Forming 35 Rem brass to 6.5 Jap

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MrMagumba

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Hello. Some of you may remember me from gunsmithing where I learned how a 6.5 Jap barrel could be put on a Rem 700. Before I do this I'm trying to confirm that I will be able to reload ammo for it. It would be nice if I had the option to shoot both 6.5 Jap brass and reformed 35 Rem brass. Might sound strange at first, but I am concerned that I might not get much life out of 6.5 Jap brass. Norma and PRVI 6.5 Jap brass is undersized relative to the CIP min chamber spec near the base, which may cause too much brass working from shooting and reloading a couple times. (I'm talking about a new CIP spec chamber, not an old Arisaka overchambered war gun- I have one of those also). I think I can use 35 Rem brass to fit a CIP chamber better near the base. I'm sure there are no forming dies in production for this, so I'm wondering what types of reforming operations are possible to get a 35 caliber down to a 26 caliber with a different shoulder angle. I tried necking to 32 caliber then 30 cal in steps making a "wedding cake" shoulder which was working. I didn't have any dies between 30 and 26 cal so I tried to run it through the 6.5 Jap die and it crushed the shoulder. Maybe I should Just size the neck down to 26, which will give me one rear shoulder and one forward shoulder. It might run through the Jap die better and I could fire form if there is still some residual shoulder from the 35 Rem shoulder. I wish I could find a couple more 35 Rem cases to experiment on. I know there is a lot going on here, I have done a lot of measuring and have lots of numbers about chamber sizes etc., but my question is- Does anyone have a suggestion of how to form this brass? Is there a good resource to read on the principles of reforming and how brass flows?
 
Thanks for the book link. If I buy 6.5 Jap brass and it doesn't reload well It will cost more to feed the gun and won't be as much fun since I like to reload. The min CIP chamber is .452 near the base. I don't have much factory ammo around for my guns, but what I do have is 4 to 6 thousandths below min for various modern cartridges. I don't have a problem reloading that stuff and it would be great if the 6.5 Jap brass works. The Norma stuff I have is old and comes in at about .446 and the PRVI at .444 which I just bought. So at 6 to 8 thousandths, I'm not sure how well that will work, especially since I don't know exactly how my chamber will turn out.
I like the 6.5 bullet choices more than 6mm bullets so the 243 is out for this low recoil deer rifle. The lightest (12 year old daughter light) recoil 6.5 seems to be the Jap. But probably the nastalgia of shooting this round is the biggest reason for this choice. If the manufacturers don't start supplying brass pretty soon, none of this will matter. I can't get any 35 Rem, and ironically 6.5 Jap brass is more available than 260 brass which I need for my other "6.5".
 
Away from home right now Mr M.

I've made plenty of 6.5 Japanese from .35s back 'in the good old days'
when you could get .35 Remington brass anywhere.

It (the reformed brass) is a better fit to the chambers on the Japanese produced barrels.
Cases will be short though.

I'll try to get measurements in a few days.

And I do curse the manufacturers for not gearing up for the .35.
In my local Cabela's I walk by bags of new .242 and .300 BO, both of
which are easily formed from other cases, but no .35!

JT
 
JT-AR-MG42-That's encouraging news. I look forward to hearing how you did the forming. Thanks.

243winxb-That is an interesting link. 6.5 Jap from 30-06. I wonder what kind of press that would take to squeeze the base down. I've heard of people swaging brass, but I'm not really sure what that is. It always seems to be in the same sentence as the phrase "pain in the *** " , but for a limited amount of rounds I might be able to try it.
 
Sunray- Yep the 35 is shorter, but given that other people have done it I assume there is enough neck to hold the bullet. Not sure what the dimension will be after all the resizing, but from your pics it looks like it may come in about 50 -60 thou short after resizing. I hope that the Norma stuff works (meaning more than a couple reloads). I'll be trying that first, but it would be nice to know I have the 35 Rem option in my back pocket, in case 35 Rem comes back into production and 6.5 Jap gets dropped. There are more 35 Rem shooters than 6.5 Jap shooters.
 
Hi Jim Watson. Getting a custom reamer is part of phase 3 of this project. I first wanted to figure out what would happen if I bought stuff "off the shelf". Phase 2 was figuring out how my ammo options fit off the shelf reamers. If that doesn't provide satisfactory results I might do what you suggest and get a custom reamer. Pacific tool has a form on their website for ordering one.
mstreddy- I still want to stick with the 6.5 Jap for low recoil and nostalgia. I am still mad I passed on a nice swede years ago
 
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