A 100 ROUNDS OF BRASS, IF IT WORKS, SHOULD LAST DARN NEAR A LIFETIME.

I do lose a few to neck splits with my barrel and Rem. brass so may try a few Starline brass.

I would give Match Grade Machine a call and ask them what they would charge to open the neck slightly as it doesn't seem you have very many other good options. They opened up a tight neck SSK barrel for me a long time back.

PAMike, I?ll definitely keep that in mind as SSK didn?t seem open to anything other than reaming it to their specs. I?m going to try the Rem brass and see what happens.

On another note, I met with Mech8 and his rounds still won?t fit, but it appeared to be the seated length of his bullets as best we could tell. So, SSK tightened the necks and apparently gave it a shorter throat than past barrels. It would have been nice if someone there would have told me some of this during the multiple phone calls. I just want to get it figured out and start shooting. As Rey said, 100 cases will last me a long time once I get them to work!

I hope the new brass resolves the issue. All the brass I have been using for the last 15 years on my 309JDJ, 338JDJ#2 & 375 JDJ has been R-P. If the R-P brass works for you, I would like to see if the Starline brass would fit in any of my barrels after being loaded. I would like to try a few pieces of the Starline and if it works, I would purchase from you if you wanted to do something like that.
I have a 6.5JDJ barrel I'm dealing with right now that after firing some rounds, I can't get them into the dies, to resize. The brass just past the rim after being fired is about .004 to large to fit into my old RCBS dies. So I just ordered a new set of Hornady from SSK and the brass won't size in it. After lubing fired brass, I can run the brass into either die about 1/8" at a time for about 15 strokes to get the brass sized to .421, which is what all chamber drawing show it to be. I have pulled many case rims off trying to size. I have gotten pretty good at removing stuck cases from the dies. This is on an older barrel I picked up a few years back and have just dealt with it. I found another 6.5JDJ barrel, RCBS dies and some brass on a site this summer and purchased it for a great price. All fired brass will work on either set of my dies with one stroke. This is when I decided after doing considerable measuring on brass, new, sized, fired that the barrel is letting the brass expand to much about 1/4" from the rim. I just sent the barrel, new dies, some fired brass from this old barrel and then some brass fired from my new barrel to SSK a few days back. I figured, what the heck. It's just laying on my work bench, taking up space. I wrote a 4 page letter with all of my findings and will be waiting to see what happens. I have been loading for my jdj rounds for 20 years and other wildcat stuff longer. This has been a venture to say the least. Will see what SSK has to say. I like all of my JDJ rounds and this is not bashing them in any way. Just want to know what they think it might be.

Good luck with your barrel and loading.

Mike

Success! I finally have loaded rounds that fit my chamber. The RP brass worked. I seated my bullet using the dummy round from SSK and it fits perfectly. I loaded some testing rounds and hope to shoot them tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

As a side note, SSK said Blackhiils Shooter Supply has tons of RP 444 Marlin brass. I called and they do, BUT they don?t sell retail. So, it can be tricky to find readily available Rem. brass.

Mike, that?s weird. Please let us know what SSK says.

I have successfully loaded, chambered, and fired 358 JDJ rounds in my barrel! RP brass works perfectly and I shot some work-up loads yesterday. I worked up to one of the non-maximum loads SSK sent me using the Speer 220 FP and AA2520. It should give me somewhere between 2200-2300 FPS, but I have no chronograph, so I'm just going by SSK's numbers.

From the starting load to the load I wanted, I saw zero change in the primer and every round unlocked easily and dropped right out of the chamber. All of the rounds, which was 3 to 4 of each powder charge, shot into an inch or less at 25 yards with me using a pretty poor rest and a sloppy 2.5" circle I drew with a marker as a target. I am going to get to work loading more rounds and dialing them in now!

A word on recoil. This round has it in spades! The brake keeps the muzzle down and drives the gun back. It isn't intolerable by any means for anyone not recoil sensitive, but it gets your attention. I realized that I cannot use my support hand to wrap around my strong hand in usual fashion. The darned trigger guard drives right into my left index finger with gusto. That happens to be a really bad arthritic finger

I'm going to dig out my shooting gloves for range work, but while hunting I won't even notice it. I have wrist problems and I am glad to see the lack of muzzle rise kept me from feeling any discomfort in them. A buddy's 500 S&W revolver (6" maybe) caused me enough discomfort to tell me not to get one of those!

The noise didn't seem bad to me at all while using plugs and muffs, certainly not as bad as an 11 inch .223. I have very high hopes for this barrel and have no regrets with the project. Thanks!

