video! Also interesting to see how close the firearms community among presenters and retailers is.
You guys helped me back in the 80s when I worked at the Grant Boys gun store in Southern California. I have a model 94, 1912 Winchester in 32 Winchester. You informed me I can form 3030 brass to 32 Winchester by running it through 32 dies with normal procedure. And it worked perfectly. Its a 24 inch octagon Barrelled Beauty.
Another popular modern conversion is 223/556 to 300 BLK. I make most of my own 300BLK brass the hard way because ammo with good Lake City brass is so damn expensive. Back before it’s resurgence, and before Hornady started making reasonably-priced high-quality ammo, folks were converting 7.62x39 brass to 6.5 Grendel was also popular. Now I just buy factory Hornady 6.5G brass or ammo, and then reload it. I convert .270 Win brass for my .25-06 AI, and .300 Wby for my .300 Ackley.
@@svtirefire ; 5.56mm NATO has thicker walls than .223 though and is designed for higher pressures, so it often isn't recommended to shot 556 in 223 guns.
@@FirstDagger Yes the brass is thicker. No the pressure isn't actually higher. It's measured using different tools at different points. However peak pressure 223 and peak pressure 556 are basically the same thing. I believe ultimate reloader did a very detailed breakdown on this at one point.
I never have & probably never will ever need to use the services of Brownells , Not! because I have anything against them or any particular favourite I use , simply because I live in the UK and us air weapons . Why am I here watching this then ? , I watch several different YT firearms & related channels (all interesting to Me ) Forgotten Weapons , C&Rsenal , TFM , IRV 8888 , Paul Harrell , Hickok45 , to name a few . Anyone who Helps these good people and those like them will Get a big THANK YOU ! from Me , also I found this video really interesting concise & clear with People who clearly know what their talking about . Well Done Brownells ! particularly Steve & Keith , keep up the good work . Stay Safe Stay Well & Keep on Shooting.
Difficult at first but I grew quite savvy at making ammo for the .41 AVENGER many years ago. Made from .45 ACP brass cases using Spec. Ordered RCBS dies. Loaded with Win. Sup. Targ. AA & even 231. Projectiles we're by Nosler & Sierra & Speer for the .41 Rem. Mag. The barrel & gun & reloading dies are gone now but the experience was paramount to this day in navigating any of the other necked & or semi-bottle necked pistol cartridges from yesteryear & modern cartridges of today such as .357 SIG. Thanks for the interesting vlog. A great look back to yesterday.
I take brass; 223 Rem or 5.56 and neck it down to form '20 Practical' brass. The cartridge is accurate, fast, easy to make. [a wildcat, not an obsolete cartridge].
30-06(762x63) to 8mm(7.92×57 Mauser) or to 7.7x58 Japanese I would not DO. The case heads are smaller on 30-06, than on the Mauser or Japanese. I know that was common in the old days. Back when I first got serious into reading (41 years ago). Just because it has been done before, Does not make it a good ideal. I am very, very sure there is a better way.
I bought a Tokarev pistol in 7.62x25 ages ago, and couldn't source any brass or ammo that was suitable. Got busy and made a large batches of brass from .357 magnum Federal cases. The good news was I had a job with a small machine-shop; lathe, mill, the works. I used epoxy putty to make a chamber-casting, then measured to make a reamer for cutting the case forming and sizing dies. The forming and sizing dies had a slightly different profiles. Made all the other tools, even made a collet-crimp die for securing bullets in the case. Also made up various lathe tooling and fixtures for the loading process. The hardest part of converting the brass was cutting down the rim and making the extractor-groove. Six steps on the lathe for each cartridge...tedious doesn't cover it. The case was held on the lath by a tiny screw through the flash hole. The screws broke all the time! Except for losing cases, I got lots of use out of the first batch...averaged 5 reloads per case before the necks would crack. Annealing didn't help. Collet crimp was too tight. Second batch worked much better, got 6-10 reloads before cases split. Second batch was around 280 cases, so I got lots of shooting in! I never got tired of people's reaction to picking up bottle-necked pistol brass only to see a Federal .357 head-stamp! I tried modifying 5.56 rifle brass, but that was more work than I wanted to try. Great little gun, very flat shooting, loud as hell! Once commercial ammo was available I quit making new cases, kept on reloading empties!
I've made 41 mag brass out of 30-30 brass. I've made 7.62 x 25 brass out of 38 Spl. brass. For the 7.62 x 25 cases I had to use my lathe to change the case from rim to rimless. This was pretty easy. Just had to machine a plug for the inside neck of the 38 brass to support it in the lathe chuck while machining them from rim to rimless. Also, because the case wall of the 30-30 brass was thicker at the base, had to ream the case necks inside, and had to work up special loads for these thick cases. Had a lot of 30-30 brass that I picked up, with no rifle to use them in. One day, I decided to just do it. It was a fun project for my Ruger Redhawk 41 mag. Also done 45 ACP to 400 Corbon, and several others. The 400 Corbon was easy, but dependent on the brass used. I found the best brass was military or Federal. Thicker necks. Don't try it if you don't know what you are doing. I've been reloading and building rifles for more than 40 years.
It was pretty cool seeing that .38/45 case. First cases I ever formed as well. I still have a .38/45 barrel, bushing and recoil spring for an old 1911 I had back in the 1980's, along with the form dies. I still put it in one of my 1911's once in a while and send a few rounds downrange. Fun to shoot, but my .38 Super handily outperforms it. Thanks for the video, guys.
I recently had a damaged 30-30 Marlin 336 re-bored and chambered to 35-30, which is a 30-30 necked up to .357 diameter. I guessed right and bought a .358/.356 Win. neck sizing die and it worked perfectly expanding the 30-03 brass and shaping the small shoulder. I just had to do a few trial and error cases to get the right depth for the die using a fire formed casing as a guide. I got an inexpensive Lee bullet seating and a factory crimp die of the same sizes to use to finish the job. It beat buying the very expensive custom 35-30 dies.
Helped a buddy once make up some 6.5 Talbot, and unobtainium silhouette round for an XP100 he came into in a trade. Fun project and did take a few different dies to form it from .223 brass with fireforming. Pretty sure the 6.5 TCU dies i used for the project came from ya'll. Thanks for doing what ya do!
It is what I do. Started with a 32-40 before it was (somewhat) back in production. Cadet Martini. 256 Win Mag for a contender barrel - Used a set of Redding forming dies; it was a must to anneal the 357 cases. This is the stuff that floats my boat. 250/3000 is getting hard to find but the 300 Savage is the mother case for many rounds. It gets a bit cranky necking down to 250...
Really cool. I'm waiting on my Non-Restricted Firearms licence up here in Canada. Hoping to get my Restricted sometime this year. This is the kind of interesting information that really gets me interested in obscure older firearms.
38-45 Clark. Hmm the more things change the more things stay the same! 400 corbon = 45 necked down to 40/10 356 sig = 40 necked down to 9mm. Amazing the combinations of things you can make just with some brass and some steel dies
A few years ago when I actually had time to sit at my bench, I loaded some .38-200 rounds for a friend to shoot thru an old WW2 era Enfield revolver, I don’t remember if it was a Mark 2 or Mark 4 but I did have a blast casting those 200 gr bullets and working up a load that wouldn’t be too hard on the old pistol. GOOD TIMES !
Nice video, gents! I have a bad habit of buying guns with obscure calibers. Since Jameson went under, I've been forming .45-75 Winchester brass from .50-90 Sharps. It involves annealing, cutting down the length, reducing the rim, cutting an extractor groove, thinning the rim, resizing to put in the shoulder, final sizing and final trimming (with more annealing in there). I'm slow, so it takes me about 30-45 minutes each, but at least I can shoot my gun!
