Forming 30-06 brass from 270

harrygrey382

Well-Known Member
This may make a few people wonder why, but I have my reasons. Namely Lee has offered to give me a few once fired 270 brass. I need to 30-06 brass to start me off and money is real tight as I'm going for the rifle, dies and bullets all off the sale of my 22WMR. I can't afford to plump for brass right now, so it's the 270 or no shooting for a while.

SO. I want to form 30-06 from 270 with a 30-06 FL sizer. I know they are very similar. Is the shoulder on a 270 at least as far forward as on a 30-06? Can I do this safely in other words? I know I may end up with thinner necks but even if I get only 2 or 3 reloads that's fine. I will anneal first.

Anyone else any experience of this?
 
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This may make a few people wonder why, but I have my reasons. Namely Lee has offered to give me a few once fired 270 brass. I need to 30-06 brass to start me off and money is real tight as I'm going for the rifle, dies and bullets all off the sale of my 22WMR. I can't afford to plump for brass right now, so it's the 270 or no shooting for a while.

SO. I want to form 30-06 from 270 with a 30-06 FL sizer. I know they are very similar. Is the shoulder on a 270 at least as far forward as on a 30-06? Can I do this safely in other words? I know I may end up with thinner necks but even if I get only 2 or 3 reloads that's fine. I will anneal first.

Anyone else any experience of this?


Yes and I experienced No problems.

Did it when I first rebarreled a rifle from .270 to .30-06

Winchester and Remington but mostly Norma brass.

It's a simple and safe trick to full length resize .270 to .30-06. Then length trim and go. Personally, I started with 10% reduced loads but probably didn't really need to.

As aside comments, necking up initially leaves a marginally thinner neck wall with this conversion, no bad thing and safer than a neck down where you might have to turn the necks to avoid problems with over thickness and... I used Lyman 'M' dies from the outset, to give consistent neck tension and those dies also flare the case mouths slightly, for accurate, consistent trouble free bullet seating. Not that I'm saying you need to use 'M' dies, you don't.
 
Here's another that has used .270 cases in my 30-06.
All I did was neck size them, reload them and then use them, no problems at all.
 
Thanks Tamus. Did you find brass life any different to using proper headstamp cases?

Not so far... after upto 11 reloads on reformed brass.

Incidentally, it may be just my luck/rifle but, the reformed Norma brass gives the best groups of all my .30-06 brass.
 
The shoulder angle is a little different in the 270 (more tapered) but perhaps not enough to worry about when reforming. Standard practice is to neck to a slightly larger diameter than desired, then neck down to 30 cal progressively, until the bolt just closes on the resized case. In any event, seating the bullets to touch the lands on the first firing will support the case against the bolt face during the fire-forming and prevent undesired stretching. ~Muir
 
The shoulder angle is a little different in the 270 (more tapered) but perhaps not enough to worry about when reforming.~Muir

Not sure what you mean Andy... both cartridges (.270 win and .30-06 Springfield) quoted as having same shoulder angle in all my books, 17 degrees 30 minutes.
 
Harry,

I have some once fired 30-06 brass you can have to save you the trouble. Just checked there is three boxes of once fired Bremmer Arms M2 brass that was fired through a 03 Springfield.

I also have some American GI brass I can let you have some of..

Just let me know if it would help ;)
 
Might be worth annealing the necks before you do it.

I was going to consider doing something similar but to go from a '06 to 7x64. But that is probably a bit more extreme.

In the end I decided that the head stamp would irritate me :D
 
Harry,

I have some once fired 30-06 brass you can have to save you the trouble. Just checked there is three boxes of once fired Bremmer Arms M2 brass that was fired through a 03 Springfield.

I also have some American GI brass I can let you have some of..

Just let me know if it would help ;)
PM'd...
Might be worth annealing the necks before you do it.

I was going to consider doing something similar but to go from a '06 to 7x64. But that is probably a bit more extreme.

In the end I decided that the head stamp would irritate me :D
Yep I'd be annealing it. Almost finished my annealing turntable!
 
Not sure what you mean Andy... both cartridges (.270 win and .30-06 Springfield) quoted as having same shoulder angle in all my books, 17 degrees 30 minutes.

I was going by Donnelly's "The Handloaders Manual of Cartridge Conversions" which lists the 270 as having a "17.73 degree per side" shoulder angle, to the 30-06 with it's "17.47 degree per side" angle. I don't know who's right but Donnelly's book is held in high regard for it's technical aspects.~Muir
 
just out of interest what made you change?


Some tea and cake from Geoff Kolbe's mum (may she rest in peace) and a long conversation with the man himself... Which not so much "made" me change as convinced me that I might benefit from the change. I'm very glad to have had that tea and cake.

ps. I arrived at Riccarton Farm with a two year old Sako finnbear whose barrel was flaking off lumps of rifling after only 300 (odd) rounds and I struggled to hold a four inch group with. At a later date, :D I left with a Border stainless barrel on my rifle; that has now fired over 2,000 rounds and still looks pristine and can (on a good day) hold .3 moa groups.
 
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