An old shooting friend asked me to reload a few hundred LC M118 once-fired brass to prepare practice loads for his grandson who is just being introduced to high-power shooting.
The brass cases were first deprimed and the headspacing measured, which ranged anywhere from +1 to +10 on both my RCBS Precision Mic AND Whidden gauge for verification.
In mentioning this finding to my friend, he acknowledged half of the brass cases had been fired through a German FN-FAL rebuild, so the chamber was 'probably over-sized' (read as 'machine-gun').
Reviewing my reloading references, I came across reloaders who faced similar dilemmas when attempting to reload surplus military brass fired through full-auto weapons.
The recommendation was to first run the brass thru a .30-06 small base sizer die before running the brass cases through a .308 small base sizer die and then remeasuring the headspacing on each.
If further resizing was required, the suggestion was to sort the brass by the 'degree out-of-spec' and resize a third time using the appropriate Redding competition shell holder to bring the brass down to SAAMI specs.
Anyone have any past experiences with this type of situation?
rustymusket

Sounds like you are going to a lot of trouble for no gain!

Full length sizing them and shoot them.

Then they will all have the same headspace!

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
Sounds like you are going to a lot of trouble for no gain!

Full length sizing them and shoot them.

Then they will all have the same headspace!

+1

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
Sounds like you are going to a lot of trouble for no gain!

Full length sizing them and shoot them.

Then they will all have the same headspace!

+2

First, the FN-Fal is not a machine gun. I have at least 4 of them and the chambers are not that big.
Second, DO NOT size a 308 in a 30-06 die. That will make things worse, not better.
Thirdly, forget about gauges; your chamber is the gauge. Tolerances are very generous between chambers and ammo.
And it is true that GI brass is thicker, and harder than commercial, so may not get sized enough to chamber in another rifle. That is the usual problem; and small base dies do not help as the issue is length, not girth.
Did you try it? Will it chamber in your rifle? That is the gauge.
Bottom line, do what they said above; resize, shoot, repeat.