My most labor intensive one is 9x56ms from 30-06, as well as anealing, shorting, turning the neck, and forming, I also have to swage the head smaller and of course fire forming. But it is awesome to hunt with.
I made 45 RAPTOR brass from used casings fired from my 30-06. I had to thin the case neck a few thousandths where the bullet seats but that's about it after fire-forming in the gun.
Been using 50AE to make 440 Corbon brass for my AR. Gonna make a hybrid soon.... gonna use 502 Thunder Sabre (essentially a 50AE with a 7.62x39 rim) to use in my 440 Corbon AR. The bolt/extractors are rare in original modified form for the 50AE rim... 7.62x39 bolts are common...
Concerning the 96 Mauser and .223 Brass. I Received Two That through poor cleaning over Years(China Imports 30 Years Ago),had corrosion in the Chamber Shoulder. After a Good cleaning Factory Ammo Was Too Short. Cast Bullets and a Homemade Die Made them Usable Again. Know How To Tell If The Person Behind The Counter At A Gun Store Knows Anything? Hand Them A "Modified" Case And Ask"Got Any Of Those"? It Is No Longer A Surprise How Many Look At the Base,Then Don't Understand Why It's Not What's In The Box They Pull Out! Nonte's Book is Excellent,Sometimes A Little Difficult To Find. The Handloader's Manual of Cartridge Conversions Provides Lots Of Dimensions To Help Determine What Cases Might Work Best. There Are A Few Easily Spotted Mistakes In The First Edition,Just Be Smart Enough To Pay Attention. Starline ROCKS!
I really think .30 Luger should see a rebirth. Bullet tech has come a LONG way since the turn of the 20th century, and it could give 5.7x28mm a run for it's money.
@Doom Not necessary. The conversion would only require a new barrel and maybe a different recoil spring. Take your pick of modern 9mm Luger and it can be converted to .30 Luger.
@Adam Halsey That would be fine and good, though you'll need to use larger pistol frames or a new design entirely. I do like roller locked designs such as the CZ-52.
I purchased a 6mm x 284 rifle, and it came with a pile of brand new winchester 284, so I had to size the neck down a millimeter, which seemed easy enough until I tried just running it through a 6mm die and crushed 4 of them. Tried lube and heat to no avail. I began looking through my die sets and grabbed my neck sizing die for my 6.5 creedmoor, which with some careful work on the press did some progress but still to big. I then grabbed the 6.5 crimp die and inserted the case upside-down through the top while working the handle to shrink it a little more to the right size, to which I could finally run it through the 6mm die and bamb finished.
I made 45 ACP shot shells with 308 brass. Crimped in over shot card was cardboard punched out with a cutdown 308 brass with the primer pocket drilled for a dowel rod to extract the cards. Over powder was is a 410 card. Dies are available from RCBS, PN 56552. The original issue GI survival shot shells were standard 45ACP brass with a paper cone to hold the shot. Moisture was a problem and not much of that has survived!
I got a 25-06 rifle and had a ton of 30-06 brass and that’s really easy to reform with a 25-06 trim die. 25-06 is readily available but not that cheap and since lots of people have quite a bit of 30-06 brass it makes reloading much cheaper.
A few weeks back I traded for a rifle that has Brogne 6x61 stamped in barrel. Has Mauser Brno vz24 action. Barrel is 29 inches long 1 1/4 in diam at receiver .867 diam at muzzle. Has Unertl BV 20 scope. Made a chamber casting looks like brass can be made from 264 Winchester . I am not out to burn up the barrel. Thought it would be fun to play with. Chamber and bore in excellent condition.
I got an 8 mm Nabu, I was using 32 Rem, very easy to size, ream the neck cut it down but they stop making them. So I looked at 30-30 and they work but you had to do some lathe work turn the rim off, shorten the base, and make a tool to cut the ejection grove in. Found a company that made bullets the Green Bay Bullets I don't know if they are still in business. I did find some bullet mold that would work. I did found a box of bullets, but the cost was the same as the forming dies $300.00. It shot good with the 32 Rems, and the 30-30. Not sure what the total cost comes too. But it was fun!
Thanks, really enjoying the videos, I am a huge fan of making my own projectiles and brass for obsolete calibres. But in the past 10 years haven't done anything but produce ammo for the range and competition. But now I am older and no longer work I am back into it. So keep them coming, cheers from Australia.
before Starline made our life simpler , I remember making .50 Remington Army M71 for the rolling block pistol, I used brazilian CBC brass shotshells (32ga.) , also used the same brass to make 56-50 Spencer and 50-110 winchester.
Some years ago, I obtained a 14" T/C Contender barrel in .219 Zipper and a set of reloading dies shortly thereafter. After an unsuccessful attempt at using .30-30 brass, I located a supply of Winchester .25-35 brass. No inside neck reaming was necessary, just a minor trim to proper length, then load and fire.
French 8 mm Daudeteau its an obsolete Cartridge curiously used in a lot of Military Converted Mausers here in Uruguay. Ian from Forgotten Weapons did a video abut them.
I run .270 up into my 6.5x30.06 dies, as there is some slight variation in my 6.5 x 30.06 chamber which was made before they were (sort of) standardized by 6.5 x 30.06 A Square.
I say thank God for the awesome folks at Starline Brass! I was really happy when they began offering .44 AutoMag and 7.92X33 brass. Both are very tedious to make from .308 cases.
Kevin S for sure .44 auto mag is possibly the most pain in the butt stuff to produce. That gun is long gone and thank goodness. Unfortunately now you can order the brass without all the torture.
@@john-paulsilke893 I have a .44 AutoMag pistol, made by Pasadena Arms back in 1975. The rifle I have in 7.92X33 is a Mauser VG-5 semi-auto made in late 1944. Both guns are great shooters, and draw much attention at any shooting range.
Kevin S color me jealous sir. Not of the expense or the extraction/cycling issues of that AutoMag. But definitely jealous for sure. I had a second gen AutoMag and we had a Hell of a time making it go more then 3 in a row. But man that gun was so fine. Clearly it was ammo, because it was capital F-I-N-E and amazing. We just couldn’t shoot it. ☹️
@@john-paulsilke893 I have the feeling you pistol had bad mag springs. I had the same problem with mine, so I replaced the mag springs with new ones meant for the Desert Eagle .44 mag, And have had no trouble since. I think the original springs had too much tension, because the mags were very difficult to load. Yours may have also had gas port issues.
.45 to .400 Cor-Bon. Have an AMT in .400 and also have a conversion barrel for my 1911. Hot little round! Need to check out who might have some decent dies for this round.
Thanks for the help gunna fire my 45ACP brass turned into 50BMG since they are so close, I got it to be the same size but just thinner! Wish me luck guys!
Thinking of getting a Krag in the future as I have this newfound interest in rifles with a rim to headspace off of. How is that process turning .303 into .30-40? Just resizing the case or is there any trimming involved?
Dick Tickles Just resizing through a Krag die and fireforming with a start load. I might get 1/100 where the brass splits when fireformed and the necks end up a little short, but when you can’t get Krag brass it’s definitely worth doing.
