.358 Win Brass Questions

[HeathSexton]

I have been working with my .358 some and I have a couple questions. My brass is necked up .308 brass, I could not find .358 brass at the time, and it varies in length. Looking through manuals it states brass should be trimmed to 2.005" the brass I have varies from 1.980 - 2.010". This brass was new in the bag when I sized it and I have been keeping tracks of loadings keeping the same number on all pieces of brass. What do I need to do to get them uniform in length? I am having some flyer trouble and I am thinking the variance in brass length would have some impact on that?

 

[6ppcar]

Maybe you could sort the brass by length into separate groups.

 

[boldaddy]

Are you shooting a lever action? My savage 99 in .358 stretches cases fairly quickly. I have trim die that I use fairly often to get them back to spec.

I tend to make my brass from 30-06 rather than .308. I run it up into my trim die, cut with a hacksaw, chamfer the mouth then run through a full length sizing die. I will note that for rounds where accuracy is important I use brass that I've fired once in the rifle to ensure that the shoulder is shaped well. I then keep the brass separated by the number of times it's been used. That way the whole batch is trimmed at the same time. Using this method they tend to be of consistent lenght.

I've used commercial and military brass. I prefer commercial though because the primer pockets are crimped on the military stuff.

Another note on Accuracy, using my savage 99f I find that I really can't get tight groups. I can get to a couple of inches at 100 yards, but that's it for me. I use the gun for hunting, so that's good enough for a short range deer/elk rifle.

Hope this is helpful.