How much body taper is enough for an 06 case and still have reliable feeding and extraction in a M-98? What would be the shortest workable neck length for an 8mm? 1 caliber? .323? I'm not looking for benchrest accuracy, just max velocity gains in a 8mm similar to the 3200 Hawk.
TIA

The general concensous I've gotten is between taper .006-.008" per inch is the best, anything below .005" per inch is getting unreliable for extraction. This 500 Jeffery case here has .012" total taper in 2.0", or .006" per inch if that helps any. This 30/338 Lapua 40deg Imp I just had designed and chambered, it has .013" total taper in 2.0", so it's about the same.

Sharper than 30-35 degrees on the shoulder can start giving you difficulties in feeding, but this rifle here is a single fed bench gun and I'd of went 35 deg if I was feeding from a mag.

You won't see any MV gain between one that has .005" taper per inch and one that has .007", so why risk the sticky case problem by going all the way down below .006-.008" per inch. That's the way I looked at it anyway.

You know you really just want a bigger case.
Go for it!

Your right I do want a bigger case. A few guys here are sending me some take off 8x57 Mauser barrels. I'm going to try something on the lines of a 3200 Hawk and then a RUM case the same length. I was thinking about getting a couple of sets of LEE RGB dies, annealing and useing for die blanks with the expander/decapper and other hardware for $15 each. Anybody try this? I know a guy who runs a spring shop. I could get him to put them in with a run of springs and then just leave them in while the furnace cools down. Should be pretty soft afterwards. How much smaller do you make the reamer for the sizeing die? I can use the finish reamer for the seating die right?

nope.
The point of sizing is that the case has come to be the size of the chamber, and has to be squeezed back down 4-6 thousandths, or whatever.
A sizing die on the finish reamer won't do anything that firing the case hasn't already done!

Bwana, take a look at my post again. Use the finish reamer for the seating die. Use a roughing reamer for the sizeing die. Clymer says they can make the rougher to be used for a sizeing die, but don't say how much smaller it needs to be.

Did you say 4-6 thou smaller than the chamber?

Lar-- Resizer on average about .006 smaller than
chamber.The brass will spring back about half way , thus being .002 - .003 smaller than chamber
to load properly.My 458 HE brass is .527 at base
resized,Chamber is .530. Resize die is .524.
Doesn't overwork brass like the 458Win dies I
had that was .012 smaller.Used them only once that way, and I honed them out.Ed.

LAR45, check. Reading too fast.
Pay no attention to the next line.
Huntington's has Horneber 9.3x64 brass for $1.70 ea.

checkout ctg dims for 35gibb and i agree anything more than a 30/35 deg shoulder asks for problems(unless single feed)also has problems resizeing(collapsing the neck and shoulder) go to www.calweb.com/~haas/ammoguide/index.htmlstart ammoguide and search for 35gibb

[ 09-10-2003, 19:10: Message edited by: 1cav sgt ret ]

That 35 Gibbs looks impressive, a 250 at 2700! The neck looks pretty short though at .262" Does this cause any problems? does the straight case wall help keep the case from stretching or is it the sharp sholder? Like in the AI cases.
TIA