5.45x18mm Soviet is a royal headache. Primarily because there is no real appropriate case in the US to start from. 5.7x28 is what I start with, cut the case down to just below the shoulder. Then press it onto a custom turned mandrel, chuck it up in the lathe and turn the whole outside of the case NOT to the finished profile (except for the head) but rather what will give the correct finished body wall thickness and correct internal taper to balance strength, elasticity, and internal capacity. Then you aneal and size in a custom die that forms a straight wall profile that gives a correct body profile without shoulder and neck formed and while the case is in that custom die fully seated you run a custom reamer that is back piloted in a precision straight bore down into the top of the die with depth stop. The die and reamer being a matched pair. That reamer ensuring the final correct outside-vs.-inside dimensions and correct wall thicknesses for the body of the case. Then you use a second die to form the shoulder and neck. Do a final neck turning and trim to length. Then to load it you need correctly sized projectiles which is a whole different project.
@@DickTickles I have tried both just cutting from the outside with the lathe only, skipping the reamer on inside step. And, also, just reprofiling the case head only on the outside in the lathe and skipping doing any profiling on the body walls and then using only the reamer on the inside after pressing into the first stage die to get the case wall thickness and profile inside and out correct. The results either way don't work out near as well. Can't really simplify the process any further then I have limited it down to presently. I do have custom jigs all made up including trace cut profiles for manual lathe for the outside cut for several different brands of 5.7x28 brass. Back before I could easily get 5.7x28 brass to start with. Well I re-loaded the factory brass I had a limited supply of as many times as I could with those hard to get and hard to reload berdan primers, especially since they were a harder to get slightly smaller then the usual small size. Then when I wore out all of those, along with getting the very rare non-steel tipped factory loads brought into the country one box at a time from South America and Eastern Europe and re-loading those over and over until they wore out I also could just barely make some from 25-ACP brass with about a 75% failure rate in forming with a shorter neck and much thinner walls then the cartridge is supposed to have loaded with reduced loads that won't cycle the action so it become a manual cycling pistol. Never quite got desperate enough to start from straight brass rod stock. But currently if I had too go that far, I could with the process and jigs I have worked out for converting 5.7x28 brass. There are very few 5.45x18mm Soviet cartridge guns in the US that there probably never will be any commercial source of brass. Mine came off a criminal amigo from South of the border caught north of the border by local law enforcement in a state where they have a "no destruction" law on the books that means they must sell guns seazed from criminals at auction to law-abiding and can't destroy them. The 5.45x18mm Soviet guns are illegal to import (too small and with steel tipped AP ammo as a standard ammo option in a handgun from it's conception so it has always been outside of import regs) But not illegal to posses, buy, or sell once in the U.S. and my Grandfather picked it up at action in a lot buy and he passed it down to me when I was in my early twenties which was a lot longer ago then I would like to admit.
Its an interesting thing to know you can find a "parent" case to obsolete or expensive brass 32-40 can be made in one pass from 30-30 (brass is a tad short but still usable) Or 318 WR from 30-06 after sending it through a die and trimming the 30-06 case. This one saves a ton of money due to that case being expensive. My bullet seater is useless as i wildcatted it to use easy to obtain 338 bullets (instead of .330)
Be cautious about utilizing .38 special brass for this task as the fire forming process may thin out the case walls and cause rupturing given the walls have to stretch to fill the slightly larger cylinder bore.
8mm mauser brass was a little more expensive than what I was willing to spend, luckily my cousin had around 400 spent 3006 shells he gave me. Run them through the 8mm mauser sizing die a couple of times SLOWLY so as not to produce any wrinkles in the casing. Cut the neck to length and BAM. 8mm mauser
The short answer is yes, the long answer is that depends if you have the right steel, tooling and heat treat oven. Or, if you just want it to make a few rounds or to resize a base. And with all of that, you know it could still warp and you have to make another one. The big thing is polishing the inside of the sizing die. The bullet seater you could mess with so the bullet is supported in line the what time etc. You could really go down a rabbit hole Making dies. If you have a or can make a reamer it is a lot easier. Die reamers are normally a few tho smaller than chamber reamers. Anyways, like I said, short answer yes.
I just started working into my first true obsolete caliber. 8MM Nambu. Get ready to spend money. As of now, I am at $440. Dies $165, Bullet mold $158, ect. Shellholder, size dies, everything, is custom made or vintage. Factory brass is $.65 apiece. Really wish Starline would offer Nambu brass.
"...all began with a $15 set if dies I bought at a gun show..." Yeah...I can dig it...buy or acquire a set of dies for a caliber you don't own.. it snowballs from there...
I fell for that one, just finished a 219 zipper AI build on a savage 340B . Now if those dies would just get here so I can turn that 30-30 brass into zipper brass. LOL
"The home guide to cartridge conversions" doesnt come cheap. I do have the "handloaders manual of cartridge conversions". Still have to read it. While im still at the stage of gathering all the books i want to read on the subject reloading. I have read the books ABCs of reloading. So of all the reloading books, "handloaders manual of cartridge conversions" is up next for reading. If i come by "The home guide to cartridge conversions" for cheap, i will get the book! Greetings, Jeff
While you're collecting books on firearm related topic, I advise getting a copy of Elmer Keith's SIXGUNS. Original or reprint, it's a must have for the enthusiast's library.
Also, buy any old reloading manuals you can find, they come in handy for the obsolete cartridges. Just remember to reduce the power charge 10%from what they list.
Man, I was really hoping there'd be some tips for 6.5 Jap. Of course 7.7 is easy enough to get from 30-06, but for 6.5 my only options seem to be .257 Roberts which is even rarer than 6.5 or running .308 through a series of very expensive dies I'd have to custom order from a tool and die maker. Great video though!
As of 2008 there are only 2 ctgs that are wildcats .. The first one is the 30 Herrett and the second one is the 6mm TCU..I like both and have used both to hunt with ..
@@Bhartrampf That I cannot tell you why Sammi didn’t do anything with the 30 Herrett and 6 TCU ! Lyman gives pressure data for them in their reloading manual !! There is several wildcats based on the .223 REM case in .243 caliber , one real close to the 6 TCU but the chambers are different and performance is the same !! Steve Herrett of twin falls ID the handgunstock maker is the man behind the 30 Herrett !! Ctg specs were drawn up by Bob Milex in 1972 the gun writer .. It was a joint effort !! But that ctg never did become in the SAMMI line!!
@@normanmallory2055 I am familiar with the 30 Herrett, a real nice and fine shooting cartridge. The 6mm TCU I have only read about, still doesn't make since, but then they also let Remington and Winchester basically steal the Lazaroni cartridge line.
@@Bhartrampf Yes the 30 Herrett ctg is ! Took me around a year to make it come together!! I’ve hunted with it over 6-7 years now and I’ve taken 3 deer !!! Like the 22/250 ctg and 280 AI Remington it only took the gun company’s 40 years to figure that out and added to their lineup!! I had months of research before I settled on the 6mm TCU ctg over others !! In 2008 when the gun haters were elected into office everything on the shelf sold out , brass , bullets , powder , primers and dies !! It was tough for the first couple years !! In fact when I ordered the barrel the only empty brass for sale that was left was Norma and LaPua anywhere! So it is !! I have no regrets with the 6 TCU it performs excellent and produces 3” groups @300 yards
Would be good business to produce obsolete ammo like this in limited runs until it starts running out you just keep producing it to maintain economical sense. And have ammunition production lines that are easily modular. With 3D printing metal getting better and better, we are closer to any person with enough expendable funds to acquire such 3D printing machines to print proper legacy ammo.
