Reloading for Long Range Survival Rifle and Pistol
Cartridge Cases
Written by Douglas P. Bell
Guns are not going to disappear in this country. The government may outlaw the ownership of firearms, but there are enough guns out there that any attempt to remove them would fail. A good book on this is the “Turner Diaries”, put out by the National Alliance (POB 3535, Washington, DC 20007), which is a right wing group you may or may not agree with, but the book does show what the anti-gunners are leading up to, and how ineffective gun control is and would be.
In any case, a well equipped machine shop would be able to turn out almost any type of weapon you could want, from a simple single shot to a copy of the M-2 .50 caliber fully automatic Browning Machine gun. Zip guns are made by almost every child that can walk and chew gum at the same time, so if you want a gun, you can get one without much trouble.
Firearms can be manufactured in the home workshop in a variety of ways, such as the zip gun. Firearms will not disappear in America.
The same can be said of the “Ban the Bullet” group of laws, doomed from the start. There are any number of bullet making presses out there, and most “0” frame presses can make small caliber (.22 and .243/6mm) rifle bullets, and at least some pistol bullets without modification. If this were not enough, there are untold numbers of bullet casters, as well as people who turn out bullets on lathes, looking for that one hole group.
The only real threat to gun ownership in this country is a ban (or tax) on ammunition. Various groups have been working to ban (or tax) ammunition for quite a few years, and if they do get their perverted laws passed, it may well be the end of shooting as we know it. One anti-gunner in CONgress said there was a 200 year supply of handguns in this country, but only a seven year supply of ammunition. He went on to say that if they could get one anti-ammunition law passed, the so called “armor piercing” ammunition ban, why not a second?
The only real threat to gun owners is in banning the manufacture of cartridges or ammunition. Cases from left to right are: 7mm Remington Magnum, .30-06, .308, .30-40 Krag, .444 Marlin, .32 Winchester Special, .300 Savage, .243 Winchester, .223 Remington/5.56 NATO, .45 Long Colt, .45 ACP.
The cartridge case, (often simply referred to as “brass”), is the only part of the set-up that can’t be made at home, or easily made at a machine shop. Even the cases that can be made at a machine shop, and some can, would be expensive to make and wouldn’t last long, especially with high pressure loads.
So the cartridge case is the most useful, yet hardest part to make. You could of course just go back to using muzzle loaders, which are both easy to make and use, but muzzle loaders are inferior to cartridge guns of the same size and caliber. While the muzzle loader does away with the cartridge case, you still need powder, bullets and primers, (flint locks use flints instead of caps of course, but then they are even slower than cap locks to use), with your muzzle loader, the same as with your cartridge gun. So cartridge cases, in the form of loaded ammunition preferably, are the things a thinking survivalist should stock up on, along with food, clothes, and other tools and goods needed to live and rebuild.
Cartridge cases have a “head size”, that is a basic size base that several cartridges use, or have in common. This is known in this country as the .38 Special, .223, .30-30, .30-06, belted magnum and .45-70 basic head sizes. These head sizes should give you most of the head sizes needed to make most cartridges you will run into in this country and quite a few world wide. However in some cases the finished case may be a little short, such as the .45-70 in the .45-90, or slightly too small in diameter, such as the .30-06 in the 7.7 Jap, but they will still work.
The following cases can be made from the .30-06 by necking up, down, or shortening: .22-250 Remington, .243 Winchester, 6mm/.243 Rem., .250-3000 Savage, .257 Roberts, .25-06 Rem., 6.5 Swedish, 6.5 Mauser, .270 Win., 7mm-08 Rem., 7x57 Mauser, .280/7mm Express Rem., .300 Savage, .308 Win., 7.65 Mauser, 8x57 Mauser, .358 Win., and some pistol cases such as the .45 ACP and .45 Win. Mag. Actually the extractor cut out on the .30-06 case should be opened up slightly to the .308 Win, for use in the .45 ACP/Mag though, so the cases don’t break the pistol extractors.
