Homemade dies?

[WestKentucky]

Today I finally got around to putting an old loose random 30-30 sizing die on the chop saw and buzzing it down about a half inch, cleaning up the chop saw burrs on the bench grinder and using a die grinder (oddly enough) to cut a slight chamfer inside of the die body to help feed cases into it. I put the die in the press and ran a handful of heavily lubed range pickup 38 and 357 cases through the die to form a neck down to 30 caliber. Of the 12 or so cases I formed I only had 1 split, and it was a S&W stamped case which had galled streaks all over it like it got ran through a splining machine. So, I guess I have a pretty fair intermediate sizing die for making .256winmag now. I didn’t take a pic of my newly chopped die, but here’s a 38 I ran through it to verify function. It sits really close to proper shoulder height with a haphazard chop.

What have you done to significantly modify or repurpose dies or equipment?

 

[ArchAngelCD]

That looks very good. You will probably need to do some annealing but I'm sure you already know that.

 

[WestKentucky]

The plan at this point is to try it without annealing, but I do expect to have to. I’m hoping that using fresh cases will save me from it.

 

[Ireload2]

I use a .30 Luger die as an intermediate form die for the .256 Win. Mag.

I use 7.35 Carcano FL and 6.5 Carcano trim dies to form .303 Brit to 6.5X53R Dutch Mannlicher.

Use .40-60 Win form dies to form .40-65 Win.

The .38-40 and .44-40 FL make good general use intermediate forming dies.

 

[ReloaderFred]

I make .218 Bee brass from .32-20 by first forming it to .25-20, then through the .218 Bee sizer. Final forming is done by fire forming. I also make .400 Cor-Bon from .45 acp, and 9x25 Dillon from 10mm brass.

Using new brass, with uniform necks, will cut down on your loss rate. Work hardened brass is more prone to wrinkling and cracking than new brass is. I've tried annealing the .32-20 brass prior to sizing to .25-20, but it didn't affect the loss rate of about 10%. Sizing down that much is hard on brass, and when I talked to Hunter Pilant, at Starline about it, he said I was lucky to only be losing about 10% when sizing down that much.

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[WestKentucky]

I was lucky to only be losing about 10% when sizing down that much.

Yeah, today I dug our exactly 100 .357 cases from the scrounge heap. All range pickup, unknown history, assumed to be once fired but some of it showed extreme pressure signs so I doubt those were once fired. 68 cases survived the initial neckdown. That’s 32 percent in the first of two significant neck forming operations. If I get similar results on round 2 then that’s yielding me roughly a 50% failure rate going from 38 caliber down to 25 caliber. I’m not happy with loss rate that high, but it’s a lot better than not having brass. I will rerun my experiment with annealled brass and see where my numbers shake out. I am inclined to try new starline but that’s expensive if I am only getting half of what I run to turn out how I want it to.

 

[ReloaderFred]

Yeah, today I dug our exactly 100 .357 cases from the scrounge heap. All range pickup, unknown history, assumed to be once fired but some of it showed extreme pressure signs so I doubt those were once fired. 68 cases survived the initial neckdown. That’s 32 percent in the first of two significant neck forming operations. If I get similar results on round 2 then that’s yielding me roughly a 50% failure rate going from 38 caliber down to 25 caliber. I’m not happy with loss rate that high, but it’s a lot better than not having brass. I will rerun my experiment with annealled brass and see where my numbers shake out. I am inclined to try new starline but that’s expensive if I am only getting half of what I run to turn out how I want it to.

Try sizing them through the .357 Magnum sizing die first to true the necks up. Any defect at all in the case mouth is going to cause a wrinkle when you size it down. I do this with new .32-20 brass, since Starline bulk packs it in plastic bags and the case mouths get all dinged up in transit, and probably even handling before they get packaged. The slightest defect at the case mouth is going to result in a ruined case.

Hope this helps.

Fred

 

[edwardware]

I've made a -03 body die, to resize the body of any 30-03 based case (.270 in my case) without moving the shoulder. I needed it to solve an M77 with a slightly ovoid chamber.

I use the same die to resize the heads of .308 brass down to .35 Remington spec, with an extended ram in place of a shellholder.

ETA: spelling counts.

 

[bullseye308]

If you can use 38 brass for this, I have quite a few more than I need and would love to trade you for 357 brass at whatever rate you are happy with. And I’m close too.

 

[WestKentucky]

If you can use 38 brass for this, I have quite a few more than I need and would love to trade you for 357 brass at whatever rate you are happy with. And I’m close too.

No, has to be .357 brass to actually use it. I just put 38s through it to prove it out. I wish I could use them but no such luck. I have a bucket of 38 brass that I haven’t even cleaned that I want to put to use, but I don’t see a reason to load 10k 38s when I don’t currently have a sensible 38 to shoot it in. Not fun in my Buntline, and not accurate in my contender.

 

[bullseye308]

Never hurts to ask.

 

[1066]

I made this one from scratch in my home shop;

 

[jmorris]

I have machined some to form 45 ACP shot shells from 308 family brass. run the case through the die to form it (after its cut and trimmed) then the part on the right threads into the form die and pushes the over shot card down while it’s crimped in place.





I have also made replacement inserts for left over Lee powder through dies. So I can drop in my machined sizing insert and make 380 shot shells out of .223 brass.





Takes almost all the hard work out of it when all you have to make is the insert.

 

[1066]

Takes almost all the hard work out of it when all you have to make is the insert.

Agree with that JM - In hindsight it would have been a lot easier to use a Lee universal decapper as the body for my project.