Only a week or two away from the arrival of my finished 338-06AI! Thought I'd prepare some rounds in anticipation with the Redding dies I just received. I was wondering though, what brass do you prefer to make 338-06 brass out of? 270? 30-06? 25-06? Does it even matter?

Just curious... (damn this is gonna be fun!!! )

Waldog,

While you can readily form the brass by simply necking up any of the .30-06 family of cartridges, the easiest I have found is to neck down .35 Whelen brass since it is the closest in neck size to the .338-06.

You'll enjoy the cartridge, it's a good one. I use a plain .338-06 and I assume that the AI version will be equally pleasing.

russ

WALDOG,
Another nice thing about using .35 Whelen brass is that the step down will give you a very nice shoulder to hold the case during fire forming. Good luck.

Another vote for using .35 Whelen brass to form .338-06 cases. Works great.

I agree that .35 Whelen would be the best, but if you want to start with .30-06, I'd advise first expanding up to .35 then necking back down to .338 to achieve the proper headspace. Also, new brass will likely work best

I have used both .30-06 & .35Wh. brass. Either works fine. I would think you would lose more cases going up from a .270 or .25-06? I'll have to try making some from .280 brass just to see what happens. I would use new brass & if you go .30-06, load a light load w/ the bullet pushed into the lands a bit for headspace. Welcome to the .338-06 (AI) club!