As I was sitting at work i got thinking, yes a dangrous and expensive propistion, that since I now have 2 .30-06's I should try and do something interesting with one of them. So after pondering this question I came to the solution that I could use a 6.5-06, being that I have Gobs of 06 brass lieing around waiting to be put to a good use.
This brings up the newbie question. How does one go about converting .30-06 brass to 6.5-06 brass? Can you just take the .30 cal brass and stick it in a 6.5-06 die or do I need an intermediate step?
And as i was looking at 6.5-06 die set most where labled 6.5-06 A-Square and one was labled 6.5-06 springfield. is one better for wildcatting purposes? or does it not matter so much as long as I get the chamber cut to match, or probly more correctly get the dies that match the chamber?
thanks

I've taken 30-06 brass to 25-06 without a step.

Dedending on the chamber dies etc you might need to reamer or turn the necks to reduce thickness.

As Oddballs says it is easier to neck up.

I think the 6.5-06Springfield and 6.5-06A square are the same. Maybe someone knows for sure.

I like the way you think. It is much easier to form 25-06 into 6.5-06. Just run them through the fl die.

Your going to need a new barrel.

Those 6.5 bullets seem to rattle around a bit when shot through a .30 cal barrel.

So thats what I've been doing wrong. thanks that explains so much So it sounds relativly straight forward. but easier to go from small to large, makes sense. Its a shame I dont have large quanties of 25-06 brass lying about. But we work with what we have. So take it slow and be careful and it should work all right.

quote:

Its a shame I dont have large quanties of 25-06 brass lying about

Since you have two 30-06 chambered rifles now. If it were me I would use 25-06 brass just so the headstamp would be different. I would also not start with fired brass from anouther rifle. It's a new custom rifle give it new brass of it's own. You can pick up 100 win 25-06 brass for $30. They should last you for years.

I did the same conversion you are considering, although I built a pair of rifles at the same time (a .280 Rem for metallic silhouette and a 6.5-'06 for hunting).

I will always have an '06, so I reserved the '06 brass.

I bought a case of WW .25-'06 brass, and I just neck that up. It works fine.

jim

I suppose that would be a good idea. Makes sense to keep all that stuff seperated somehow. thanks for the tip.