If you enjoy reloading and experimenting with cartridges this post may be of some interest. On the other hand if you find reloading a tedious means to produce ammo, then maybe not so much. I had a lot of .303 British cases that had a lot of variability in rim thickness. They were head stamped .303 Brit and nothing else. I don't know who manufactured them. Anyway I trimmed what ever was needed from the base so that they will now chamber in my Stevens Model 58B.
After annealing the cases I fireforming them first, then loaded them up with 1/2 oz. loads of shot. After several firings I found that the internal pressure was not enough to fully expand the bottom half of the case to chamber size.
Therefore I made some expander plugs from 9/16" - 18 bolts, which thread into my .458 Win. Mag. de-priming die, and fully expanded the cases to what is shown in the first photo.
I load with Aliant 2400 powder, a cardboard overpowder wad, an unlubricated felt wad, and a home made plastic shot capsule. I make the shot capsules from large plastic milk jugs. By laying a little metal template on top of a strip of this plastic I can accurately cut out the correct size pieces with a razor knife . Then I roll the piece of plastic around a steel rod and slide a collar over it to hold it in place. (The collar is an expanded section of a 303 case that had a split neck from fireforming.) Have the brass collar extend 1/8" beyond the end of the steel rod, then with a microtorch I heat the 1/4" end of the plastic extending beyond the collar for a few seconds until it turns transparent. Then fold it over with a small flat stick and press the capsule down firmly on a hard surface as it quickly solidifies to form one end of the shot capsule. Then I pull out the steel rod and pour in the lead shot, compacting it with the steel rod. On top of the shot I drop a 3/8" dia. disc punched out from the same material, heat the remaining 1/4" of plastic sticking up above the shot and fold it in and over then press it onto a hard surface as before. Now slide off the brass collar and it's all done. The 45 ACP case in the picture is used when storing the shot capsules so that there is no change of any shot falling out of the open slit. (I am now beginning to put an additional slit in the plastic on the opposite side of the capsule, but just for that portion of it that is inside the case when loaded. My idea is that this will doubly ensure the plastic falls off the shot when fired, although I have not yet had a problem.)
I put a removeable round knob on the steel rod when I use it to seat the wads in the case during reloading.
The shot capsule can be firmly anchored in the case with a drop of Lepage Ultra Gel glue, but I usually don't bother with this. Here is the final result.
