I have a couple of thousand cleaned and sized 308 brass I want to convert
to 358 win. I'm thinking of loading them all but I don't want to fire form.

if I necked them out to 411 then back to 358 would that help ????

these will be used in my new A10 in 358win, yes 308 would have been
easier but I love the 35's and besides I have a Sav 99 in 358 and not really
wanting another caliber to load :-)

any thoughts ????

Talon

after posting the forum showed other postings with the info I was asking about
even though I tried searching before posting ... sorry this can be deleted :-)

Guess I don't understand what you are getting at. If you want to load them up as .358s all you need to do is run them through the full length sizer. Taking them up to .411 and back down to .358 would work if you wanted to create a false shoulder for fire forming, which you already said you don't want to do.

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What's the problem with fireforming? I used to fireform .30-06 to make .35 Whelen cases and it created perfect cases every time. The pressure blows the neck out evenly all over in an instant, and you don't even have to trim to true up the case mouth. Making .358 from .308 that way would do the very same thing. You burn up some powder and primers, but that beats doing by hand all hollow.

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the only problem is I'm doing 2000 + rds, and while I'd love to shoot that much but
only as time goes on ... but I want to load them all ...

I'm using varget and 200grn hornady spire points CCI match primers .. they will work in the sav 99 also ..

looking for a 200 yrd round .. any suggestions on loads would help too :-)

thanks ...

Talon

You're putting together 2,000 rounds of 358 Winchester and you're worried about having to shoot and fire-form that many cases. I can totally understand that. I think you're biting off more than you really need to chew. Let me explain.

Loading 358 Win with 200gr spire points and getting 200 yards worth of range is no trick at all. Any middling charge of a suitable powder will EASILY do that. So, all you need is an accurate load, something only your gun will be able to share with you. The standard advice is to start low and work up; expect best accuracy within a grain or two of max. That is very common with 308-based rounds.

Now, I like pulled pork as much as anyone, but you are going WHOLE HOG! Consider that your brass is likely to average 5 firings each, and that is a modest number. With a single annealing, your average would be closer to 10 firings. So, with your 2,000 cases, you could expect to reload between 10,000 and 20,000 rounds of 358 Winchester. The accuracy in your barrel is going to fall off, and fall apart, before you get to 20,000 rounds.

So, what say you scale back the plan a little? I mean, it's not like you're going to want to shell out the money to load that many rounds for a gun that has a bit of a kick to it. There are 52 Saturdays in a year; if you were to shoot 10,000 rounds, over the course of 5 years, that would be 38 rounds each and every Saturday. Now, I like shooting as much as anyone, but isn't that a bit much??

Neck up and load 200 or 300 cases. Over the course of a few weeks, fire-form them to your chamber. For this round, you could absolutely target shoot or hunt with fire-forming loads, no problem, because you aren't actually changing the case dimensions all that much, like you would with an AI or true wildcat round. Your shoulder angle is not changing and the sizing die itself will get the brass very close to its final dimensions. In other words, there is not likely to be any appreciable difference in your first or second loading with the brass...they'll all shoot the same.

For big-boy rounds like the 358 Winchester, 200 or 300 cases should last you a good long time. Don't ya think?

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I agree with what Broom said. You don't need to do all of 'em at once. When I was making Whelen cases, I had a 5 gal. bucket of .30-06 cases. I used 'em for the Whelen, for my Ruger 77 '06, and for my .280 Remington. Two to three boxes worth fire formed about twice a year, and then I'd shoot those cases until they started to crack.

I used LP primers, a small charge of Unique, then I filled the case up to the shoulder with cornmeal, and topped it off with a tuft of kapok. That gave me a perfect formed .35 Whelen with even neck wall thickness and straight case mouths.

I tried necking up to .35 and got so-so results. Necks sometimes split, or formed slightly fat on one side or the other, and nearly always had to be trimmed to true them up. Plus you had to worry about getting the lube just right or you could stick a case in the die. Fireforming is simply far easier and less hassle.

For a 200 yd. load, I'd try the 180 gr. Hornady spire point over a starting load of 43 gr. of H-322. H-322 is noted for its accuracy in many different rounds, and works well in most all weather. It is also a short cut stick type that loads well in cases like the .308 and .223. Varget might be a bit on the slow side for the .308 size case with such a wide bore.

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Might need to anneal your formed cases, before reloading them up, and to avoid neck splits. Going from .308" to .358" is quite a streach on .308 cases.

True, annealing is the order of the day. I turned a bunch of 7RM brass into .338s in one step. About the same as going from .308 to .358. Split three cases out of 50 that I done. Used a RCBS die with the eliptical expander.

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I have been making .358s from .308s for a long time , with one step through my Redding FL .358 die ! I've never had a split neck or any other issues . you cases may be as much as .010" short , but that's a non issue too . 2,000 rounds of .358 is way more than a lifetime supply . I've never had any use for 200 Gr. bullets in my .358 though , just 220s and 225s for me . If I want a lighter bullet I'd rather shoot a 180 from a 30-06 , way better ballistics . Plus I have a .35 Rem that is made for 200s .

I have never had a split neck , or needed to anneal, on all of the .308 cases that I necked up to .358 Winchester. Never saw any need to expand over size and neck down; opening the neck up to .358 worked fine and the shoulder was nicely in place (come to think of it, never worried about necking oversize in my old .35 Whelen either).
It doesn't have to be complicated.

If you have once fired .308 brass you might get away with not annealing. But I have some thrice fired .308 brass that split every time. YMMV.

Make sure you have a tapered expander, neck up, anneal, check the case length, will probably need to trim to square up the neck, and load them. There is no need to fireform before working up your load, just full length size them.

I'm with Broom... start with 100 cases, or even 10 cases, and get the technique down before going all out.

I have opened up 308 to 358 with and without tapered expanders. The tapered expander is easiest and the best way. If you have a 338 expander and don't have the tapered expander try that - more work and not as satisfactory job. The shoulder on the 308 should be close to the same location as the 358. The cases I used and with the 358 I have I found no need to form a second shoulder.

I think a couple hundred cases would be plenty for me to start. I didn't bother to load a light load the first time after forming the cases (that is, I work up a load starting from below and when I get the load I like, I load that for the 358 without a fire forming load.)

If you loaded up all your cases with a load and then found a better load then what??? And you never know, you might someday buy a 338 Federal or a 260 Remington or a 243 or some wildcat cartridge and those 308 cases may come in handy.

One thing I do after the first time firing the cases in the 358 is to trim the neck so the cases have a uniform length and the mouth is square then I inside and outside chamfer.

Going from .30 to .35 caliber is a major jump in neck diameter. While you can do it by manually expanding the neck, by far the best way to do it is fire-forming the case by using a fast burning powder charge and a cornmeal filler. You get perfect uniform necks every time without all the pitfalls of doing it manually.

You don't have to anneal the necks beforehand either.

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Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice - Barry Goldwater
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