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Was going through my brass this morning sorting out brass for calibres I no longer own. Found around three hundred 30-06 cases and turned them from 30-06 to.........
Food for my 8mm Yugoslavian Mauser. Should save a few bob on brass for that rifle

Good job there.......what's involved in turning 30-06 into 8mm Mauser?.

Well the way I do it is really easy. First I anneal the brass, then using my mini circular cut off saw I remove most of the neck leaving leaving the COL @ 2.045. Give the case a quick chamf and deburr and then run it through the 8mm FL die, after that I trim the brass to 8mm specs and then load it up. I usually use plinking bullets for fire forming the brass. After fireforming them I will neck size them until I have to FL size them again.

You can also use 270 win cases or even 25-06 cases. That's it, easy peasy

Nice!

You forgot to mention how much you have to lube up

I looked into case forming 8mm Mauser from .30'06 but I suddenly realised that I do not have a surplus of .30'06 so it would be better in the long run to buy the 8mm brass rather than .30'06 and doing all the extra work...

Assuming you still have the .30'06, how do you segregate your brass based on headstamp? Have you filed the headstamp off or made any obvious markers (aside from the obvious difference in length of the brass)?

I had heard that this conversion could be unsafe - I don't recall where I read it but I'm sure I did, so have a care. I believe it arose after the war when captured 7.92 (8mm) rifles came back to the USA and there was no ammo available for them.
Maybe a good idea to rechamber into 8mm-06

WelshShooter wrote:You forgot to mention how much you have to lube up

I looked into case forming 8mm Mauser from .30'06 but I suddenly realised that I do not have a surplus of .30'06 so it would be better in the long run to buy the 8mm brass rather than .30'06 and doing all the extra work...

Assuming you still have the .30'06, how do you segregate your brass based on headstamp? Have you filed the headstamp off or made any obvious markers (aside from the obvious difference in length of the brass)?

Hiya Welshman, yep your right about the lube. I use Hornady One Shot lube, after cutting off most of the case neck I smooth the neck up and then give them a shot of One Shot before running them through the die.

All the cases I have are Winchester head stamped so that issue doesn't arise for me. I do however mark the bottom of the case to indicate that it is reformed brass, the storage boxes are also marked that it's the reformed stuff.

dodgyrog wrote:I had heard that this conversion could be unsafe - I don't recall where I read it but I'm sure I did, so have a care. I believe it arose after the war when captured 7.92 (8mm) rifles came back to the USA and there was no ammo available for them.
Maybe a good idea to rechamber into 8mm-06

Hi Rog, well up to now I have shot and fireformed 100 cases and I'm not seeing any signs of pressure or other indications of trouble. I was out again this morning and again no problems mate. Capacity and case thickness wise there is very little difference between the two cases to be a problem. Last night I spent an hour or so searching for what you said and couldn't come up with anything to indicate that it could be or is dangerous.

There seems to be a lot of people in America doing it without any reported problems mate but I will keep a wary eye on it.

Rog, forgot to add that the rifle doing the shooting has been re-barrelled with a modern made barrel.