Then you would have to make them for different bore sizes also. Your right, it is getting easier, but the number of obsolete cartridges is quite a bit. It would still have to be somewhat standardized. For example, 9x56ms bore size is from .353-3.61 most people use .358 and either swage them down or on the upper end, leave them alone or shoot custom bullets. The neck thickness changes with the bore size as all the chambers are pretty standard. This is just one instance, almost all obsolete cartridges have varying bore sizes. Even some standard ones.
Hey! I still shoot "38/45 ACP" In a 1942 made 1911A1 "Remington Rand" GI Surplus that I milled the slide for a S&W J Frame adj rear sight and I made a ramped front sight with a red insert! I also have a Colt Commercial 38 Super and the 38/45 chronos 102 fps FASTER with 125 gr Hollow Point.
Helped a friend make 32-40 brass from 30-30 cases. He scrounged up some old ammo and I got to shoot my 30-30 for free. Saved some good money so he could spend it on powders to experiment with.
been trying to workout the headache that is 7.62x45mm, that oddball Czech "not-7.62x39mm-round. all the ammo currently that i can find available is corrosive military surplus, i know rcbs makes dies for it but been a dead end trying to find brass save for Buffalo Arms and it's always out of stock
@Adam Halsey Don't even need a lathe. Just chop the case with a cut off grinding wheel, put the case in a cordless drill and use a belt sander to take the diameter of the rim down some.
Brass is readily available for my 338 win mag but i have about 1000 rounds of brass from a 7 mag i had so i just neck it up and it shoots fine i get about 3 reloads out of it before the primer pocket gets to loose so ya
![Stromae, Pomme - “Ma Meilleure Ennemie” (from Arcane Season 2) [Official Visualizer]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/1F3OGIFnW1k/mqdefault.jpg)
"Brass for Ian"
You guys are doing the lords work
they are good people.
"I am the way and the light, except for occasionally the light is muzzle flash."
- Gun Jesus
Love this thread...
I’m glad no one has “forgotten” Ian and his Mas lol
@@nobletaco
That was the gospel he was preaching to us, his true followers
Brownells don’t ever change these guys
Frankie k that effeminate kiss ass could go.
@@TonyMontanaOG who
This is why I stick with Brownells. I may not reload but if I did I know you got my back. Thanks for quick shipping on my last order.
Thank you so much!
Brownells is the best national gunsmiting company. My package to repair an obsolete Winchester should be here today.
Agreed. Brownells is great
@@brownells Can you guys make some videos for reloading .35 Remington and .300 Savage?
"This all started out with picking up a $15 set of dies at a gun show and it snowballed from there. " Very relatable, Steve! Sounds like most of my gun projects.
I for one thank (read "can blame") my dad... the more obscure and bizarre the better when it comes to his collection haha
huh... i just learned that Ian from Forgotten Weapons is gonna be doing a 7.63 Mannlicher gun video here soon.....
He’s done some in the past but has not been able to do much due to ammo scarcity
This is why I love Brownells; you guys seem honest about getting good information out there, even if it means telling us to go buy from a store that isn't yours if it means we'll find what we need.
As a consumer and hobbyist, this is such a breath of fresh air in today's world. Thank you! Keep doing what you're doing!
Yes and odds are they end up selling the product too. they know good and well that if the industry is robust and people are doing a lot of DIY stuff on their guns they're going to want gunsmithing tools and brownelks is the place to get that.
“Brass for Ian” = best name-dropping I’ve ever heard!
I love this information, but could you please turn down the music a bit. It makes it harder to hear. Thank you.
Lathe - check
Mill - check
Dies - check
knowledge to use those tools - can I pretend ?
I find myself in this category. It makes scrapping a project faster much easier.
The sad part is that if you have a lathe and a mill, you could make the dies yourself.
@@xxxm981 easier said than done, sometimes the ability to make something is overshadowed by just spending a few dollars. Tried making a .22 lr ar bolt, spent probably 30 hours on it, should have just bought one. I could make reamers I can buy, but it's so much faster and easier to just buy it and not increase the risk of scrapping an expensive part with a cheap tool. Jmho, ymmv.
Or just pick up the hobby, try and fail a ton. That's how I learned, I'm not a big studier so trying and failing gave me a lot of valuable knowledge
Are Ian...gets his 32 French, so now he wants another in obtainaniom round
Gun Jesus requires all of the obtainium rounds
@Doom Maybe, but I find it odd that Starline went and did .32 French, but they don't make any .30-40 Krag brass. Like, which is more likely to sell? Obviously .30-40
@@DickTickles Hornaday still makes ammo for the Krag. Just reload those cases.
English?
... did you have a stroke while writing "unobtanium"?
Steve... is like the dad I wished I had. A little stoic at times which I am as well, succinct, consistent, methodical, and calibrated - obviously a master gunsmith, but seems like a no nonsense, save me the fluff, kind of guy. Tip of the hat to you, sir.
*tips hat in return
Hey don't stop there, go on and pile on the compliments for yourself
I been doing that for years I turn 3006 into all kinds of stuff even 8 mm Mauser and 45-60 out of 45-70 brass. My dad showed me how back in the early 60's when he had a British Bull Dog and a few other obsoleted cartridges like the Webley 455
30-06 is probably one of the most useful cases to have on hand for conversions, especially if you have military rifles like the Mauser or Arisaka.
Same with the Mauser stuff.
I am very satisfied with STARLINE brass.
John Q. Public Starline, never cheap, and never inexpensive. But quality costs money, and you’re never likely to need more then a few hundred pieces of brass for your antique gun so $300 should sort you out no matter what.
It is very laudable that you gentlemen present the methodology to create obsolete cartridges from contemporary brass.
My favorite was always converting .308 Winchester to M15 .45 ACP Shotshells for my 1911.
Yes 👍
I've always enjoyed this aspect of ammo making.
I get goosebumps thinking about delving deeper into hand loading! I only just started reloading 12ga shot shells. I'd love to start reloading .380 Auto, .40S&W, 5.56x45mm NATO, and .30-06 Springfield. I'm saving up for a Dillon 550c progressive reloading press. I really only have room for one press as I live in an apartment, so I figure I should get a press that can do just about anything with the right dies, and churn out rounds at a very high rate, as I want to shoot A LOT (and can, because the range I go to has a range for everything, even 1KYD shooting, and is only $50/year to use the range).
I figured 12ga is the cheapest and most forgiving to learn hand loading due to how common and low pressure 12ga is. It's been amazing, and I almost have my 1 oz of 7 1/2 shot target loads tweaked to where I want. I think it may still have a couple grains too much powder, as even with a full choke, my pattern is shooting about a foot or two high (maybe about 2 front sight beads above the bead) when shooting clays, and the pattern is about 4 feet wide at 50 yards on the patterning board. My guess is the velocity is too high, and the lead shot is deforming into disks during acceleration, causing them to spread out faster. The velocity being too high I think would also be why the trajectory is effectively causing the beads to be "zeroed" too low. I'm using a 12ga Mossberg 500 FLEX with the 28" hunting barrel configuration. Works just fine when using factory Winchester Universal 1 1/8th oz. 7 1/2 shot shells, which is rated 1,600 fps.
I want to get very familiar with hand loading so I can buy antique and obscure firearms without worrying about ammo availability. I even want to get into making my own black powder (charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur, if I recall). I'm very into bushcraft, and a long term goal is to make a functional firearm entirely from nature. Smelt my own iron ore I find, forge my own barrel and parts, carve my own stock (a nice one, none of that amateur crap), find my own flint, and make my own powder. Ultimate self-reliance. Why? Because it's a challenge, and how cool would it be to have your own one of a kind flintlock you ACTUALLY made from scratch? I've even been learning how to do engravings and inlays, so when I make that flintlock, it's gonna look stunning and of professional quality.
make a punt gun.
