Thread: 8x58R brass

Its usually me that's wrong... so I'm gonna shut up now

I thought @svt40 might pop in with some advice and pictures of his 8x58r brass forming adventures

Yes, the 8x58RD is a bit tubbier than most. It also has a fairly long neck, so cases coming up a bit short isnt the end of the world. Theres some info on the net about making cases for 8x58RD from 8x56R (slightly too short) and 7.62x54R (shorter again), both of which are undersize and will bulge the body during fire forming. Theres also info on making cases from .45-70 (more common, correct base diameter, but again short) and .45-90 (expensive, but is the ideal for making the correct cases when cut down to the correct length).

Another option again is using belted magnum brass and turning the belt off - 8x58rd can be made from 300WM or similar this way.

I tried fire forming some 7.62x54R cases simply by expanding the neck with an .323 expander and loading a light charge. The first couple worked, but the next batch gave a poor rate of success with split necks so i stopped that, pending either access to an annealer or another plan altogether, as i found fire forming 7.62x54R into 8mm Siamese to be a much better use of the 7.62 brass. Hell,m i could even reload for the mosin i guess, if i run out of steel cased one day. The shoulder does have to move forward quite a way to turn 7.62x54 into 8x58.

Ive seen some negative press about bertrams on the web, necks splitting on the first firing. Whether that was something since remedied i do not know.