I bought some .300 Blackout brass made from recycled military .223 a while back. The necks were so hard that their springback after resizing left them too loose to hold the bullets!

So, I thought I'd try making some of my own and stumbled on a very successful method. This was using some once-fired range brass headstamped "Winchester .223 Rem":

First, I simply used a bench grinder to grind the neck and shoulder off of the .223 down to where the body meets the shoulder. Then I deburred the new mouth of the now cylindrical case.

With a light lube they easily slicked right through the .300 Blackout FL die.

Next, into the Wilson case trimmer to trim to correct length, after which they need degreasing and another deburring, then the case is ready for loading.

I didn't lose a single case in this process and upon test firing they show no signs of splits or cracks.

It is possible that the heat generated by grinding the neck/shoulder off results in a somewhat annealed upper body (you have to hold the case in heavy gloves to do the grinding.) Whether this is the case or not, the newly reformed brass seems to perform just fine.

I also reformed a handful of ball-type bulk brass from Federal headstamped "FC 16 .223" I believe. Except for having to ream the crimped primer pockets it seemed to work as well as the WW brass.

Military brass is harder and thicker; it should have been annealed in the conversion process to 300.

quote:

Originally posted by dpcd:
Military brass is harder and thicker; it should have been annealed in the conversion process to 300.

Right. The commercial brass distributor who reformed the military brass apparently paid no attention to its ductility.

Just for grins I'm going to try my reforming method on some military brass to see if the "grinder annealing" improves its ductility.

I just use 221 fireball brass. Expand the neck to .30 caliber and done. .300 Whisper works perfectly well in .300 BO chambered barrels.

quote:

Originally posted by M16:
I just use 221 fireball brass. Expand the neck to .30 caliber and done. .300 Whisper works perfectly well in .300 BO chambered barrels.

I save all of the .221 brass I can get my hands on for my two Fireballs and my Vartarg. The .223 stuff is cheap (free, in this case) and abundant.