There has been occasional talk about using 375 Win brass for any of the cartridges based on the 30-30 case. Well, I recently began to worry about the performance of my 25-35 Ingram Improved Contender carbine which is based on the 30-30. What is an Ingram Improved? Well, visualize a 7-30 Waters necked to 25 caliber and with a 30 degree shoulder and you have it. I've spoken of it several times on this forum, and really like it. Its nearest cousin is the 250 Savage except it hold about 3-4 grains less powder than the Savage.

My concern began with my noticing that every time I shot the carbine the brass (made from 30-30 Win) grew about .005" to .007". Well, to do that it must be flexing the frame a fairly significant amount. This worried me so I decided to try the 375 Win brass as it is quite a bit heavier and probably would give more support for the heavier loads without putting so much pressure on the frame.

I ordered 100 pieces and to my surprise they sent a bag with 110 pieces which was great for me as I lost 3 pieces while forming these wildcat cases.

The forming process did require a little experimenting and that is the reason for posting this note about it.

I borrowed a 7 mm Int #1 Form die and that is what made it work well. I used that die for the first step and followed with the 25-35 Improved die. It is necessary to make sure you press the case far enough into the first die so as to have the shoulder already in the right place when you go into the next die. If you don't get it far enough into that first die, the second one will collapse the shoulder. Actually, I was able to neck the 375 case all the way down to 25 caliber with only minor trouble. I did both steps without annealing, but to anneal would have saved two cases. On the first step one case developed a fold and was ruined. On the second step two cases developed a fold in the neck and were ruined. Because of coming all the way from 375 to 25 caliber, the necks were .013" thick. This was just a little too thick for the Ingram, so I then had to turn the necks and it was good to do that because they were not the same thickness on both sides after all that reduction in diameter. They were about a half to one thousandth different from one side to the other. But turning fixed that and now the cases with bullet in place are just .002 under the diameter of the chamber neck.

After the forming, I fired them to blow out the body to full diameter and to sharpen up the shoulder. Actually even with a full house load the shoulder is still a little rounded. I guess that is evidence of the strength of the brass. They were all trimmed to length and weighted. All are within about 2 grains which is pretty good.

About the brass itself, the finished case weighs 151 grains which is 11% heavier than those made from the 30-30. The water capacity is 40.8 grains full to the top of the neck which is 4% less that those from 30-30's. The brass in the case body is .047" thick at the point where a head separation would occur and that is .008" thicker than those from 30-30's. All this will certainly add to the strength and make me more at ease putting together a full load.

The next step is to repeat my load workup to see if the difference in internal volume will make a differenc in velocity. I have loaded a workup series, and will go to the range to fire them sometime during this next week. I'll report back when I finish that step.

So, who cares? Well, any Contender shooter who shoots a case based on the 30-30 might do better with the 375 Winchester brass. I believe you could go in one form step to a 30-30, a 30-30 AI, a 7-30 Waters, a 30 Herrett, a 357 Herrett or a 7 mm International rimmed. Although the Herretts would requite some serious neck turning as the brass in the 375 Win case in near .015 thick where the Herrett neck would be.

More to come,

Don Shearer

Thanks Don, That's some darn good info. The reason I never got one of the wildcats based on the 30-30 case is that I heard that the cases won't last long and the'll get head separation with fullhouse loads. Your on to something.

Very good information Don, I enjoyied it.
Look forward to hearing the end results.

I have been usig 375 Winchester brass as the parent case for my 357 Herrett cases for a while now. I have found that I can safely load anything listed for the 357 Herrett in the manuals with no signs of pressure or other ill effects.

I have thought about it for the 7 INT-R barrel, but never did any because I figured I would have to turn the necks. Now you have me thinking, I might just have to give it a try.

Stush...
if im reading your post right ???
your ''NOT'' turning the neck's on the .375 brass too reform to your .357 herrett ..???
with no problems ???
just thought i'ed ask,,

buckweet

That is correct. I thought that I would need to turn them, but that has not been the case. No chambering problems. No pressure signs. Best part is that my accuracy has improved to boot. My guess is that my Herrett barrel has a really sloppy chamber. I have never measured the neck thickness though. It may simply be that the brass that I have made from the 375s is just not significantly thicker in the neck area than the 30-30s.

STUSH..thanks for the reply,,
i've got a bunch of .375 brass around here,,
going to have to try it,with my .357 herrett.
buckweet

So, If a person used .375 brass to form .357 Herretts, and as long as they chambered ok in my barrel, it should be safe to shoot without neck turning? My barrel is a custom Bullberry.

Bob

"Chambering OK" really isn't the full story as far as using 375 brass, in this case for the Herrett.

You must have ample clearance for expansion of the case neck to release the bullet. The case could chamber OK with a bullet seated but if it is "right there" with regard to fit with little to no clearance, you could run into trouble.

You could check neck diameter on fired, unresized 30/30 cases that shot OK in this chamber. You will have some spring back of the case neck after firing but it is a good guide to use. Then seat a bullet in reformed 375 brass and check the diameter of the neck. If it is over the neck dimension of the fired 30/30 case, you may have trouble using the brass as is without turning.

Myself, I would take a chamber cast or slug of the neck area to verify.

My guess is the Bullberry chamber will be quite tight to the minimum chamber dimension so may be too tight in the neck area for unturned case necks.

Safety dictates measuring things first.

Regards

Ray...good advice..i'll check mine now,

Don..great info...made me think,

buckweet

Hey Guys,

There is an easier way to check the diameter of your chamber neck without slugging the chamber. It really is quite easy and you don't have to hammer on anything.