Have go learn locksmithing for that as well.
Amazing
I reload lots of old cartiridges. Before jumping to a big progressive i'd suggest getting an o-framr single stage. Progressive is great for volume but its very hard to trouble shoot when learning. A singles give you the ability to focus on one thing at a time and dial in exactly what you're doing. I do large bulk batches witb my single (9mm, 223 and m1 safe 30-06) as well as old stuff ( 38 smith, 43 mauser, 41 swiss and 8mm french ordnance). When reforming messing around to make obscure cases you really want to focus on one thing at a time, Its makes it harder to screw things up.
@@sheslikeheroin1661 exactly, I have rock chucker, Hollywood and an a 550, I normally use the 550 for small handgun, like the 45 acp and the rock chucker for most things, the Hollywood is set up right now with a antique black powder/shot thrower. Keeping it simple and methodical is the key, especially for a new reloader or for someone doing wildcatting or case forming for obsolete cartridges. I have done both, and sometimes it's the little things that trip you up, and you don't want to spend you day pulling bullets.
Thank you to both you two fellows and Brownells for this video! Also interesting to see how close the firearms community among presenters and retailers is.
You guys helped me back in the 80s when I worked at the Grant Boys gun store in Southern California. I have a model 94, 1912 Winchester in 32 Winchester. You informed me I can form 3030 brass to 32 Winchester by running it through 32 dies with normal procedure. And it worked perfectly. Its a 24 inch octagon Barrelled Beauty.
Awesome! So glad we could help out!
Another popular modern conversion is 223/556 to 300 BLK. I make most of my own 300BLK brass the hard way because ammo with good Lake City brass is so damn expensive.
Back before it’s resurgence, and before Hornady started making reasonably-priced high-quality ammo, folks were converting 7.62x39 brass to 6.5 Grendel was also popular. Now I just buy factory Hornady 6.5G brass or ammo, and then reload it.
I convert .270 Win brass for my .25-06 AI, and .300 Wby for my .300 Ackley.
The only converting I have done was .223/5.56 brass into 300 Blackout. I enjoyed the process.
I can do .223 to 5.56 conversion
@@svtirefire ; 5.56mm NATO has thicker walls than .223 though and is designed for higher pressures, so it often isn't recommended to shot 556 in 223 guns.
@@FirstDagger Yes the brass is thicker. No the pressure isn't actually higher. It's measured using different tools at different points. However peak pressure 223 and peak pressure 556 are basically the same thing. I believe ultimate reloader did a very detailed breakdown on this at one point.
@@GunFunZS ; Thanks for the info.
I never have & probably never will ever need to use the services of Brownells , Not! because I have anything against them or any particular favourite I use , simply because I live in the UK and us air weapons . Why am I here watching this then ? , I watch several different YT firearms & related channels (all interesting to Me ) Forgotten Weapons , C&Rsenal , TFM , IRV 8888 , Paul Harrell , Hickok45 , to name a few . Anyone who Helps these good people and those like them will Get a big THANK YOU ! from Me , also I found this video really interesting
concise & clear with People who clearly know what their talking about . Well Done Brownells ! particularly Steve & Keith , keep up the good work . Stay Safe Stay Well & Keep on Shooting.
Difficult at first but I grew quite savvy at making ammo for the .41 AVENGER many years ago. Made from .45 ACP brass cases using Spec. Ordered RCBS dies. Loaded with Win. Sup. Targ. AA & even 231. Projectiles we're by Nosler & Sierra & Speer for the .41 Rem. Mag. The barrel & gun & reloading dies are gone now but the experience was paramount to this day in navigating any of the other necked & or semi-bottle necked pistol cartridges from yesteryear & modern cartridges of today such as .357 SIG. Thanks for the interesting vlog. A great look back to yesterday.
I take brass; 223 Rem or 5.56 and neck it down to form '20 Practical' brass. The cartridge is accurate, fast, easy to make. [a wildcat, not an obsolete cartridge].
I do .30-06 to 7.7×58mm Japanese and to 8mm Mauser
I need some 8mm mauser 150 grain soft point for hunting! Cannot find any!
Iv`e been getting mine for $27 a box from a good company not production like Norma witch is $50 + a box. Steinel ammo from Ohio.
@@atxfbcsbc I think PPU makes some.
30-06(762x63) to 8mm(7.92×57 Mauser) or to 7.7x58 Japanese I would not DO.
The case heads are smaller on 30-06, than on the Mauser or Japanese.
I know that was common in the old days. Back when I first got serious into reading (41 years ago).
Just because it has been done before,
Does not make it a good ideal.
I am very, very sure there is a better way.
@@atxfbcsbc have you tried PPU?
Thanks guys this is really rad, and I would hope you guys continue to make brass for Ian as well as keep sending your products for him to test.
I bought a Tokarev pistol in 7.62x25 ages ago, and couldn't source any brass or ammo that was suitable. Got busy and made a large batches of brass from .357 magnum Federal cases.
The good news was I had a job with a small machine-shop; lathe, mill, the works.
I used epoxy putty to make a chamber-casting, then measured to make a reamer for cutting the case forming and sizing dies. The forming and sizing dies had a slightly different profiles.
Made all the other tools, even made a collet-crimp die for securing bullets in the case. Also made up various lathe tooling and fixtures for the loading process.
The hardest part of converting the brass was cutting down the rim and making the extractor-groove. Six steps on the lathe for each cartridge...tedious doesn't cover it.
The case was held on the lath by a tiny screw through the flash hole. The screws broke all the time!
Except for losing cases, I got lots of use out of the first batch...averaged 5 reloads per case before the necks would crack. Annealing didn't help. Collet crimp was too tight.
Second batch worked much better, got 6-10 reloads before cases split. Second batch was around 280 cases, so I got lots of shooting in!
I never got tired of people's reaction to picking up bottle-necked pistol brass only to see a Federal .357 head-stamp!
I tried modifying 5.56 rifle brass, but that was more work than I wanted to try.
Great little gun, very flat shooting, loud as hell!
Once commercial ammo was available I quit making new cases, kept on reloading empties!
What material did you use for the die bodies? Did you use a d reamer or do fluted reamers?
Great information for the 9mm largo and Starline! Thank you so much! The .17 fireball is also a little gem !
Making brass for Ian , y’all are gods among men
My dad owned a 30 Herret caliber pistol. It was a Thompson Center single shot. Every round was formed from 30-30 brass.
I've made 41 mag brass out of 30-30 brass. I've made 7.62 x 25 brass out of 38 Spl. brass. For the 7.62 x 25 cases I had to use my lathe to change the case from rim to rimless. This was pretty easy. Just had to machine a plug for the inside neck of the 38 brass to support it in the lathe chuck while machining them from rim to rimless. Also, because the case wall of the 30-30 brass was thicker at the base, had to ream the case necks inside, and had to work up special loads for these thick cases. Had a lot of 30-30 brass that I picked up, with no rifle to use them in. One day, I decided to just do it. It was a fun project for my Ruger Redhawk 41 mag. Also done 45 ACP to 400 Corbon, and several others. The 400 Corbon was easy, but dependent on the brass used. I found the best brass was military or Federal. Thicker necks. Don't try it if you don't know what you are doing. I've been reloading and building rifles for more than 40 years.
