Necking down cases

[Peter Colman]

Hi All
I am after advice on necking down cases, I am about to buy a 25-06 which is the same case as a 270 or 30-06 with a smaller neck, I have lots of cases in these other sizes and want to neck them down to 25-06.
My questions are - have any of you done this or similar and what problems did you have and should I anneal the case necks first.
I do know that I will have to check case length after.
Thanks
Peter

 

[Brithunter]

Although I have not bothered in doing this for the 25-06 I have made cases for the 6.5x53R from 303 cases.

Now I seem to recall reading that you need to check the neck thickness after necking down .270's as you might get trouble with them being too thick and not releasing the bullet properly.

I did think of doing the same when I got the 25-06 as I also have a supply of 270 brass but I decided the risk of a mix up was not worth the hassle. R.P. 25-06 brass is £45 per hundred and I know where there is at least 1000 of them in stock. Guess where I will be getting mine from but for now I brought a couple of boxes of factory ammo to try the rifle out and have been using those for handloading.


Right as I have the 25-06 dies out I went outside ............... damn it's cold out there and sized a Sako .270 case down to 25-06 and it was surprisingly easy so perhaps the annealing is not required and yes the neck is thicker by 0.0015" but the case needs some serious trimming as it's now 2.540" so that's 0.055" to trim off.

I tried it in my rifle but it won't chamber but I am not going to reset the die just to try this further and it might be the overlong case causing the problem. All in all I don't think it's worth the hassle. But there you go that's your descision to make hope that helps.

 

[Ronin]

I use 25-06 extensively for stalking - I buy RP brass, its cheap and reasonable quality for its purpose.

Re necking down;

I also shoot in F Class, using a 7mm/300 WSM - I neck down 300 WSM RUAG brass to 7mm neck using home turned bushings that fit in Redding S Dies.

I dont have any problems going from .300 to .284.

I thing that you wouldnt have issues with 270 down to 257 BUT you may encounter neck wall thickening if you re-sized 30-06 brass down to 257"

The problems are not insurmountable - buy an internal reamer of the right size (.257") and trim or outside beck turn and swage back up with a K+M mandrel.


Personaly, I would buy new brass rather than go to the trouble and time of making new from old....

 

[stag1933]

The cheapest and most efficient answer would be to get a .30-06 or a .270 rifle and use your own brass !
The .25-06 will not do anything better than either of the other pair and as far as the .30-06 is concerned availability of different bullet types is supreme .

HWH.