I have reformed some 308 brass to 7mm-08 without a lot of trouble. I made up some dummy rounds and they seem to feed OK. Anything I am missing here, that I need to be aware of before I load some up?

I loaded up some 175 grain Hornaday's for the 7mm-08, used federal 7mm-08 brass, and used CCI benchrest primers. I used 42 grains of H4350, and hand weighed each charge. No real problems at the range. Didn't see any high pressure signs. I shot them in my Model 70 compact with a 20" barrel. The results were an average velocity of 2349 fps, and 29.5 SD. This is higher than I expected. Planning to use them for short range hog ammo. Does this load seem withing reason?

Mike,

I love the 260 Remington, but prefer Winchester brass over Remington. So instead of necking up 243 brass to 260, I neck down Winchester 7/08 and 308 for use in my 260s.

Just neck down in a full length die set first time and it is just fine.

I think you only start to get problems with neck thickness when you do things like neck 308 down to 243 or so.

Good luck with it
cheers and good shooting
seafire

Sounds like some good hawg medicine to me. I've never shot any 175gr bullets in my 7-08 but I can swear that 140-150gr bullets work wonderfully well in one.

Thanks guys. I was a little worried about the thickness, but will proceed and load some up. Maybe drop it a grain or two.

I shot all of the 20 175 grain reloads over the cronograph to get a good distribution. Probably stick with the 42 grains of H4350. I'll get an idea of what kind of groups to expect next time. The last batch was not crimped, but I think I will order a lee factory crimp die and use that, and see it I get a lower SD. At 50 yards or so I don't need a lot of accuracy.

I'll report back when I get a chance.

Thanks Again.

Mike,

My wife has the same set up and I don't think I even have a single round of factory headstamped 7mm-08. I used nothing but GI Match or Federal 168 gr Match rounds and necked them down. I checked neck thickness each and every time she fires them and to date none have REALLY needed any neck reaming. I agree that your probably fine.

FN in MT

Just be sure to keep track of case length and trim as and if required. I don't have any brass headstamped 7/08 either for my two 7/08 barrels...all are made from .308 brass and so far no problems.

AC

Last week I picked up 100 new .308 cases from the same lot for use in my 7-08AI. I weigh and measure all new cases from a batch. Some are culled, and the rest are segregated into groups. After sorting, about the only thing I do is uniform the primer pockets and verify case length (never an issue, since the .308 is shorter than the 7-08) before sizing and loading. Whether or not neck thickness is an issue depends on your chamber. It's not an issue for me, especially since I neck turn the .308 cases after running the new cases through a .308 full length resizing die. I turn to within .001" of concentric before necking down and fireforming. My final neck turn is done after I clean the inside and outside of the case necks after fireforming. Then it's into the tumbler, then decap, trim and chamfer, flash hole deburr, anneal, neck sizing about 2/3 of the neck, and I'm ready to reload. The only thing I have to look for is the infamous doughnut, which is why I neck turn the .308s all the way down to the shoulder.