Brass conversion (AKA the post from hell or how I wasted hundreds of hours one long summer)

As there was absolutely no boxer primed brass made for this cartridge it made sense to start converting some likely candidates.
No1 task was to acquire dies. Redding in the USA listed them and case forming dies so a few e mails later I was registered as a UK supplier of Redding dies.
Quality doesn't really describe these dies, top quality but in CAPITALS would be better. I have broken Lee (yes I know), RCBS and one or two others, RCBS were my favourite because even if you were to blame they would replace them free of charge.
Redding though are top quality. Short of making them (having them made for me) myself these are the best option.
No2 task is brass selection. The logical (at the time) solution was to work backwards from the original case.
The .280/30 was built using the T65 case for the 7.62 x 51 aka .308 Winchester. Logic says then you should look at this case and any derivatives. This means the following cases were considered and used where available:
1. 308 Win
2. .243 Win
3. 22-250
4. 7mm08
The easiest to get hold of here were the .308 and .243. Things to consider were overall length and case wall thickness.
No3. Annealing, its not as simple as just popping a case into a forming die, well not with used brass anyway. First I annealed the brass using a gas torch, a case holder and a cordless drill.

The case was heated to about half of its current length until it discoloured. Various sources say cherry red, dark blue etc but frankly I swagged it (Sophisticated Wild Assed Guess) and sources also said to quench, not to quench etc. I tried both, neither method seemed to have any difference.

No4. Resizing/case forming  in the die. I used the Redding case forming die in my Redding Boss press.

Firstly lubricating with Imperial sizing die and then passing it through in a single stage. The image below shows the case in the press, you can see how far down the case I have annealed;

Below you can see the neck of the .308 case protruding from the die. I needed a taller shell holder as I had to seat the die lower than the locking ring really allowed;

That gave us a series of necked down cases with the shoulders set back to match the .280, below you can see a few of them, firstly a .243 it gives a weird looking double step on the neck, .243 is smaller than .280

Below is from left to right, .308 Win, .308 win necked down to .280/30 and an original 7mm Mk1z (.280/30) round 1970 RG production

You can see in the picture above that there is a fair amount of brass to be removed from the resized case. This is the next step and was resolved using the cheapest tool I had so far acquired.

No5. Case trimming. Using the case holder and the cordless drill I span a resized case through a cheap copper pipe trimmer (about £3 each from my local plumbers supplies) and tightened it up gradually until each case was trimmed (actually there were cut, trimming is different but will suffice) to roughly the right length and then finished in my Lyman case trimmer.

 Some of the cutting was close enough for government work, some did require case length trimming.

I have a bag of 7mm brass offcuts, about 8mm long, not sure but I'm wondering if I can make surfers beads from them?

The case trimming when needed was done with one of these:

Its a stock picture but it works, it also can be used for case neck turning as I found out earlier

No6. Case neck Turning. This is a right royal pin mainly due to the difficulty of getting hand held tools to be consistent. I had some case neck turning tools I had bought for the job. Things to note; They aren't very robust, I am a ham fisted cretin and I can break just about anything invented by man.

I splashed out and bought a Sinclair kit, nothing wrong really with the kit, neck turning though I have found is easier using the trimming tool

Still we all live and learn. Whilst this was going on my partner in crime Paul was busy trying to achieve the same result using different materials.

After you have turned the necks you need to resize the cases for the neck and the full length just in case. Then pop them through a tumbler to clean them and each case takes about an hour to convert.

You can see below various cases all neck turned interspersed with original live rounds. The results are variable which caused issues later. Getting this consistent is important for neck tension on the bullets, this affects pressure and muzzle velocity. All things I learned along the way, that and converting brand new Lapua Brass does make a grown man cry!

Of course almost all of this was unnecessary. Paul had been busy. The original case converted for the T65/7.62x51/.308 Winchester was in fact the .300 Savage not the .30-06 as often touted. There happens to be a good supply of not too eye wateringly expensive new .300 Savage Brass and its a commercial case which means that its a thinner case wall reducing the amount of work needed. In fact Paul didn't anneal, he didn't neck turn, his resized and trimmed .300 Savage cases fit right first time.

That is how you waste a long hot summer.

Next up is the rifle build, without those we couldn't even hope to start testing our hand loads.