Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Making .300 Savage cases...

Folks,
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<br>Howdy to all from the Mountain State!
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<br>I've got a question. A friend of mine recently got a .300 Savage rifle and he doesn't "speak Internet", so he asked if I could find something out for him. It has a rotary internal magazine, not the clip type.
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<br>He reloads ammo and also has a .308 rifle. Is it possible to use .308 brass (which he has a lot of mil. surp) to make .300 Savage cases. That's the first part.
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<br>If that will work, then will the M-80 ball FMJ bullet (or equivalent) work in the rotary magazine, or are there problems. (he has lots of the mil. surp .308 brass and bullets) That's how I know what he's talking about half the time anyway--I'm still learning about all of this.
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<br>He shoots practice at metallic gongs and wants a cheap source of .300 Savage ammo. I looked on the Internet and tried to find a good source, but the commercial .300 Sav. ammo is at least $15-$16 (that's not including tax or shipping) a box, or more, and you can't get it at Wal-Mart either.
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<br>If anyone can help, please post a reply. I'm also curious about whether this case reforming thing will work, as I'm just now learning to reload ammo from him. I've never seen a case reformed before, so this will help my experience.
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<br>Thanks much!
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<br>WV_Hillbilly

Sure he can do it. It's a boat load of work tho.
<br>He'll need a neck reamer/turner to get the necks the correct thickness. Since he's going to be cutting down military brass be very damn careful with the initial reloads. Remember the internal case capacity on these will NOT be the same as factory .300Sav brass so he needs to start out way low on powder charges and then work up as needed. The reduced capacity makes for a higher chamber pressure. Proceed with caution.
<br>Any .308 bullet will work. If I remember correctly the M80 bullet is a 150grain pointed FMJ. It'll shoot but with that sharp point I don't know if it will cycle thru the magazine/chamber properly. He'll have to load up a few dummy rounds and see. it probably will work fine.
<br>Case forming is a common practice. I make cases for all kinds of stuff. Let me know if you have any questions.

I have done exactly this process...308's into 300's. The problem is that the military brass is thicker (cheaper?) and needs some loving care during the conversion. The 99 Savage that I have in 300 wouldn't feed re-cut and sized 308's because of the neck thickness. Of commercial 308 brass, some would chamber, some wouldn't. It was a hassle, but looking at Midway's prices for 300 Savage brass (and it's getting to be like the 303 Savage in scarcity) this may be the best option if your friend is into shooting this gun a lot. He'll need a neck reamer for the inside of the neck, and a neck turner for the outside. As was mentioned before, the case capacity of a reworked 308 is LESS than a 300 factory. Tell him to go slow on the loads.
<br>Another thing I found out....I have a 308 Savage 99, and if I use 308 military brass, and shoot full power jacketed loads, I cannot get the cases out of the chamber after firing. But if I use commercial brass, they are fine. In fact, all I use the military stuff for is cast loads, which are very accurate.
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<br>Good luck.
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<br>GD

Thanks very much for the info. I figure my buddy will go ahead and try it. He shoots a lot! I guess that's why he wanted a cheaper way of getting .300 Savage ammo. He shoots left handed--which is why he likes lever guns, but he wanted something that would shoot pointy bullets (not like my .30-30 with the tube magazine).
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<br>Sounds like lots of work, but I'll be helping him... so I get to learn how to do all the operations to the cases too.
<br>That makes since about the thicker brass having less capacity--like a thick Coke Bottle vs. a thin one. The thin one should hold more Coke.
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<br>He is a pretty careful guy, so I'm sure he'll be loading light at the start. I heard that the 110gr bullets that don't do too well in a .30-06 will work much better out of a .300 Savage because of the "slower twist of the barrel". Does this make sense?
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<br>Thanks again!

Thanks for the info. I'm sure my friend will try this out. He want's to "break down" some mil. surp .308 ammo that he got cheap and use the parts to make up .300 Savage ammo.
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<br>Makes sense to me as far as economy goes. It looks like a lot of work, but he shoots it up fast and he's left handed, so this kind of gun works nicely for him. I'll get to help with making the cases, so I get to learn how to do it too.
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<br>I'll probably be asking more questions... so thanks again to both repliers.
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I'm about as thrifty as they get but I wouldn't spend all that time reworking brass that may not work at all.
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<br>I buy .300 Savage brass for $30 /100 shipped from Wisconsin Cartridge.

Hey Hillbilly where you from in WV? Some of my family is from the area around Grafton and Morgantown.
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<br>Welcome to the Savage board!

About an hour and a half east of Morgantown, between Keyser WV, and Cumberland MD. I get out to that area (Fairmont/Morgantown) every 6 - 8 weeks. I've got friends who came from out there (live back here now).
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Ahh thats my old hunting grounds. Savage mountain area. Always bought gas in Kaiser. It's a small world!

I used some miscellaneous .308 commercial brass for this conversion just to see if it'd work and it does just fine with commercial brass. I too wondered about military brass. I was just curious in case .300 Savage dried up some day. AW

WV Hillbilly,
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<br>Why make em when you can buy em?! I just bought 100 cases brand new from Midway USA. You can find their website by searching for them.
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<br>I think 100 cases of fresh Winchester 300 Savage cases ran under $20 bucks! You can also buy alot of other reloading components from Midway. A great outfit!!
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<br>Good Luck.
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<br>Jack

Hello All,
<br>I am new to the Forum. I didn't know that there was a Savage collectors Forum anywhere.
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<br>I recently inherited my Grandfathers M99 EG SN#582949. It is in fair shape having been exiled to an uncle's gun cabinet for 20 years. I took it upon myself to rescue it and get it back into action. After a thorough cleaning, tear-down, inspection and trigger clean-up, I went to the range. The results were dismal, barely 6 inches at fifty yards. Runout on the Remington Brass I was using was anywhere from .003-.010" clearly unacceptable. I get about .001-.003" when I load for my .270. Never had such lousy results out of my reloading room. Back to the drawing board!
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<br>To make a long story short. I took some regular .308 cases(not military) and cut them down and reformed them into .300 Savage. I am still testing the combo but the last load, 165gr Hornady SP over 40gr of RL-15 gave 2" inch groups at 90 paces with the original open sights. Velocity was 2425fps. The reformed cases are much stronger, don't stretch and the maximum runout was .004". The rest of the reformed brass(25 in all) all were .003 and under.
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<br>Until I can try some Winchester brass I will be using the reformed cases.
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<br>ZM