It was pretty cool seeing that .38/45 case. First cases I ever formed as well. I still have a .38/45 barrel, bushing and recoil spring for an old 1911 I had back in the 1980's, along with the form dies. I still put it in one of my 1911's once in a while and send a few rounds downrange. Fun to shoot, but my .38 Super handily outperforms it. Thanks for the video, guys.
I recently had a damaged 30-30 Marlin 336 re-bored and chambered to 35-30, which is a 30-30 necked up to .357 diameter. I guessed right and bought a .358/.356 Win. neck sizing die and it worked perfectly expanding the 30-03 brass and shaping the small shoulder. I just had to do a few trial and error cases to get the right depth for the die using a fire formed casing as a guide. I got an inexpensive Lee bullet seating and a factory crimp die of the same sizes to use to finish the job. It beat buying the very expensive custom 35-30 dies.
Helped a buddy once make up some 6.5 Talbot, and unobtainium silhouette round for an XP100 he came into in a trade. Fun project and did take a few different dies to form it from .223 brass with fireforming. Pretty sure the 6.5 TCU dies i used for the project came from ya'll. Thanks for doing what ya do!
It is what I do. Started with a 32-40 before it was (somewhat) back in production. Cadet Martini. 256 Win Mag for a contender barrel - Used a set of Redding forming dies; it was a must to anneal the 357 cases. This is the stuff that floats my boat. 250/3000 is getting hard to find but the 300 Savage is the mother case for many rounds. It gets a bit cranky necking down to 250...
Really cool. I'm waiting on my Non-Restricted Firearms licence up here in Canada. Hoping to get my Restricted sometime this year. This is the kind of interesting information that really gets me interested in obscure older firearms.
My dad and I fireform 30-40 Krag brass in a Model 95 Winchester chambered in 35 Winchester. Have to anneal the necks first but works great.
38-45 Clark.
Hmm the more things change the more things stay the same!
400 corbon = 45 necked down to 40/10
356 sig = 40 necked down to 9mm.
Amazing the combinations of things you can make just with some brass and some steel dies
A few years ago when I actually had time to sit at my bench, I loaded some .38-200 rounds for a friend to shoot thru an old WW2 era Enfield revolver, I don’t remember if it was a Mark 2 or Mark 4 but I did have a blast casting those 200 gr bullets and working up a load that wouldn’t be too hard on the old pistol. GOOD TIMES !
Nice video, gents! I have a bad habit of buying guns with obscure calibers. Since Jameson went under, I've been forming .45-75 Winchester brass from .50-90 Sharps. It involves annealing, cutting down the length, reducing the rim, cutting an extractor groove, thinning the rim, resizing to put in the shoulder, final sizing and final trimming (with more annealing in there). I'm slow, so it takes me about 30-45 minutes each, but at least I can shoot my gun!
My most labor intensive one is 9x56ms from 30-06, as well as anealing, shorting, turning the neck, and forming, I also have to swage the head smaller and of course fire forming. But it is awesome to hunt with.
I made 45 RAPTOR brass from used casings fired from my 30-06.
I had to thin the case neck a few thousandths where the bullet seats but that's about it after fire-forming in the gun.
I love seeing some of these oddball rounds
Been using 50AE to make 440 Corbon brass for my AR.
Gonna make a hybrid soon.... gonna use 502 Thunder Sabre (essentially a 50AE with a 7.62x39 rim) to use in my 440 Corbon AR. The bolt/extractors are rare in original modified form for the 50AE rim... 7.62x39 bolts are common...
Concerning the 96 Mauser and .223 Brass. I Received Two That through poor cleaning over Years(China Imports 30 Years Ago),had corrosion in the Chamber Shoulder. After a Good cleaning Factory Ammo Was Too Short. Cast Bullets and a Homemade Die Made them Usable Again. Know How To Tell If The Person Behind The Counter At A Gun Store Knows Anything? Hand Them A "Modified" Case And Ask"Got Any Of Those"? It Is No Longer A Surprise How Many Look At the Base,Then Don't Understand Why It's Not What's In The Box They Pull Out! Nonte's Book is Excellent,Sometimes A Little Difficult To Find. The Handloader's Manual of Cartridge Conversions Provides Lots Of Dimensions To Help Determine What Cases Might Work Best. There Are A Few Easily Spotted Mistakes In The First Edition,Just Be Smart Enough To Pay Attention.
Starline ROCKS!
I really think .30 Luger should see a rebirth. Bullet tech has come a LONG way since the turn of the 20th century, and it could give 5.7x28mm a run for it's money.
Markius Fox except when somebody loads a hotrodded .30 luger in an actual P08 and blows the toggle trough their frontal lobe.
@Doom Not necessary. The conversion would only require a new barrel and maybe a different recoil spring. Take your pick of modern 9mm Luger and it can be converted to .30 Luger.
@Adam Halsey That would be fine and good, though you'll need to use larger pistol frames or a new design entirely. I do like roller locked designs such as the CZ-52.
Ian is good people.
I purchased a 6mm x 284 rifle, and it came with a pile of brand new winchester 284, so I had to size the neck down a millimeter, which seemed easy enough until I tried just running it through a 6mm die and crushed 4 of them. Tried lube and heat to no avail. I began looking through my die sets and grabbed my neck sizing die for my 6.5 creedmoor, which with some careful work on the press did some progress but still to big. I then grabbed the 6.5 crimp die and inserted the case upside-down through the top while working the handle to shrink it a little more to the right size, to which I could finally run it through the 6mm die and bamb finished.
I made 45 ACP shot shells with 308 brass. Crimped in over shot card was cardboard punched out with a cutdown 308 brass with the primer pocket drilled for a dowel rod to extract the cards. Over powder was is a 410 card. Dies are available from RCBS, PN 56552. The original issue GI survival shot shells were standard 45ACP brass with a paper cone to hold the shot. Moisture was a problem and not much of that has survived!
7.7 ariska ammo is hard to find so I reform 30-06 brass. Also convert .223 to 300 blkout.
I got a 25-06 rifle and had a ton of 30-06 brass and that’s really easy to reform with a 25-06 trim die. 25-06 is readily available but not that cheap and since lots of people have quite a bit of 30-06 brass it makes reloading much cheaper.
Well done friend!
A few weeks back I traded for a rifle that has Brogne 6x61 stamped in barrel. Has Mauser Brno vz24 action. Barrel is 29 inches long 1 1/4 in diam at receiver .867 diam at muzzle. Has Unertl BV 20 scope. Made a chamber casting looks like brass can be made from 264 Winchester . I am not out to burn up the barrel. Thought it would be fun to play with. Chamber and bore in excellent condition.
I got an 8 mm Nabu, I was using 32 Rem, very easy to size, ream the neck cut it down but they stop making them. So I looked at 30-30 and they work but you had to do some lathe work turn the rim off, shorten the base, and make a tool to cut the ejection grove in. Found a company that made bullets the Green Bay Bullets I don't know if they are still in business. I did find some bullet mold that would work. I did found a box of bullets, but the cost was the same as the forming dies $300.00. It shot good with the 32 Rems, and the 30-30. Not sure what the total cost comes too. But it was fun!
Thanks, really enjoying the videos, I am a huge fan of making my own projectiles and brass for obsolete calibres. But in the past 10 years haven't done anything but produce ammo for the range and competition. But now I am older and no longer work I am back into it. So keep them coming, cheers from Australia.
before Starline made our life simpler , I remember making .50 Remington Army M71 for the rolling block pistol, I used brazilian CBC brass shotshells (32ga.) , also used the same brass to make 56-50 Spencer and 50-110 winchester.
