30 Herrett brass from 225 Winchester

[Jim M]

I heard of a guy making 30 herrett brass from 225 winchester instead of 30-30 for a contender. Anyone doing this and any pros or coms except a stronger case?

[HL]

I can't think of a pro, but the cons would be brass availability and cost. 225 brass, if you can find it, is a lot more expensive than the cheap 30-30 brass.

225 brass is a stronger brass, but the 30 Herrett is not a high pressure cartridge, therefore, I do not consider the brass strength a pro.

[Lone Star]

This practice was once popular with IHMSA silhouette shooters; there were three pros to its use. 

1)  The .225 cases are stronger and lasted a lot longer with the heavy loads that some silhouette shooters used.

2)  The .225 cases were of better quality - much more consistant than .30-30 brass with better case wall concentricity and closer total weights.

3)  The .225 cases were larger in diameter ahead of the rim than .30-30 cases, so they fit production chambers tighter for better potential accuracy.

The biggest advantage was better potential accuracy.  I never had problems with .30-30 cases, but I never loaded max loads for silhouette shooting - and I shot plenty of 40x40 scores with mine.  I also only used new, quality Federal .30-30 brass - not range pick-ups.

Since the .30 Herrett headspaces off the shoulder the thinner rim on the .225 case is not an issue....it is used only for extraction.



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[skb2706]

I heard of a guy making 30 herrett brass from 225 winchester instead of 30-30 for a contender. Anyone doing this and any pros or coms except a stronger case?

Probably be easier and less hassle to make 30 Herret brass from .375 Win brass if you were just looking for heavy material. I load several wildcat cartridges using plain jane 30-30 brass with no trouble. Got a few .375 cases laying around if you want to give it a shot.

[Lone Star]

The easiest were the .375 SuperMag cases that used to be sold by IHMSA.  All it took was a single pass and a slight trim - as long as it was virgin brass.  One problem with .375 and .225 cases is that their internal volume was less than .30-30 cases, so you had to be careful with near-max published loads. Too, the cases were of no better quality than .30-30 brass; that has been my observation with .375 WCF brass as well.  The case diameter was smaller than that of .225 cases.


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[Jim M]

Thanks for the replies, I did a quick check on 225 brass and only found one place that had it. I think I better stay with the Winchester 30-30 cases that I've been using. I just started loading 30 Herrett but even the fire form loads have been grouping well.