I just bought a 7mm-08 and I'm considering necking the 308 win brass down to 7mm. I no longer own a 308 but I have a bunch of brass on hand and thought I could save some money by reusing it. I've never necked brass down but the process looks to be pretty straight forward but I have a few questions. Are there any issues with overall brass length and nick wall thickness after necking down from 308 to 7mm-08? I have a bunch of Winchester nickel plated brass. Are there any issues necking down nickel plated brass?

None at all.. I do both the 7/08 from 308 range brass, and also even neck plenty of it down to 260 Rem...

straight forward and never had an issue... and I've done several thousand or more...

The only ones that I have done were accidents, and I would not even notice until I was inspecting them. miles

Straight forward process. Go for it

This should be probably made a sticky, because the same question is asked by different people every month or two.

How about a sticky on everything you can make out of anything. I know I'd like to hear about it. It would be cool to see what people have come up with.

I don't know about anything made into anything, but I've neck sized and/or FL sized a ton of 308 win brass to 7mm-08 with zero issues. Shorter initial brass length also means a longer time until you have to trim. Have at it with no qualms.

I am going to buck a trend here. I run 308 Lapua brass necked down in my custom 7-08. It has a 0.315" neck in the chamber and needed a light neck turn to get safe clearance. I doubt it would be an issue with a factory chamber - but make sure that you can slide a bullet into the first fired case to check.

No issues from the slightly shorter length.

Jason has a good point, all of my experience has been with factory chambered 7-08s.

I use one brand of .308 brass (LC) to neck down to 7-08. My son has a .308 and we don't want to get the brass mixed up. There has never been an issue with thick necks in the 3 rifles I have loaded for. I did get one military case into the mix by accident and it has a thick neck. Lesson learned and not repeated.

An acquaintance necked down a 308 brass to 7-08. The rifle was a 788 Remington and he ended up with a blown up gun. The actual cause, no one knows. But it could have been a tight necked gun with an overload. Approach with caution.

It looks like I do need to neck turn.
I necked down some federal brand 308win brass. It was an easy process but like some said my necks ended up thicker. The finished federal brass with bullet inserted ended up having a neck OD of .3165" while loaded Hornady 7mm-08 brass had a OD of .310" so I was .0065" wider on the necked 308 brass. SAMMI specks look to be .315" loaded neck OD so I was only .0015" wider. I decided to try shooting the necked brass in a Ruger American compact. Loading was a tight fit and after firing the brass OD was .317". The Hornady 7mm-08 brass also had a fired OD of .317". With the fried brass I could drop a bullet into the 7mm-08 brass but had to apply force to get a bullet into the fired necked brass. Oh well, Time to learn how to turn necks.

I’ve necked down thousands of LC cases, as well as Rem unplated and nickeled 308s for use in two different factory chambered 308s. (Also some LC brass to 243.) I’ve not had to neck turn for any of them. Factory chambers are generally pretty generous but it would be wise to check the tolerances.

I have a few different brands of 308 brass but so far I've only tried federal brass and it's defiantly to tight for my factory Ruger American 7mm-08 chamber. I'll try some Winchester brass tonight and see how it comes out.

Federal is usually thicker in 308 Winchester.

When I load FC 308 cases the necks are typically .337"-.338" with a bullet seated. WW runs about .331"-.332".

Glad I spoke up. Thanks for feeding back on your results.

Might be worth trying some of your Winchester nickel cases. From memory they are thinner.

My chamber appears to be .317". What is an expectable neck diameter that should function with no issues?

Travis could screw this up.

I have a 7-08ai and to use 308 brass it needs a .002 turn just

I was on board until it came to turning necks... I don't shoot enough to justify the expense/time of doing it.

You rarely have to when going .308 to .284 and using factory chambers...

I necked down some nickel Winchester brass and finished neck OD was smaller than the Federal brass. I got .3105". It should work with no issue.

I have necked down many rounds of 308 brass to 7mm-08 with out any problems what so ever.

d

Good to hear. Have fun with the 7-08!