? for Mike Bellm-- what about using .375 win brass for 7-30 waters for higher pressure loads in the contender ? How about 6.5 and .35 rounds using .375 brass ? Just womdered why no one uses this as a base for wildcats.

Some more astute Contender shooters do use .375 Win. brass. Works well, but because it is thicker you have to be careful that your loaded case neck diameter does not become too large and not leave some clearance in the chamber neck.

If you section a .375 Win. case, you will find that back at the web it is only about .007" thicker than .30/30s, but this does help the case contain the pressure load significantly.

For a real eye opener, section a .307 Win case! You will then see why certain individuals run extremely high pressures in Contenders and get away with it. The brass does absorb/contain much of the pressure load, and the extremely thick .307 brass makes a world of difference.

.444 cases are not as heavy as .307s, but are heavy enough to do an excellent job, better than very thin .30/30 types.

Mike

Mike Bellm would this be the same in my 7mm TCU using 5.56 military cases in place of 223 cases I use 375 winchester cases with my 357 Herret.

I have done little with the 7mm TCU for years, so I defer to silhouette shooters for further advice on the use of military .223s. They are more stout, but as I recall the concensus was that it was not uniform enough, and most preferred good commercial brass..... not all commercial .223 Rem. brass is good. Some isn't worth bringing home.

With all rounds where thicker brass is used, you must measure your loaded case neck diameter to make sure it is smaller than fired case necks using the standard brass. You can run out of case neck diameter clearance, fire one shot, and be in trouble. So make sure you have clearance, at least a thous. or two.

Mike, aka THE TC Heretic

The brass does absorb/contain much of the pressure load, and the extremely thick .307 brass makes a world of difference.

Mike
Would the .307 brass allow you to do a 6.5 or 7 mm in the contender barrel safely? Do you have any ideas for giving it a try?
Rich Jake

I have done only one shortened .260 Rem. chamber in the Contender using .307 brass, but have no data or other info on it. Last I knew, because of the no. 001 I stamped on the lug, it became a collector item and has not been shot even. That was almost 4 years ago.

Whether it is faster than the 6.5x50 R Bellm or not, I do not know, but it is certainly feasible, to answer your question in that regard. Set up to use standard .260 Rem. dies, shortened the appropriate same .050" as the chamber was cut short.

The same could be done in 7mm of course, just so long as with the .260 version, it is done so that a factory 7mm-08 Rem. round cannot be fired in it and stretch things.

Redding, btw, does list 7mm-08 Imp. dies if you wanted the 40 degree shoulder instead of the long sloping shoulder of the stamdard chamber.

The .307 lenght chamber, 2.025," may be long enough to clean up a 7mm TCU chamber ok, but would not cut out the throat in a 7-30 Waters chamber, and the 7-30 Waters chamber is somewhat longer than the .307 case also. Thus, unless starting from a TCU, one would need to go custom, and at present there is no viable option for custom barrels for me to chamber like we had with VVG before there price and policy change last spring.

I've mentioned my bud, Guy Malmborg, in Salt Lake City before. If I filled Guy in, he'd do the work. Just let me know. It will be about November before I take on any more work.

Mike

The .307 lenght chamber, 2.025," may be long enough to clean up a 7mm TCU chamber ok

Mike
If I cannot find a solution to my 7 TCU problem a rechamber maybe the way I would go with it. Just deciding what to rechamber it to is the question. I don't think that I would have a problem trying something new out. I just might need a little coaching which I'm sure that I can find around here.
Rich Jake

As far as the military brass goes I would take some LC "91" brass over some of the others. I anneal the mil brass befor I do anything else. I don't know if it is TC's sloppy chambers or not. The only commercial brass that I have not had any problem with in the TCU family is WW. The Federal Gold Medal in this case was a real disappointment to me. I had a loss rate of at least 50%. Here is the kicker had vertical and horizontal neck splits. Some of the necks split so far around that they broke off in the chamber, pulled them out with a bronze brush, you couldn't have cut them this clean. The only thing on the Federal brass that I noticed was that on the head some of them were "FC" and some were "fc"??
Just my $$$$$$.02
Jeff

jsh I have been using WCC military brass in my 7mm TCU and it is working out good. I have a Bellm barrel 12" My best load is with Reloader #7 26.2gr 2356fps and .44 group at 100 yds