The brass had been on my reloading table for years and, now that I needed .303 Savage ammo, it was just gone. So I looked and looked and looked some more most of Saturday. The closest I got to it was finding 30-30 brass.
I found piles of 30-30 brass. Piles and piles. It was unreal how much 30-30 brass I turned up. It was ironic because I don't have a 30-30. I could not figure out what the heck I was doing with so much brass for a caliber that I've never owned. Its like those days when you need a 9/16" socket and all you can find are five 1/2" and four 5/8." Maddening.
Along the way I found just enough .303 Savage sign to keep me on the trail. I found a box of Winchester 190 grain factory ammo with three empty cases in my range bag. Then there was the .303 British case I had tried to reform into .303 Savage until it wouldn't go into the die anymore. It looked a enough like a .303 Savage to catch my eye and on the shelf next to the hybrid .303 British/Savage case was my first major discovery.
I sometimes neck cases up or down or reform one case into another and had, several years ago, dabbled in reaming case necks. More than a few times I bid on tubing micrometers without success but it was never that big a deal because my ammo was always accurate enough for hunting. Then, one day last month, a book by a fellow named Zediker showed up in my mail box.
Mr. Zediker insists that case necks just have to be reamed for best accuracy and he made me add "Buy a tubing micrometer" back to my doo-doo to do list. More #!@%! money to spend. That is, until my brass quest brought me to the hybrid case and the RCBS Case Master on the shelf next to it.
I bought the Case Master and some other stuff from a retired gunsmith years ago mainly because it looked like a cool setup and it was priced right. Being used, it didn't come with instructions and I put it on the shelf to collect dust. Putting the hybrid case back on the shelf, my eyes fell on a short, horizontal projection on the Case Master. It looked just like the anvil from a tubing micrometer and it dawned on me that it had to be the Case Master's "anvil" for measuring neck thickness. I downloaded the owner's manual and, sure enough, that's what it is. I don't need a tubing micrometer. I already have a Case Master.
The serendipitous moment over, despair of ever finding the unfired brass settled in and I started looking for my once-fired stuff. I turned up a box of somebody else's reloads that had 10 loaded rounds and five empty cases. I should have about 20 Norma empties and 30 that are loaded with a load that I don't like anymore but I found five and none of them were from the box of 50 that I was looking for. Still, with eight empty cases in hand I decided to load them and sight the new-to-me rifle in with those, the rest of the factory stuff and the other guy's reloads. In setting up the press, I stumbled on a single loaded round of my old, disavowed, .303 Savage recipe. I took it apart and now had four cases with Jamison headstamps, three with Winchester and one each of Grafs and Norma to load.
The air conditioner kept coming on and screwing with my powder scale so I loaded my nine rounds between cycles and that gave me time to ponder the danger of having a few hundred 30-30 cases without actually having a 30-30. You don't get rid of that much brass. You get a rifle for it! Getting a rifle for it means more #!@%! money to spend.
With my ammo loaded, I could already hear a 30-30 calling. After a while, the voice started to sound familiar. It finally dawned on me that I do so have a 30-30. Its not just any old 30-30 either. In the back of the safe, I have a Savage 99 30-30 takedown just like the Mad Trapper of Rat River.
Like ol' Ponce, I didn't find what I was looking for. Unlike ol' Ponce, I actually found stuff. I don't have to buy a tubing micrometer and I don't have to buy a 30-30 so I saved a pile of money. I didn't get killed by Injuns either. Maybe they'll name a County after me too.
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