I have a supply of .308 Federal brass that I got after my stepdad passed away and was wondering about using it in my 7mm-08 Encore. I have cleaned, full length resized and deprimed the brass, necked sized to 7mm., and seated the new primers. I plan on loading the first time with Varget and a 140 grain bullet seated into the rifling. Is there anything I have forgotten to do? I don't need to do this in order to shoot, I just wanted to play with it to see how things turned out since .308 brass is very plentiful.

Check your case length. Also try a fit check first with unloaded case.
Bill

Your necks will be just a bit thicker than they started out, but this usually is better rather than worse since most chambers are somewhat oversized in the neck area. In all likelihood, you can load and shoot your reworked brass just like it is, after checking LOA and neck thickness. As the previous poster says, check to see that the resized brass will enter the chamber before you load up a bunch.

After the first firing you'll be able to neck size the cases to fit your chamber. That should give you beter accuracy, but do check the overall length of the cases. I'm not sure that the length is supposed to be the same for both calibers. There's probably a slight difference as is true with the .243Win. also based on the .308 Case. The 7mm/08 is quite the accurate round as are most of the calibers based on this case. Certainly it's proven true with the .260Rem. Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal

I resize .308 regularly to 7mm-08. I have not had any problems, length and necks have been fine, but brass lots do very so it's wise to check.

Scout Master 54

I necked some nickle REM cse down and had to turn the necks down to get them into my bulletseater (Redding) Never tried the Rifle first - turned them to 0.013" They looked pretty neat but I would stay away from nickle brass as I have read it damages the bullet on exit due to to much friction...

Stonecreek said:

quote:

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Your necks will be just a bit thicker than they started out, but this usually is better rather than worse since most chambers are somewhat oversized in the neck area. In all likelihood, you can load and shoot your reworked brass just like it is, after checking LOA and neck thickness. As the previous poster says, check to see that the resized brass will enter the chamber before you load up a bunch.

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Some people have had seious pressure spikes when using .308 cases necked to .243" without neck turning. The necks ended up too thick. Since the step down to .284 from .308 is a lot less reduction, it might be O.K. without turning the necks. PAY PARTICULAR ATTENTION TO HOW EASILY THE LOADED ROUNDS ENTER THE CHAMBER!! Any chambering ditticulties would make me suspect the necks of the loaded rounds might be too big around! After you fire a couple of them, check to see if a bullet drops easily into the fired, unsized case mouth. If a bullet enters easily, then everything is O.K.

Thanks for the replies, I checked the one round before and after reloading and it had no neck rub (that I could tell anyway). I will use it as my control and check all the necks on all of my rounds against it. Like I said, I don't need to do this, I'm just doing it for something to kill a little time.

Dennis, if you don't have to, don't use 308 brass for you 7mm-08 . Watch out for the donut.

Dennis, Besides the Varget, try RE15, works great in my rifle, and is the from what I've seen is the "best" powder for 139-150gr. bullets in the 708. Jay

I use Reloader 19 and MY!!! 22" mtn rifle flings a Hornady 139BTSP @ 2865fps
52.0gr's Rem 9 1/2 Rem case.
Load is compacted but very uniform and is a little hot but nothing to fret about...
.750" +/- for 3 rounds then thigs start to fly everywhere but still stays at 1.5" and it will do this all day even when you can't touch the bbl.
I should say DID!!! It's at Hollands having a new personality installed ( I only overheated the bbl when I had already made the comitment to redo the gun!! couldn't let good rifling goto waste!!!) This comb killed deer way better than it ever should have!!!!!
Enjoy the round as it is a dandy and I'm playin with a vls in 7-08 I have now and we will see what kind of damage this thing can do besides to my pocket book..
Have fun!

243winxb

Maybe I should know this, but what is the donut? Why not neck down .308's if I don't need to? Just asking, maybe you have a horror story from doing this or know of one? I have been careful my reloads (after my young and stupid days that is, which I amazingly survived).

I sort of see what this donut talk is, but the way I see it, brass cases for reloading are not liquid and do not flow like some of you are talking about!
When I first got my 7mm-08 (M-788, 1980), I took some Military LC-74 brass and just sized them with the 7mm-08 die and loaded them! Then when the regular brass started getting to be a little more available, I switched to the 7mm-08 brass. I never had a problem with either brass for reloading!
Sometimes we do things that are not to smart, even though we never know about it until a point in time in the future, then we think I must have been lucky!
Was I lucky? Maybe!

243winxb,

I will be on the lookout for the donut now that I know what it is. Thanks for the heads-up, I'm always looking for ways to make sure that my loads don't kill more than the animal I am aiming at .

Dennis

If you find that you have a doughnut K&m makes a tool to remove it while you are turning necks. I use 243 cases to make 22/250 cases to get thicker necks that I turn down to fit my barrel. I have a SAMMI chamber and this way I can have my necks .002 under the camber diameter for better accuracy.
Temaque

An easy way to get rid of the Donut that '243' describes is to turn you resizing die down a little farther. It appears when I resize 308 down to 260 Remington. It chambers with some resistance.

However if I turn my die down just another quarter a turn or so, then it is gone. Therefore it must be caused by not COMPLETELY resizing the case to the smaller caliber.

For my 260 Remingtons, I use Winchester 7/08 and 308 brass almost exclusively.