Just bought my first Wildcat

[JG2000]

Well I just bought a 30-284 and would appreciate any info you guys could give me. Do you start with 284 Win brass and fire form it, can you buy preformed? I'm lucky in that the last owner also sold the shop his brass and loading manual so I will have somewhere to start. Is this a good long range round? I'm sure you will have questions I just hope I can answer them.

 

[Ol` Joe]

A "wildcat" cartridge is one that has no commercial support. No brass, SAAMI specs on chamber geometry or cartridge pressures/throating/ect, or in most cases lab tested data.
No factory formed brass is available. You will have to form your brass from either 284 Win (my recommendation) or 6.5x284. You will likely damage alot of brass trying to stretch the mouths of 6.5x284 so I consider it a last ditch choice.
Case volume should be close to a 30-06 case. NOT THE SAME but, similar. Preformance should be similar to the `06 or 308 as both use the same bullets and will produce very close velocities.

 

[JG2000]

Can you recommend a technique for forming brass from 284 win?

 

[fireflyfather]

From what I understand, you load the 284 as normal, fire it in the 30/284 gun, and voila! fireformed brass. Get better advice before you do that, though. That's just my uninformed understanding.

 

[Ol` Joe]

Can you recommend a technique for forming brass from 284 win

Lube the case mouth well with a good lube and run them through the FL .30x284 sizer. There isn`t much difference in size from .284 to .308 and they should open right up. Go slow, turn the case as you work the expander in it and expect to possibly lose a case or two. A tapered expander would help if one is available for your die. The case body and shoulder "should" be the same as the parent case and need no altering.
If your manual has data for the cartridge it should have tips on forming brass.

 

[ADKWOODSMAN]

Ol'Joe is right on the money. When I started forming .358 Win. cases from .308 Win. I had RCBS make me a tapered expander. Only reuined about 2 per 100.

The same happened when I started making .357 Herrett cases from 30-30, that tapered expander worked well.

 

[JG2000]

Great info. I just hope the Lee dies have a nice taper to them, since the price difference between those and RCBS is significant. I guess I got the rifle on the cheap so can't complain about the dies now.

 

[snuffy]

If you can find a Hornady die that will accept the .284 case that's in some sort of 30 cal,(300 ultra mag), the Hornady tapered expander would be a good bet to open the necks. You might even check with Hornady about the possibility of having a custom die made to size 30-284 in one pass. IF they would do it, it certainly wouldn't be cheap.

 

[nicholst55]

I'd be interested in knowing how your Lee dies work out for this application. IIRC, their expanders are well tapered, so that shouldn't be a problem. I'd recommend pulling the decapper/expander out of your sizing die and chucking it in your drill. Polish it with some progressively finer sandpaper, up to about 600 grit. Lube your case necks well (I use Imperial Sizing Die Wax for this), and you should be good to go.

FWIW, Hodgdon lists data for the .30-06 and .30-284 as interchangeable.

 

[JG2000]

I'll order the dies this week and give a report on how they work out. I'm also going to try the sizing wax since I hear so much about it. I've stuck a case when using the correct brass and die so lube will be important.

 

[JG2000]

The Lee has plenty of taper so I just used a lot of sizing wax and had no problems. I used 168gr A-Max and 49.0gr of Varget. One ragged hole at 100 yards. It also does a number on ground squirrels Just thought I would give an update in case anyone was wondering.

 

[FieroCDSP]

Sweeeet