Take a piece of brass rod a little bigger diameter than your throat area. A piece 3" long is about right. Chuck it up in a drill press and with a file make a shallow taper in the end 1/2" or so. The taper should be short enough so it doesn't reach the rifling and shallow enough so it will only fit into about 1/2 to 2/3 of the chamber neck. Then make it smooth. Then with a fine grit sandpaper, sand it LENGTHWISE so as to have all the tiny scratches going along the axis of the brass on the tapered part. Now insert the tapered end into the chamber and hold in center with pliars or vise-grips. Rotate the brass rod while it is in contact with the throat. This will burnish a small place around the taper. You can then measure the diameter of the brass rod at place where it is burnished and that is the diameter of the throat. The brass will not damage the throat and the burnished ring caused by rotating it in the throat is easy to see.

Easy and accurate.

Don Shearer

A second note too,

I went to the club this morning to shoot the 25-35 Ingram using work-up loads made up with the 375 Win brass that I described in the first post. It worked very well. I loaded 25 pieces of ammo - 5 each at 5 different load levels. Each successive set was loaded at 1/2 grain heavier powder charge up to what I think is near a maximum load.

It all produced a very regular Load vs. Velocity curve and the curve shows velocities right at 100 f/s higher than those produced from loads in reformed 30-30 brass. That does seem like quite a big increase due to a 4% reduction of volume, but it is real and my original velocity curve and the one from these data point are almost evenly parallel. That is almost the end of the story, but I now have to tell you about the real performance of this Contender carbine barrel.

As I said, I shot 5, 5-shot groups. the largest one was 1.261" and the rest were all under 1.0". Then this little carbine barrel plunked out a .377" group with a 75 grain V-Max at 3029 f/s. The velocity standard deviations were all 19 f/s or less with those for the top two loads at 7 and 6 f/s. I couldn't be happier - It's a keeper!!

Don Shearer

Your an amazing guy Don. Thanks for the info. and great job with the brass.

ahh..here we go...
i loaded up five cases useing the .375 brass for my herrett,,
after checkin the thickness of the loaded round compared too a once fired .357 herrett 30-30 case..there was .001 differance,,
with H4227 24 grs and sierras 200 grain round nose seated with base of bullet to the shoulder,,
no problems,, no sticky extraction,,no nothing,,
although i did notice that there is no ''soot'' on case neck,,
now..if i can just find me a brass rod like Don said........

whatcha'll think..???

buckweet

Don,
You wrote in part:
"This will burnish a small place around the taper. You can then measure the diameter of the brass rod at place where it is burnished and that is the diameter of the throat. The brass will not damage the throat and the burnished ring caused by rotating it in the throat is easy to see."

It is not the throat you are measuring, I thought, but the chamber neck. Is neck what you meant to say?

Mike

Mike,

My mistake. You are right it is the neck diameter and that is what I want to measure. It was an unfortunate slip on my part.

Thanks,

Don

After buckweet's post, I pulled out some loaded rounds for my 357 Herrett. Some were loaded in brass formed from 30-30. Some were formed from 375 Winchester. The loaded rounds in the 375 Winchester brass were at most .0013 larger in diameter at the neck than those in the brass formed from 30-30s. I doubt that is enough to be significant in my factory chamber. I suppose it could be significant in a custom barrel with a tight chamber.

Stush,

You are most probably right as most factory chamber necks are on the generous side and so unless your neck diameter is unusually tight the chances are good that you are OK.

However, check the post under "Question for Don Shearer" in the reply to Greg and Buckwheet. There I give an easy method to check to see if your situation IS OK.

Don Shearer

Don. thank ya,im a likin this .357 herrett barrel more n' more,,
the .375 brass seem's too be the ticket in my barrel,,
hopefully i'll get to shoot it alot,in next few months, if all goes well,
keep the information flowin,,
buckweet

Don,

I have tried this before. I can, with a little pressure, push bullet into the neck of a fired case.

Stush

Don and Mike

Why can't you also use 38-55 winchester brass for the 357 herrett ? It can be used in the 375 Winchester T.C. bbl. only thing it is a tad shorter .

YH,

The main reason for using the 375 Win brass is to get a case that is drawn for at least 50K CUP loading whereas the 30/30, 38-55, 32 special brass is drawn for considerably less pressure.

Regards

Stush,

If you can, with a little pressure push a bullet into the mouth of a fired case, you are most likely pretty close to the edge for clearance. I say most likely because the amount of spring-back is related to the hardness of the brass and you may be getting more spring-back than .001" in which case you would be OK.

Some half dozen years ago Fred Smith of Bullberry told me the bench resters try to have 3 to 3 1/2 thousandths clearance. However, I have had very good preformance with 1 1/2 to 2 thousandths clearance.

Therefore I would recommend you do the tapered brass rod bit for actual measurement of your chamber neck diameter. From there you can do the arithmetic and see pretty precisely just how much clearance you do have.

On the brass rod, be careful to have a pretty shallow taper so that you actually get the inside diameter of the neck rather than a diameter on the radius of the neck/shoulder juncture.

Hope that works for you,

Don Shearer

yote-hunter...stush,,,
headstamps reply made sense,,i didnt know brass was ''drawn'' to differant CUP pressures,,,
copper units of pressure ??? right ???
kinda like PSI ..pounds per square inch,,
i always thought it was the thickness of the brass,,not hardness,,i think im learning something here,,

thank ye fer the info,,,

buckweet

stush .
.your experiment with the fired brass,,and slipping a bullett into the neck,per Don's advice,sounds just like mine, my groups off hand out the back door seem better,,,but wont really know till i putt her on the bench,,
let me know ??? if your accuracy improves,,
i'll try mine out,,asap..
hope everyone had a great weekend,,
buckweet

we..gone.. see ya'll next tuesday !!
buckweet