carolinachuck

30-30 chambers are all over the board - they have been cut for over 125 years. The SAAMI spec for the cartridge is a dwarf for most chambers and it head spaces off of the rim. You want to reload for the rifle's chamber, and only that rifle's chamber. You want to crimp in the cannular for the bullet you are reloading with, but what overall case length do you want to trim at for your overall cartridge length to be right? It is a devil of a cartridge to load for to get right for these reasons. I don't know about cowboy dies, but the expander should come back up through the neck of the case and open it up to allow you to seat a .308 bullet - you don't flare a case neck on a bottle neck case to seat a bullet?