.303, unprimed brass

Where can one find .303 British unprimed brass these days?

I found out by reading Ken Waters, Pet Loads, that the 30-40 Krag case has a base dia., which
fits a military .303, chamber just fine. One must fire form the case to move the shoulder forward and it works just fine. However I found that the rim dia. is somewhat larger, and the
extractor will not climb over the rim when loading from the magazine. Therefore one must hand feed the round individually. You can then close the bolt without any trouble. Seems
Ken forgot to mention that in his article. It almost seems cost effective to purchase Priv-Partizan (PPU) loaded .303 ammo to obtain cases. 7.62x39 123gr. bullets also function well,
see Speer reloading manual 14th ed.

So if your short of .303 cases, i hope this will be helpful to you.

Take care, and best wishes to you all

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo.../ppu303b-1.jpg
PRVI BRASS 303 BRITISH UNPRIMED 100/BAG
Our Price:
$49.99
In Stock
Item #:
PPU303B

WIN BRASS 30-40 KRAG UNPRIMED 50/bag 20/cs
Our Price:
$27.39
In Stock
Item #:
WINU3040

Why not save a few bucks and leave the Krag brass for Krags?

I don't think there is a shortage of 303 brass, even if there was I would certainly hesitate to convert krag cases, this sort of caper is for those with far too much time on their hands.:thdown:

Thanks, Parashooter, So what unit was you in, or are you, or was you a skydiver. Out of just under 30 yrs. I was 16 in the ABN. Shoot me an e-mail if you want. Take care and best wishes :)

---------- Post added at 08:01 PM ---------- Previous post was at 07:52 PM ----------

Muffett, .303B brass in the US currently is not easy to come by, Here in Colorado ammo, reloading supplies is very scarce, and expensive when you can find it. Converting 30-40 brass is quite easy, and it works well. I'll agree with you it's much nicer if one can get his hands on .303British. So mate take care, and best wishes. PS At 77 I'm retired, but really don't seem to have much time, it goes by so fast. Funny when I was working I seemed to have much more time, figure that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Holzhacker

Here in Colorado ammo, reloading supplies is very scarce, and expensive when you can find it.

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Amen to that. Brass I have, but finding powder or large rifle primers on the shelf here in Arizona is well nigh impossible.

Outfits like Graf's will happily ship .303 brass right to your address in Colorado. At least as of today, they claim to have plenty available. What's the problem?

Item #:	PPU303B
Price:	$49.99 Prices include shipping! One flat fee of $6.95 per order.
Availability:	In Stock
Vendor:	Prvi Partizan Ammunition & Components
Volume Discounts:	Rounds Units Purchased Savings Price per Unit Total Price 100 1 $49.99 $49.99 500 5 Save 5% $47.49 $237.45 1000 10 Save 10% $44.99 $449.91

Product Information
Imported from Serbia. Fully reloadable brass cases. Accept boxer primers.

Talking of .303 brass........ I remember seeing a HUGE pile of maybe 60,000 cases from Vickers guns of fired .303". I wonder if anyone could invent a simple two stage gadget that would
a) de-prime and mill out the anvil, then
b) a second stage to perhaps drill a third fire hole that would bring the total surface area of the (now....) THREE fire holes up to the total surface area of the larger single boxer primer fire hole and
c) If necessary, bore/ream out the existing primer pocket to accept a currently available primer.

Has anyone thought of this? Not being an ammo man and never had to reload or ever had to buy a round of ammo in his life - so far - it just seems like a simple idea

The standard British berdan primer as used in Mk7 rounds is way bigger in diameter (.250") than a standard large rifle boxer primer, the smaller European berdan size (.217") is quite close to the large rifle boxer size though, and there have been quite a few threads on other forums on how to do this conversion.

I have experimented with sleeving down the large berdan primer pockets to accept the smaller berdans, works fine for blanks, but have not been keen to try it for full-power loads.

Thanks Holzhacker.. Those little tid bits are what make the hobby interesting.

Parashooter, thanks for the update, will check Graft's. Have a great weekend. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Peter Laidler

Talking of .303 brass........ I remember seeing a HUGE pile of maybe 60,000 cases from Vickers guns of fired .303". I wonder if anyone could invent a simple two stage gadget that would
a) de-prime and mill out the anvil, then
b) a second stage to perhaps drill a third fire hole that would bring the total surface area of the (now....) THREE fire holes up to the total surface area of the larger single boxer primer fire hole and
c) If necessary, bore/ream out the existing primer pocket to accept a currently available primer.

