338 Federal Brass?

DONDALINGER

I'm thinking about buying a 338 Federal. Anybody know where I can get the brass for it? Midway does not list it. I know you can use 308 brass necked up, but I just wanted to buy the 338 Fed. and work up some loads. I see RCBS and Redding dies fo it. I could always shoot a few boxes of factory, then reload, but I prefer loading my own from day one if possible.

Any info much appreciated. Don

HandgunHTR52

I don't know if anyone is selling brass for the .338 Federal yet. I think your best bet is to buy factory ammo to start with.

Tailgunner1954

It isn't anything but a 308Win case with the mouth expanded, unless having the correct headstamp is "uber important" to you, make your own.

DONDALINGER

Does expanding the case mouth weaken the brass? From 30 to 33 caliber is a good amount of stretch.

I have never done this in the past 10 years of reloading.

What special die is used to expand the case?

Thanks, Don

nononsense

DONDALINGER,

Before you get carried away with the necking up process, I suggest that you buy some factory ammunition and shoot some tests with it. Use an accurate chronograph and shoot some of the factory cartridges through the screens. This gives you a baseline of pressures and velocities from your rifle. Keep a logbook of the printouts from the chronograph to use for comparison when you start reloading.

It also gives you fireformed cases to use for setting up your dies for reloading. You can choose between neck sizing only or full length resizing.

Then if you decide to neck up some .308 cases, you can do it with the dies you have or get a tapered expander die to use for the process. If the necks were annealed properly from the factory, you might get it done in one push. Otherwise it could take two different sizing steps and maybe an annealing step in between. Depends on the cases you buy. Some of the folks will insist this can be done in one step when in reality it CAN take two to keep from losing cases with crushed necks and shoulders. Get some Imperial Sizing Wax and remember to trim the case length when you get all done.

No it won't stretch your necks too much or weaken your necks as long as you follow procedures.

Case neck expander die: http://www.sinclairintl.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?category=RECPNT&item=NT-EXP&type=store



Best.

BoKnows308

I got lucky, found some one fired Federal Brass on Ebay about 6 months ago and won the auction at a alarming high cost. I had heard that Federal had no plans on producing just the brass. With every new reloading manuals printing loads for the 338 Federal we will see who puts out brass first. What I did originally was to get some Lapua brass and sized up the neck. I will switch over to the 338 Federal brass very shortly after the first of the year.

About a year ago, took one of my 308's and had a Badger barrel installed. 1/10 twist, 24" SS, #5 contour. All I am going to say is that I had problems with Gander Mtn (not the local store) and would not recommend them for any major gunsmithing at all. They send up all major gunsmithing work to one location. Those guys must work a lot of Overtime. After all said and done, maybe should have purchased a Sako already chambered for the round.

Am still working on breaking in the barrel and loads for it. So far so good. Am using the 200 gn Accubonds for the break in round for the barrel. After barrel break in period will experiment anywhere from 185 to 250 gn and let the rifle tell me which load combination it likes. It will take about a year or so to do this taking it to the range every other week.

Hope this helps.