Sustainability

That's the word we're supposed to worship now, right?  Well, here's some sustainability in action.

A couple of the 30-06 cases that I annealed had cracks in their necks.  I annealed them anyway because the 30-06 is the parent for a lot of shorter cases.  Ok, I know the 8mm Mauser came out in 1888.   Its the Grandfather then.

So, to sort of proof test the annealing and prove a point, I decided to take the 30-06 cases that had split necks and salvage them by turning them into something shorter.  What better to prove a point with than the original short magnum, the 300 Savage?  Its shorter than a 308 Winchester and has more body taper so if a full length case made of thick military brass is going to crumple being reformed it ought to crumple being made into a 300 Savage.

The procedure is simple. Take the annealed 30-06 case, lube it, paying attention to the inside of the neck, and run it into the 300 Savage sizing die.

What comes out looks like the case in the middle.  On the left is a 30-06.  Center is an identical case as it comes out of the 300 Savage sizing die and on the right is another one like the center one in my secret case forming tool.  Its one of those cheap, plastic mini-tubing cutters that you can get at any auto parts store.  I used a round file to bevel one side just enough to position the case neck under the cutting wheel and leave the neck a tad long so I can finish trimming it with a case trimmer.

Above is what the case looks like after its cut to rough length.

And finally: the parent case, sized but not trimmed case and "new" 300 Savage case along with the highly technical tools needed for this kind of case forming.

Honestly, I'm sure that the little Savage case is going to need its neck reamed.  The new neck is made from the original case wall and its a lot thicker than a neck should be.   My point here wasn't to finish the Savage case.  It was to show how much an annealed case can be squeezed down without crumpling it and, in so doing, suggest that there might be another alternative besides taking pliers and crushing the cases with split necks.  

I'm not entirely pleased with the neck reaming setup that I have so I'm not going to fool with that until I get a new one.  Also, I suspect that forming something like a .358 Winchester or .338 Federal would be easier.   I saved the split neck cases from last week for that experiment.  That will give me something to write about during the week.

Gonna post this without proof reading.  Lightening storm headed this way.