Some years ago, I obtained a 14" T/C Contender barrel in .219 Zipper and a set of reloading dies shortly thereafter. After an unsuccessful attempt at using .30-30 brass, I located a supply of Winchester .25-35 brass. No inside neck reaming was necessary, just a minor trim to proper length, then load and fire.
French 8 mm Daudeteau its an obsolete Cartridge curiously used in a lot of Military Converted Mausers here in Uruguay. Ian from Forgotten Weapons did a video abut them.
Hopefully more brass becomes available for obscure guns. Companies like PPU have be picking up alot of old military cartridges recently
The music is to high can't hear you
I run .270 up into my 6.5x30.06 dies, as there is some slight variation in my 6.5 x 30.06 chamber which was made before they were (sort of) standardized by 6.5 x 30.06 A Square.
I say thank God for the awesome folks at Starline Brass! I was really happy when they began offering .44 AutoMag and 7.92X33 brass. Both are very tedious to make from .308 cases.
Kevin S for sure .44 auto mag is possibly the most pain in the butt stuff to produce. That gun is long gone and thank goodness. Unfortunately now you can order the brass without all the torture.
@@john-paulsilke893 I have a .44 AutoMag pistol, made by Pasadena Arms back in 1975. The rifle I have in 7.92X33 is a Mauser VG-5 semi-auto made in late 1944. Both guns are great shooters, and draw much attention at any shooting range.
Kevin S color me jealous sir. Not of the expense or the extraction/cycling issues of that AutoMag. But definitely jealous for sure. I had a second gen AutoMag and we had a Hell of a time making it go more then 3 in a row. But man that gun was so fine. Clearly it was ammo, because it was capital F-I-N-E and amazing. We just couldn’t shoot it. ☹️
@@john-paulsilke893 I have the feeling you pistol had bad mag springs. I had the same problem with mine, so I replaced the mag springs with new ones meant for the Desert Eagle .44 mag, And have had no trouble since. I think the original springs had too much tension, because the mags were very difficult to load. Yours may have also had gas port issues.
Kevin S entirely possible. Too bad the gun is gone. I sincerely hope the current owner has sorted it out, and it’s running like a champ.
.45 to .400 Cor-Bon. Have an AMT in .400 and also have a conversion barrel for my 1911. Hot little round! Need to check out who might have some decent dies for this round.
I wish I'd known 7.62x25 was going to disappear, I would have bought a LOT more. I just pray it comes back to Canada sometime soon.
I hate to say it but it's more than likely gone forever, especially in the u.s, however there are billions of surplus rounds in the middle East
Thank you, I always learn so much from you guys!
Thank you for watching!
Thank you kindly for sharing this.
Thanks for the help gunna fire my 45ACP brass turned into 50BMG since they are so close, I got it to be the same size but just thinner! Wish me luck guys!
Another banger. Curious to see if they do 9mm to 7.62x25 :o
Uh.. 9*19 to 7.62*25…? Pretty sure you'll be about 6mm too short.
I'm not the only one thinking 45-38 is 357sig's granddad right?
Only conversion I do regularly is .303 Brit into .30-40 Krag
Thinking of getting a Krag in the future as I have this newfound interest in rifles with a rim to headspace off of. How is that process turning .303 into .30-40? Just resizing the case or is there any trimming involved?
Dick Tickles Just resizing through a Krag die and fireforming with a start load. I might get 1/100 where the brass splits when fireformed and the necks end up a little short, but when you can’t get Krag brass it’s definitely worth doing.
I use a little spritz of Lucas spray on chain wax in a Ziploc with my brass and shake it up. Smooth as butter
5.45x18mm Soviet is a royal headache. Primarily because there is no real appropriate case in the US to start from.
5.7x28 is what I start with, cut the case down to just below the shoulder. Then press it onto a custom turned mandrel, chuck it up in the lathe and turn the whole outside of the case NOT to the finished profile (except for the head) but rather what will give the correct finished body wall thickness and correct internal taper to balance strength, elasticity, and internal capacity.
Then you aneal and size in a custom die that forms a straight wall profile that gives a correct body profile without shoulder and neck formed and while the case is in that custom die fully seated you run a custom reamer that is back piloted in a precision straight bore down into the top of the die with depth stop. The die and reamer being a matched pair.
That reamer ensuring the final correct outside-vs.-inside dimensions and correct wall thicknesses for the body of the case.
Then you use a second die to form the shoulder and neck. Do a final neck turning and trim to length.
Then to load it you need correctly sized projectiles which is a whole different project.
Yeah, that's a process. Have you ever tried it without doing the reaming?
@@DickTickles I have tried both just cutting from the outside with the lathe only, skipping the reamer on inside step.
And, also, just reprofiling the case head only on the outside in the lathe and skipping doing any profiling on the body walls and then using only the reamer on the inside after pressing into the first stage die to get the case wall thickness and profile inside and out correct.
The results either way don't work out near as well. Can't really simplify the process any further then I have limited it down to presently.
I do have custom jigs all made up including trace cut profiles for manual lathe for the outside cut for several different brands of 5.7x28 brass.
Back before I could easily get 5.7x28 brass to start with. Well I re-loaded the factory brass I had a limited supply of as many times as I could with those hard to get and hard to reload berdan primers, especially since they were a harder to get slightly smaller then the usual small size.
Then when I wore out all of those, along with getting the very rare non-steel tipped factory loads brought into the country one box at a time from South America and Eastern Europe and re-loading those over and over until they wore out I also could just barely make some from 25-ACP brass with about a 75% failure rate in forming with a shorter neck and much thinner walls then the cartridge is supposed to have loaded with reduced loads that won't cycle the action so it become a manual cycling pistol.
Never quite got desperate enough to start from straight brass rod stock. But currently if I had too go that far, I could with the process and jigs I have worked out for converting 5.7x28 brass.
There are very few 5.45x18mm Soviet cartridge guns in the US that there probably never will be any commercial source of brass. Mine came off a criminal amigo from South of the border caught north of the border by local law enforcement in a state where they have a "no destruction" law on the books that means they must sell guns seazed from criminals at auction to law-abiding and can't destroy them.
The 5.45x18mm Soviet guns are illegal to import (too small and with steel tipped AP ammo as a standard ammo option in a handgun from it's conception so it has always been outside of import regs) But not illegal to posses, buy, or sell once in the U.S. and my Grandfather picked it up at action in a lot buy and he passed it down to me when I was in my early twenties which was a lot longer ago then I would like to admit.
Just got my first set of .38 -.357 mag dies and i haven't had a chance to set it up and get some powder i cant wait to start reloading
Its an interesting thing to know you can find a "parent" case to obsolete or expensive brass
32-40 can be made in one pass from 30-30 (brass is a tad short but still usable)
Or 318 WR from 30-06 after sending it through a die and trimming the 30-06 case. This one saves a ton of money due to that case being expensive. My bullet seater is useless as i wildcatted it to use easy to obtain 338 bullets (instead of .330)
300 win mag to 7mm mashburn super mag. short, 30-06 to 35 whelen, and 30-30 to 22 high power. All fairly simple conversions.
great video. you guys should talk about reloading 5.7x28.
Last week I tried cutting down a bunch of .38 spl and fire formed them to .38 S&W. Many say it won't work. Mine shot great.
Be cautious about utilizing .38 special brass for this task as the fire forming process may thin out the case walls and cause rupturing given the walls have to stretch to fill the slightly larger cylinder bore.
@@jalan8171 I've not had any real issues aside from a certain head stamp swelling.
Thanks, I've been wondering how to make .357 sig to put in a museum exhibit.
