Gentlemen

I have posted a few times on here before and have enjoyed reading what others have to say. I am not new to wildcatting, but I haven't put together enough wildcat rifles to call myself a king toad wildcatter.

I have, as many others do, a Arisaka rifle with the barrel turned back and rechambered for 300 Savage. I like the rifle, but am tired of the thin neck and dealing with the 7.62 bullet in the 300 die. I plan on making 300 Savage brass out of 308 brass and having the neck of the chamber and dies reamed with a neck reamer to a neck width that will allow brass thickness in the neck of standard 308 loaded with a 311 bullet and increase the neck length. My question is in regards to neck length, how long do you think it should be? Longer than the 300 seems clear but exactly how long? Also, does anyone know what size neck reamer should be used to get the width I want?

I plan on using 180 grain conventional bullets and would like to get as close to 2400fps as possible just because it's a good round number.

Thank you
Ron

Ron,

The standard for a long time was to have a neck length that is at least one caliber long, so .308" for 30 caliber rifles. Many single-shot wildcats have necks that are much shorter than this and accuracy doesn't suffer, but then again there is no concern about bullets shifting under heavy recoil, while in a magazine. For your particular situation, and since you will have plenty of brass to work with, I would go with a neck length that is between .250" and .300"...maybe split the difference and call it .275"?

For the outside neck diameter, I would just add three thousandths to a standard 300 Savage dimension, since you're increasing the bullet diameter by that amount. This would give you a neck that is .3435 at the base of the neck and .342" at the mouth. Talk to your gunsmith about how tight your want your chamber to be, outside of those neck dimensions. Somewhere around .008" is pretty typical.

I hope all that works out for you and gives you cases that don't split so fast, with bullets that are more accurate. My Model 99 Arisaka is in the original 7.7 chambering and ever since Hornady started making their affordable line of ex-military ammo, I've been happy shooting the factory stuff, versus my handloads. This is the only rifle that I routinely use factory ammo in, but that's because it is a bit of a pain to reload for and I don't put many rounds through it.

Could you not just rechamber your rifle for the 7.65x53 Argentine case ??? Cases are easily made from 30-06 brass. Just thought.......HD1