making 6.5 creedmoor brass

[lal357]

i've been thinking really hard on doing a 6.5 creedmoor build but it lacks the brass options .i saw where someone used 243 brass to make new 6.5 brass using a f/l 243 resizer dies that was shortened by 1/8 of an inch .
has anybody tried using a 243 body die to do this ? would it work?

[BODAB]

Go to this site. It is specifically for the 6.5 creedmoor and that topic has several posts regarding your question.


http://www.65creedmoor.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=62f1b3a18e2c8571c32aad079b6fac 31&action=forum

[Trent]

lal357, I'm the guy (maybe I'm not the the only guy) that posted in regards to shortening a .243win die in order to move the shoulder down to the proper body/shoulder length of the Creedmoor. It works easy as pie, but takes some fine tuning to get it perfect so that after running the brass through the Creedmoor die everything is where it should be and there is a VERY slight resistance when closing the bolt on the newly formed brass. This will get you perfectly formed Creedmoor brass. My brass is coming out so nice that I no longer feel that I need to "fire form" it afterwards.

You will most likely end up with thick necks that require trimming. About 85% of the new neck on the Creedmoor brass will have been formed from the shoulder of the .243win brass. In some brass this may cause some over pressure issues if it is too thick to expand in the chamber and release the bullet. With loaded factory ammo the neck diameters measure 0.290" and with my formed brass they are measuring 0.292" to 0.293" depending on the brand of brass. So about 0.002" (actually .001" x 2) needs to be trimmed away. The K&M neck turner with a carbide cutter mandrel would be the best tool for the job since it would trim the neck thickness very well and the cutting mandrel would remove any "donut" inside the neck if there is one (which there is).

Couple things I noticed. Once fired Winchester brand brass, I was able to resize this in one pass through the Hornady FL Creedmoor die after shortening the neck. One pass... done. If I tried this with virgin brass it just crushed the body of the brass and made a shiny turd. I know, people say you can't polish a turd, but if you start with something shiny and turn it INTO a turd it's totally possible. ;D

Anyway, it is a lot of work to make Creedmoor brass this way and you WILL have to invest in a neck turner if you want to do it properly. On the flip side, I just fired 50 rounds of factory Hornady Creedmoor brass yesterday for the 6th time and they are still holding strong. I am a half grain under the factory loads for the 140gr bullets. I am at 41.0gr of H4350 and Hornady prints 41.5gr on their boxes of loaded ammo. Personally I don't think it is worth the work considering the good quality of brass that Hornady is producing for this cartridge.

Here is a thread with photos over on the Creedmoor forum that BODAB was referring to. Cheers!
http://www.65creedmoor.com/index.php?topic=487.0