.360 Buckhammer

[bdbrown66]

So, I talked to the tech guy at Lee, and explained what I wanted to do. He helped me come up with a plan that he believes will work. I'm waiting on some things to arrive, and will then test it out. It goes like this:

1. Use Lee universal decapping die with a .338 expander to open the case mouth to .338.

2. Replace the .338 expander with a .357 expander and run them thru again.

3. If there is still a bit of a shoulder left, replace the .357 expander with a 9.3x62 (.365) expander and run them thru again.

4. Now size them down with the 360 BH die.

Fingers crossed.

Forgot to add the preliminary step to cut the case length down to near the 1.8" length. Then after final sizing, do final trim to length.

 

[filmjunkie4ever]

Oh the 35 Rem is a great old cartridge!

The 360 Buckhammer exists primarily because of those crazy straight-wall cartridge laws. Pretty silly laws, but it does look like a pretty good cartridge.

Then again, I get pretty excited about lever action rifles & such.

Guy

My feelings exactly Guy. After all most cartridges outside of the top 10 or 15 are basically “reinventions of the wheel” so to speak anyways.

I have a .357 Carbine that is straightwall-state legal but a .32-38 caliber levergun may just join the ranks at some point.

 

[RL338]

So, I talked to the tech guy at Lee, and explained what I wanted to do. He helped me come up with a plan that he believes will work. I'm waiting on some things to arrive, and will then test it out. It goes like this:

1. Use Lee universal decapping die with a .338 expander to open the case mouth to .338.

2. Replace the .338 expander with a .357 expander and run them thru again.

3. If there is still a bit of a shoulder left, replace the .357 expander with a 9.3x62 (.365) expander and run them thru again.

4. Now size them down with the 360 BH die.

Fingers crossed.

Forgot to add the preliminary step to cut the case length down to near the 1.8" length. Then after final sizing, do final trim to length.

Last night I was loading up some 35 Whelen and gave this a try. I grab an old fired 30-30 case and expanded it to .338”. Since I don’t have an .358” expander I ran the case through my 35 Whelen FL die. I bottomed out on the shellholder before expanding the neck out thru the shoulder.

 

[bdbrown66]

Last night I was loading up some 35 Whelen and gave this a try. I grab an old fired 30-30 case and expanded it to .338”. Since I don’t have an .358” expander I ran the case through my 35 Whelen FL die. I bottomed out on the shellholder before expanding the neck out thru the shoulder.
View attachment 20697

I don't *think* this will be an issue here. We looked at the length and position of the expander buttons as we were talking it thru. Give me a few days and I'll let you know, lol.

 

[bdbrown66]

So, here are the results of my experiment.

First, here are two factory 360 BH cases which have been fired and resized.



Now, here are two 30-30 cases which have been resized using the procedure above.



A couple of notes:

The first one I followed the complete procedure, 338 > 357 > 9.3. The second one, I just went straight to the 9.3, and it seemed to do just fine.

To make sure I could get the shoulder clear past the expander, I had to position the stem of the expander pretty much as low as it would go, just barely into the bottom of the collet. It seemed to stay put, if I tightened it enough.

You can barely see a wrinkle where the shoulder once was. I'm pretty sure that will be gone after the first firing.

I'll post again after I've loaded and fired some of these.

Cheers,
Brian

 

[RL338]

I took the expanded case from the other day and ran an .375” mandrel through it and you can still see the old shoulder a little.

 

[bdbrown66]

I took the expanded case from the other day and ran an .375” mandrel through it and you can still see the old shoulder a little.
View attachment 20716

As with mine, I'm pretty certain a firing will remove that. We'll find out...

 

[Guy Miner]

Put some Remington factory rounds, 180 & 200 grain, through the Henry rifle a few days ago. Very nice! Didn't do any serious accuracy testing, but thoroughly enjoyed shooting the 360 Buckhammer. We will have a video coming out within a few weeks. We've got dies as well, so I hope to do some handloading for it soon.

Guy

 

[bdbrown66]

Put some Remington factory rounds, 180 & 200 grain, through the Henry rifle a few days ago. Very nice! Didn't do any serious accuracy testing, but thoroughly enjoyed shooting the 360 Buckhammer. We will have a video coming out within a few weeks. We've got dies as well, so I hope to do some handloading for it soon.

Guy

Guy, drop a note in here when the video(s) is up. I'd like to see it. Thx!

 

[bdbrown66]

On the left is a dummy round made from 360 BH brass. On the right is a dummy round made from resized 30-30 brass. They both chamber just fine in my rifle.

Bullet is the 180gr Speer Hot-Cor, #2435.

 

[filmjunkie4ever]

Guy, drop a note in here when the video(s) is up. I'd like to see it. Thx!

I also am interested in seeing this!

 

[gerry]

I'm sure those wrinkles will be ironed out after the first firing. The 180 Speers should be perfect in the 360 BH.

 

[gerry]

Put some Remington factory rounds, 180 & 200 grain, through the Henry rifle a few days ago. Very nice! Didn't do any serious accuracy testing, but thoroughly enjoyed shooting the 360 Buckhammer. We will have a video coming out within a few weeks. We've got dies as well, so I hope to do some handloading for it soon.

Guy

Looking forward to seeing it too and hopefully a follow up video when you get to reloading for it.

 

[gerry]

If Nosler came out with a RN Ballistic Tip for it like they do in .308 and .458 that would be cool too. Anywhere from 180-220 gr would be useful.

 

[Guy Miner]

On the left is a dummy round made from 360 BH brass. On the right is a dummy round made from resized 30-30 brass. They both chamber just fine in my rifle.

Bullet is the 180gr Speer Hot-Cor, #2435.

View attachment 20732

That is great! 360 Buckhammer brass is still in fairly short supply, while a lot of us, like me, have got quite a stash of 30-30 brass on hand.

Good work!

Guy

 

[bdbrown66]

A little more documentation of the process. If you are going to create 360 BH brass from 30-30 brass, you will want to cut off the extra portion of the neck before you begin the resizing. I did the first 20 or so with my Dremel and a cutoff wheel, but that's not particularly efficient. For about $35, you can pick up this handy gadget from Harbor Freight:





You can put the brass directly in the clamp, of course, but that isn't as efficient as it could be. For a few more dollars and a trip to Lowe's, I picked up a piece of copper pipe that will hold the brass in place well enough for this purpose. It's not perfect, but it doesn't have to be at this point. Just get it close enough, and then you can do your final trimming after resizing. Meantime, you can pop the brass in and out of there with ease, no need to tighten and loosen the clamp each time. I trimmed a bag of about 30-40 pieces last night in about 5 minutes.





That's all for today. Planning to do some shooting over the weekend.

Brian

 

[bdbrown66]

So, I think I found my hunting load. 37.7gr Accurate 1680 gave me this group at 100 yards. As my scope only goes to 7x, the flyer could easily have been me. Even so, it's just barely over a 1" group, and that will do for deer any day of the week. I have reason to believe that the load will be very accurate, as the chrono numbers were excellent:

Avg - 2431 fps
ES - 9 fps
SD - 5 fps

Granted, that's only a 3-shot group, but it looks to be very consistent.

 

[DrMike]

That'll work just fine.

 

[JD338]

That works. Make sure your knife is sharp.

JD338

 

[wvbuckbuster]

I'd hunt that load any day. Get a big one. Dan.