Other cases that can be made from the .30-06, such as the 7.7 Japanese, are actually too large in diameter to be optimum and as the .30-06 is smaller in the base and body, it will swell in the chamber when fired. This isn’t a big problem, but you shouldn’t try to load up maximum pressure loads in the .30-06 case when it is to be fired in the 7.7 Jap. Other cartridge cases that can be made, but are generally not worth the time and trouble include the .220 Swift, 6mm Lee Navy, 7.62x39 Russian, and .35 Remington among others.
The .30-06 is also used to make several wildcat (non-factory) cartridges such as the 8mm-06. .338-06, .35 Whelen (brought out in 1989 by Remington as a factory load now, there are still plenty of custom made rifles that don’t chamber the factory ammo), and the .400 Whelen. In handguns there is the Auto-Mag line of cartridges also, but these are best made from .308 brass due to the larger extractor cut on the factory .308 brass. This is another cartridge that was a wildcat, made commercially for a short time and is now a wildcat again.
The .30-30 head size is used mainly for old smokeless powder loads such as the .219 Zipper, .22 Savage Hi-Power, .25-35 Winchester, .25-36 Marlin. .32 Winchester Special, and .38-55 Winchester. With the rim turned down, it can be used for quite a few different revolver cases as well.
The .45-70 is another old timer that can be used to make some old time cases that are no longer available. It can be made into the 8x56 Hungarian Mannlicher, .33 Winchester, .40-65 Winchester, .45-85 Win., .45-90 Win., 11.15x60R Mauser (.43 Mauser), and 11.7x51R Danish Remington as well. As was mentioned, in some cases the .45-70 case length might be slightly shorter than the recommended length, but they will work.
The belted magnum case, such as the .375 Holland & Holland Magnum and .300 Holland & Holland Magnum can be made in to such cases as the .244 H&H Mag, .257 Weatherby Mag, 6.5 Remington Mag. .264 Winchester Mag. .270 Weatherby Mag, .275 H&H Mag, 7x6lmm Sharpe and Hart, 7mm Rem Mag, 7mm Weatherby Mag, .300 H&H Mag, .300 Win. Mag, .308 Norma Mag, .300 Weatherby Mag, and 8mm Remington Mag. They can also be used to make the .338 Win. Mag, .340 Weatherby Mag, .350 Remington Mag, .35 Ackley Magnum, .358 Norma Magnum, .375 H&H Magnum, .375 Weatherby Magnum, .416 Remington Magnum, .458x1 1/2” Barnes (an experimental military round), .458x22” American and the .458 Winchester Magnum as well.
Not to left out, the .223 Remington (5.56x45mm NATO), can be used to make several other rifle and pistol cases as well. The .17 Remington, .221 Remington Fireball, .222 Remington. .222 Rem. Mag, and even some auto pistol cases such as the .380 ACP. Although slightly undersized, the rifle brass is quite strong enough to handle the .30 Luger, .30 Mauser, 9mm Luger, .38 ACP, .38 Super and 9mm Win Mag. This case can even be made into the .30 Ml Carbine case, though the base of the .30 Ml Carbine is of a slightly different size.
Last but not least, the .38 Special is probably the most popular centerfire cartridge in this country, and it has it’s share of cartridges it can be used in or reformed to. Both the .357 Magnum and the .357 Maximum are just lengthened and souped up .38 Special. In fact, the .38 Special can be used in either of those chamberings, and the .357 Magnum can be fired in the .357 Maximum as well. DO NOT fire either a .357 Magnum or 357 Maximum in a .38 Special even if you can get them to fit in the gun! The two magnum cartridges are loaded to much higher pressures (about twice the working pressure of the .38 Special) and it might well blow the gun up!
The .38 Special, while a little short for some of these cartridges, can be used in, or reformed to the following cartridges; .22 Remington Jet, .256 Winchester Magnum, (the .22 Jet arid .256 Mag are actually the .357 Magnum necked down), .38 S&W/Colt New Police (same case, different bullet shape), .38 Long Colt, .38 Long Center Fire, .357 Magnum, and .357 Maximum.
By turning off the case rim and cutting a new extractor groove, it can be made into the .38 ACP/.38 Super (although the cases are the same, the .38 Super has twice the working pressure of the .38 ACP), 7.62 Tokarev/.30 Mauser, 8mm Japanese Nambu and 9mm Luger. Although the rim is .030” to big and the bullet .006 over size, it has been claimed the .38 Special will fire in the .351 Winchester (1907 Model) Self Loading Rifle, although I have not tried this personally.
