marlinguy wrote on Sep 27
th, 2018 at 11:49am:
.303 brass is pretty short to use in a .40-2 1/2 chamber. I would expect it to rattle around on first fire forming, and even after it will be short in the chamber by a good .25"! I never got past opening up .303 brass for mine, and seeing it wasn't even close I abandoned it and went to Hornady .405 Win. brass.
You assumed something incorrectly. Cases that had been fired many times rattled and showed "proud" primers. That's when I decided to bend the case rims forward a bit to take up more space in the rim cut of the chamber.
When that Hepburn came to me in ~1977.....Hornady .405 Win. brass
did not exist. Initially, I had to use a small batch of ancient .40-70 UMC brass that came with the rifle, and when that stuff wore out, I had to "make-do" with formed .303 and .30-40 cases. Even though they are too short, they worked satisfactorily for several decades........and we do what we have to do to keep the old rifles shooting. The BACO "stretched and rim-swaged" Krag cases have worked
perfectly for
my Rem-Hep ever since they became available. Besides that, the "stretching" thins the necks enough for me to be able to seat the
proper size grooved bullet without thinning the inside of the necks. I've tried a few of the .405 Hornady cases....and the necks are too thick to do that. I'm not interested in fooling with paper patch bullets in this rifle.