8mm mauser brass was a little more expensive than what I was willing to spend, luckily my cousin had around 400 spent 3006 shells he gave me. Run them through the 8mm mauser sizing die a couple of times SLOWLY so as not to produce any wrinkles in the casing. Cut the neck to length and BAM. 8mm mauser
I still hope Starline will eventually make some 5.45x39 brass
Hornady has made some brass for 5.45x39. I picked up a 100 cases of it a while back. Not sure how often they will do runs in the future.
Could you make dies yourself if you have a lathe and the knowledge to machine that precisely?
The short answer is yes, the long answer is that depends if you have the right steel, tooling and heat treat oven. Or, if you just want it to make a few rounds or to resize a base. And with all of that, you know it could still warp and you have to make another one. The big thing is polishing the inside of the sizing die. The bullet seater you could mess with so the bullet is supported in line the what time etc. You could really go down a rabbit hole Making dies. If you have a or can make a reamer it is a lot easier. Die reamers are normally a few tho smaller than chamber reamers. Anyways, like I said, short answer yes.
I just started working into my first true obsolete caliber. 8MM Nambu. Get ready to spend money. As of now, I am at $440. Dies $165, Bullet mold $158, ect. Shellholder, size dies, everything, is custom made or vintage. Factory brass is $.65 apiece. Really wish Starline would offer Nambu brass.
"...all began with a $15 set if dies I bought at a gun show..." Yeah...I can dig it...buy or acquire a set of dies for a caliber you don't own.. it snowballs from there...
Or a gun that no one has sold for a hundred years..lol, that's normally what happens to me.
I fell for that one, just finished a 219 zipper AI build on a savage 340B . Now if those dies would just get here so I can turn that 30-30 brass into zipper brass. LOL
When I think of guys who reload, they look exactly like this.
Hahahahahaha
I take 40s&w and make 357 sig, take 45acp and neck down to the 400 corbon, Then of corse 223 to 300blk.
I did find out that the back end of a .223 is pretty close to 380 to the point where the 380 will hold the 223 brass
Brownells should add Krag rifles to their retro line.
Made 8mm Mauser from leftover .30-06 cases.
"The home guide to cartridge conversions" doesnt come cheap. I do have the "handloaders manual of cartridge conversions". Still have to read it. While im still at the stage of gathering all the books i want to read on the subject reloading. I have read the books ABCs of reloading. So of all the reloading books, "handloaders manual of cartridge conversions" is up next for reading. If i come by "The home guide to cartridge conversions" for cheap, i will get the book!
Greetings,
Jeff
While you're collecting books on firearm related topic, I advise getting a copy of Elmer Keith's SIXGUNS. Original or reprint, it's a must have for the enthusiast's library.
Also, buy any old reloading manuals you can find, they come in handy for the obsolete cartridges. Just remember to reduce the power charge 10%from what they list.
Man, I was really hoping there'd be some tips for 6.5 Jap. Of course 7.7 is easy enough to get from 30-06, but for 6.5 my only options seem to be .257 Roberts which is even rarer than 6.5 or running .308 through a series of very expensive dies I'd have to custom order from a tool and die maker. Great video though!
308 win and 30-06 have a smaller case head size the the 7.7 Japanese. A Mauser case is a better starting point case heads being the same.
For the 6.5, run your 308 through 7mm-08, then your 6.5, anneal the necks, then trim. Take the expander ball out of the 7mm die
Nice Info Thanks Keith n Steve You Guys Have a Wealth of Knowledge 😀😮😊👍🏼
Thank you!
As of 2008 there are only 2 ctgs that are wildcats .. The first one is the 30 Herrett and the second one is the 6mm TCU..I like both and have used both to hunt with ..
Sami picked up all the others? Interesting, I wonder then why not those also? I wasn't aware that Sami picked up 6.5-06AI
@@Bhartrampf That I cannot tell you why Sammi didn’t do anything with the 30 Herrett and 6 TCU !
Lyman gives pressure data for them in their reloading manual !!
There is several wildcats based on the .223 REM case in .243 caliber , one real close to the 6 TCU but the chambers are different and performance is the same !!
Steve Herrett of twin falls ID the handgunstock maker is the man behind the 30 Herrett !! Ctg specs were drawn up by Bob Milex in 1972 the gun writer .. It was a joint effort !! But that ctg never did become in the SAMMI line!!
@@normanmallory2055 I am familiar with the 30 Herrett, a real nice and fine shooting cartridge. The 6mm TCU I have only read about, still doesn't make since, but then they also let Remington and Winchester basically steal the Lazaroni cartridge line.
@@Bhartrampf Yes the 30 Herrett ctg is ! Took me around a year to make it come together!!
I’ve hunted with it over 6-7 years now and I’ve taken 3 deer !!!
Like the 22/250 ctg and 280 AI Remington it only took the gun company’s 40 years to figure that out and added to their lineup!!
I had months of research before I settled on the 6mm TCU ctg over others !!
In 2008 when the gun haters were elected into office everything on the shelf sold out , brass , bullets , powder , primers and dies !! It was tough for the first couple years !! In fact when I ordered the barrel the only empty brass for sale that was left was Norma and LaPua anywhere! So it is !!
I have no regrets with the 6 TCU it performs excellent and produces 3” groups @300 yards
Great shout out
Love how English firts language speakers pronounce it "manlicker". Great vid, very informative.
I agree, English is my first language, but it is Manlicher, no K in it🤣
I served in Germany, so picked up some stuff 🤣
How about a video on making on the .351WSL cartridge?
Would be good business to produce obsolete ammo like this in limited runs until it starts running out you just keep producing it to maintain economical sense. And have ammunition production lines that are easily modular.
With 3D printing metal getting better and better, we are closer to any person with enough expendable funds to acquire such 3D printing machines to print proper legacy ammo.
Then you would have to make them for different bore sizes also. Your right, it is getting easier, but the number of obsolete cartridges is quite a bit. It would still have to be somewhat standardized. For example, 9x56ms bore size is from .353-3.61 most people use .358 and either swage them down or on the upper end, leave them alone or shoot custom bullets. The neck thickness changes with the bore size as all the chambers are pretty standard. This is just one instance, almost all obsolete cartridges have varying bore sizes. Even some standard ones.
Hey! I still shoot "38/45 ACP" In a 1942 made 1911A1 "Remington Rand" GI Surplus that I milled the slide for a S&W J Frame adj rear sight and I made a ramped front sight with a red insert! I also have a Colt Commercial 38 Super and the 38/45 chronos 102 fps FASTER with 125 gr Hollow Point.
Helped a friend make 32-40 brass from 30-30 cases. He scrounged up some old ammo and I got to shoot my 30-30 for free. Saved some good money so he could spend it on powders to experiment with.
been trying to workout the headache that is 7.62x45mm, that oddball Czech "not-7.62x39mm-round. all the ammo currently that i can find available is corrosive military surplus, i know rcbs makes dies for it but been a dead end trying to find brass save for Buffalo Arms and it's always out of stock
@Adam Halsey Don't even need a lathe. Just chop the case with a cut off grinding wheel, put the case in a cordless drill and use a belt sander to take the diameter of the rim down some.
Brass is readily available for my 338 win mag but i have about 1000 rounds of brass from a 7 mag i had so i just neck it up and it shoots fine i get about 3 reloads out of it before the primer pocket gets to loose so ya
Another one is converting 223/5.56 brass to 300 blackout. Trim the neck off and run it through the blackout die. Lots of utube videos on it.
You guys are great, thank you.
Thank you!