Thread: Resizing. 308 to .243, help?? Or a dumb idea?

Hi all.

My .308 is no more because it was a "bad gun". I have plenty of decent brass left over, and I'm a tightarse hence this thread.

Help me out a little here,

Fired .243 at neck 7.00 +/-.01mm

.243 sized with bullet seated at neck 6.79 to 6.84mm

.308 sized to .243 with bullet seated up to 6.91 +/-.05

Is this neck width likely to give me trouble? I dont have a neck turner as I'm a tightarse.

Next the cases came up short 50.86-51.16mm, is this a problem?

I'm never going to need to shoot beyond 500m, and to be honest my skill level is more at 300m, so precision isint needed with these "hunting" rounds, I have my stash of meticulously loaded stuff for dealing to paper.

What are your thoughts?

Thanks Lars

you will probably still have to ream out the necks or else it will be too thick.

As Jim said, case neck thickness may be an issue.

Should have stated in original post as per saami spec

Maximum neck 7.01mm

Minimum length 51.43mm

So in theory the necks are within spec, but only .09 +/-.05 less than chamber dimensions, and o/a length the cases come up as much as .57mm short.

So it "should" be fine, but it seems my chamber is tighter at the neck than saami spec.

Thanks Lars

Maybe trade them or sell and buy new.

Sorry Larrygoat,
Bad idea to neck down that much. You are still going to need neck annealing after which the cases may not shoot that well due to uneven neck thickness. Buy some proper .243 cases and put the .308 cases away for when your next and better behaved .308 turns up.
Regards Grandpamac.

Just do it ! . Try one as a test round to see if everything fits and go to it . I neck down 308 to 243 with no problems , in fact my rifle likes it .
Just remember that you will need to work up a new load , but you can work it up to possibly the same load you are using now ? .

A quick update on this for anyone who may be interested.

After sizing the brass down to .243, I took measurements of fired brass, sized brass and the resized .308 brass. Necks too thick, no surprise there.

No neck turner. And I'm still dutch. So I made a 6mm (slightly over) center on the lathe, made a tool to cut neck and to stop at the shoulder, stuck shell holder in the other end and 4 hours later ready to turn necks.

Loaded with my normal load and took it out for a blast. Wind was super variable. Didn't bother shooting at 200m as a mob of turkeys appeared at 385m, fair game eh? Yup, first shot was good elevation (thanks free strelok) but a "Turkey width to the right", credit goes to the spotter. 4 down with 6 shots.

Moved on to steel at 600m, good hits, but holding 2 - 8 minutes with the wind, it is my first time target shooting over 200m so probably not the best setup and discipline.

Moral of the story, if you are going to do something questionable, take measurements and write things down, read what the tolerances are and obey. All good fun and a great waste of time after I bought a swag of new brass, would do it again in a heartbeat.

Was using a recovery kit as a gun rest, an old chisel for a tool on the lathe, and a vx1 3-9x40 for the "spotting scope", so there is room for improvement I guess, none of the brass was annealed at any stage, I may keep loading and shooting a half dozen of the resized. 308 brass and updating this thread if there is any intrest. Also the repurposed brass performance is yet to be assessed, but it was able to hit the 600m steel with a rookie shooter on the end of it. I'll update if I shoot later at regular range.

I produce 303/25 all the time from .303. I also have 60 odd .243 here for free if you like, just need an address and I'll send 'em.

Originally Posted by outlander

I produce 303/25 all the time from .303. I also have 60 odd .243 here for free if you like, just need an address and I'll send 'em.

I'm fine for brass now, bought 100 brand new cases, hornady, plenty of variation in length, cut them down to 2.035(I think) some it seemed I cut .5mm off, others aren't cut the whole way around.

And I thought the moral of the story was the spotters call....."Turkey width to the right shooter"!