So with a .30-06 or .308 heavy battle/hunting rifle, and a .223 light assault/small game rifle, and a .45 ACP pistol fitted with a 9mm/.38 Super slide and barrel, you can either feed your guns from the same brass or reload for several different cartridges. When the brass eventually wears out the smaller cases can even be made into bullets, so nothing is wasted.
The way a case wears out is it splits a neck, has a head separation or the primer pocket gets loose. High pressure will cause all these things, but may not be the only cause. The cracked neck can be caused by over working the the brass when reforming or work hardening the brass when resizing. The head separation can be caused by the shoulder of the case being set too far back when resizing, and loose primers can be caused by reaming the primer pocket to remove a military crimp or when cleaning. If you split a neck on a case, you can cut the case back so that the crack is removed and the case can be reformed to a shorter cartridge, such as the .30-06 to .308 to .45 ACP. Any case that is about to have a head separation, or has a loose primer pocket should be discarded.
If you want to make new cartridges from your old brass, you may need to anneal the case neck, or it may split on forming or firing. To do this put the case in water, standing it upright with the primer removed, so that the water is up to the middle of the case body, and heat with a torch until slightly red. Then tip the case over into the water to cool it. Another way to do this is to dip the case neck into molten lead for a few moments, or until the base gets warm to the touch. A little practice will teach you how long either of these two methods should take, and after that it shouldn’t take you long to anneal several batches of cases.
Another problem you will run into is the case neck will be thicker on your reformed brass than it should be. In this case you will need to inside ream or outside turn the case neck. This is done with a case trimmer (such as the Forster Precision Case Trimmer) with neck reamers or outside neck turning attachments so that there is a .002” to .003” clearance between the case neck and the barrel chamber. If there isn’t, the bullet can’t be released and the gun might be damaged.
Be sure to get the proper size primers for the case you are loading for, as they come in two sizes and two types. Primers (in this country at least) come in small pistol, small rifle, large pistol and large rifle. There are shotgun primers as well, but as we are concerned with metallic case reloading, we won’t discuss them here. The small pistol primer is the same size as the small rifle primer, and the large pistol primer is the same size as the large rifle primer, but the pistol primer is much thinner so it can not take as much pressure as the rifle primer.
Some people feel that one brand of brass is better for reloading than some others, but I’ve found that all good quality cases, if taken care of, will work about as well as any other. If reloaded with care and not loaded to excessive pressures, you should only need to neck size the case, (autos and lever actions may need to have the cases full length resized each time and some revolvers may not be able to use neck sized cases in all the chambers as the cases may be swelled too large for tight chambers), with a full length resizing every four or five shots when the case starts to stick in the chamber. If loaded to mild pressure and neck sized only, full length resizing only when needed and annealing the case neck about every ten shots, the case should last pretty much forever. If you use full power loads or load to higher pressure, you may still want to neck size the case, but will probably need to full length resize more often.
Although berdan primed cases can be reloaded (berdan cases are the ones with the two flash holes, the type used in this country, with the single central flash hole is called a boxer primed case), it generally isn’t worth the trouble, unless these are the only type of cases you have available. To reload a berdan primed case (named after the American Civil War General who invented them, General Berdan, the boxer primed cases are named after the British inventor, Gen. Boxer) you need to use a berdan depriming tool, or you can make one out of an ice pick type tool, cutting a three cornered edge on it to punch through the primer and to pry it out. Another way to deprime berdan primed cases is to put the case in to a reloading die or other close fitting die so the case doesn’t expand, filling the case with water and putting a close fitting rod in the case neck and punching the primer out that way. As water can not be compressed, it will blow out the primer. A third way is to make a tube that will just fit in the case neck, with a hollow tube that fits just over the primer flash holes. Using a primer in the tip of the tube, the explosive power should blow the primer out. Yet another way is to take a rod that will just fit inside the neck of the case and marking where the primer holes are, fit a small punch to the end so the punch will drop in either of the primer holes when turned in the case. Then you can punch the primer out. The rest is the same as reloading any other case.