Has anyone thought of this? Not being an ammo man and never had to reload or ever had to buy a round of ammo in his life - so far - it just seems like a simple idea

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its fairly simple. I have been converting berdan 303 to boxer to feed the hungry BREN. the WW2 brit cases last longer than modern commercial cases

https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSC02654-1.jpg
https://www.milsurps.com/images/impo...DSC02647-1.jpg

Just a couple of points on the great 303 brass caper:

1. Any ammo that has a COPPER coloured primer cup will not last too long. This is because the copper cups contain MERCURIC fulminate. When this stuff goes off, it releases free Mercury metal. The BIG problem is that this "free" Mercury INSTANTLY reacts with the brass case. This is NOT a good thing: the brass WILL start to go brittle from this moment onwards. It WILL start to develop structural weakness that usually is first noticed as cracking of the necks after reloading. Annealing will NOT offer much help.

2. All that aside, you will need a stash of the RWS 6000 Berdan primer to get another go or two out of the cases. The idea of machining out the primer pocket to accept cheap, common shotgun primers has some merit, but remember that the shotgun priming system is NOT designed to handle the 40K plus psi pressure in a full-house .303 load.

3. Modern brass, whenever you can find it, is the way to go for ammo used for serious hunting or competition shooting. Having half a case stuck in the chamber tends to bugger up your scores in rapid and snap events. These rifles do NOT have "bench-rest" grade chambers, so do not expect to get 20 reloads out of cases used for decent loads. 6 to 10 is achievable, especially if you size minimally and anneal the necks after every 3 or 4 loadings. If your chamber is a "war-time" special or has been "cleaned up" before sale in the surplus business, and you full-length size, the cases will tend to fail at the web just forward of the rim, before the necks expire.

3. If you have a lovely rifle that is worth a thousand bucks or a LOT more, why would you use dubious ammo in it, anyway? It would be like running your pristine '68 Mustang on Kerosene.

Are you using brass or copper for the sleeve material in the primer pocket?

---------- Post added at 12:32 AM ---------- Previous post was at 12:23 AM ----------

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bruce_in_Oz

All that aside, you will need a stash of the RWS 6000 Berdan primer to get another go or two out of the cases.

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Have said stash, and have been getting about 7 reloads out of Mk 7 brass. Not questioning the physics/chemistry at all, because I do get about 2-3% neck splits, but in general what has been defeating me from going further is the gradual increase in size of primer pockets. I can use a .250" one for the first 4 reloads, then go up to the .254" ones for the next 3.

That's keen , Max.

I keep a stash of the .254 size RWS as well, but they get used in 7.62 x 54 cases. A mate also uses them in several British and European "Big Game" cartridges.

i haven't seen the RWS 6000 in the usual Oz shops for a while; any clues?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bruce_in_Oz

i haven't seen the RWS 6000 in the usual Oz shops for a while; any clues?

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From what I've been told, the RWS 6000 are long out of production; I put in en e-mail enquiry on the RWS site, and they advised me the same.

I last saw RWS 6000 for sale in Brisbane about 6 months ago, but the price was pretty steep - I crunched the numbers, and once the RWS were over about $142/1000 (add in DG freight) it was more economical to buy new boxer-primed Prvi brass rather than try stretch out my Mk 7 brass.

Mind you, I do have plenty of the 5.5mm berdans so the sleeving-down method might get a better look later on. Oh for a Bren gun to put 'em through.....

So finally it is easier to get something up here in Maine than it is in other places. .303 ammo has been and still is fairly easy to find and prices have stayed about the same.
For a spell it was easier to find .303 British than it was .308 Winchester.

Why not just source the Canadian made boxer primed stuff and be done with it? I hear its beautiful to reload with. Hoping to find out soon!

i reload PPU and remington brass. i use H380 powder and serria bullets. 175 grain. the only problem i have is if you are not careful you crush the neck of the brass and you just destroyed it........took me a couple of times before i figured out easy does it. also i have had to trim the brass after about the 2 nd time shooting them. first shot new brass ,second shot reloaded then trim.......seem to get about 4-5 reloads per brass case. then the neck gets to thin to be safe.

I've got 100 once fired 303 HXP brass for sale if anyone here needs it.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mrbungle

the only problem i have is if you are not careful you crush the neck of the brass and you just destroyed it........took me a couple of times before i figured out easy does it.

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Do you chamfer your cases when they are new? PRVI is s bit stingy on the bevel. I neck size mine only and have most of my PRVI cases onto the second annealing now so headed onto ten reloads.