Well I finally made it home from the slope and got a chance to spend some time reloading and forming brass.

The barrel is 26 inches, slugs out at .266 and there is no cross pennant on the bolt though it does have a crown over a V.

I fought with trying to make brass from the Remington 303. I set the shoulder back using a 308 trim die. I set it long so I didn't set the shoulder back too far. When I tried running into the 6.5x53R dies the shoulder would buckle. There was no excess lube in the die but it just wouldn't size the neck without buckling the shoulder. Fortunately there was a gun show in town today. I stopped by and picked up a set of Redding 7-08 dies. That proved to be the ticket. After setting the shoulder back with the 308 die, I made a pass through the 7-08 die and then through the 6.5x53 die. It worked great.

I loaded up a hundred rounds with some 100 grain bullets I had laying around that I would never use otherwise. I'll fire form the cases with those then anneal the cases and start working on some loads with 160 Hornady and Woodleigh round nose, and some RWS 156 grain H Mantle hollow points.

Here's a picture of the crown and V on the bolt.