On the hard recoiling calibers, as you have found out you never put the fingers of the off hand under the trigger guard spur. You put the first two fingers of the support hand on the outside of the spur or you get Contender Knuckle. Mine is magna ported and raises more than with a brake,and they do come back hard. I limit the number of shots at a setting with any hard recoiling gun as fatigue sets in quickly and bad habits follow. Shoot a group lay it down shoot something lighter then come back. I shoot 180 gr Speer in mine and they work well.

Glad to hear you got it fixed!

Glad you got your 358 working. For offhand shooting I cradle the front of the trigger guard in my off hand

I loaded up some more rounds and sighted it in today. Using a pretty solid rest, this load shoots three rounds into 1.5? at 100 yards, with two rounds Touching. I?m pretty satisfied with those groups.

I have tweaked my grip and have it as comfortable as possible. The weak hand index and middle finger on the lever works great. I just cradle the action with that hand. If I try to stiff arm my strong hand, it makes the pain worse in my palm, so I just relax a little and let the gun come back. It?s going to come back anyway! At the shot, the gun slides back from my support hand a few inches and my arm absorbs a lot of the recoil as it moves. It still smacks my palm pretty bad, but there is no free ride. 220 grains at 2200+ FPS in a pistol as light as a Contender is going to make things move.

I?m ready to hunt now. It is likely I?ll not shoot anything larger than a doe this deer season and I?m curious how the big Speer slug will behave. Maybe later on I?ll get a shot at a hog. Take care.

JDK, glad you got your SSK barrel up and running. Sounds like you should have a great deer/elk or what ever hammer. The 358JDJ is one I never got around to purchasing. Tried to get a couple on sites but it didn't work out. I'm happy with my .375JDJ shooting 220 & 235 grain flat nose bullets.

On another note we spoke about. I got my 6.5JDJ Contender barrel back from SSK. No notes, nothing. I sent some brass that had been shot from this barrel and it looked to be sized. SO, I call them. Talked to the guy that got my barrel. He said that over time, making barrels that some reamers cut different. He didn't see that .002 larger chamber was an issue. BS!. I asked him how he sized the cases. He said that my dies, I had sent had a little rust in them. BS! I had cleaned them with steel wool before sending them due to expecting them to say that. He said he ran the cases through the dies with NO problem.
Now I'm starting see the writing on the wall. I asked him what about the Brand New Hornady Custom dies I had just purchased from him for $100.00. What am I supposed to do with them. I got a load of crap but they finally agreed to take them back.
I took the barrel out, without scope or sites and fired 10 rounds to get some fired brass to try in the "Cleaned UP Dies". Not a one of them would size, without doing the 1/8" steps running them into the die just as they had before. BS! I even tried sizing with one stroke and pulled the case rim off in the shell holder twice before my brain said this was no good. I was about ready to cut the barrel up and take my loss. I had a little light come on, dim but it did come on in my head.
I called Hornady and talked with the guys that makes the JDJ dies. He said he was sorry and that the only solution he could come up with is he could make me a custom sizing die, for $150.00 for my fired cases so I could use the "CUSTOM" barrel. Now we are getting somewhere! Right?
I'm waiting on the refund after sending the new, unused dies back to SSK. I have fired 10 more rounds and have them boxed up to send to Hornady to send them to Hornady for a custom Sizing die that will be zipped tied to this barrel forever so that whoever would get it after me, could shoot and load for it and have fun!
I'm a little upset with this issue but I got the barrel second or third hand, who knows how many owned it and couldn't load for it. If it had been new, I would have gotten a full refund and went on my way. If this barrel didn't shoot lights out for me at any distance, after killing many deer, some hogs and varmints it would be sold for some of the guys that are stubbing the barrels and making a new caliber barrel, or a tent stake.
I'm rambling now but you asked to hear what happened with this barrel. There is the story. Just waiting on my Custom Die now.
Mike

I hated to hear that Mike. I am big on customer service and that just seems a bit lacking at SSK now. I know you said your barrel shoots great, but I wonder if there is something it could be opened up to that is more standard? Otherwise, you will be the only kid on the block with a Contender chambered for the 6.5 Mike!

Mike.....hard to keep up with what all is going on here, but i will say this.......
i had a set of hornady 6tcu dies that would stick cases no matter what lube i tried. Sent die to Hornady and they determined the size die was ?rough? and sent me another that works. Just wondering if that size die is the whole problem???

Long time ago, so I may forget some specifics. Prob tried 4 or 5 different lubes and developed a preference on ?slickness?. Lol

Kyode, thanks for the info. I thought about that. I have two sets of 6.5JDJ dies. One I bought 15 years back, Hornady, and a set of RCBS that came with the barrel I have now in 6.5JDJ. I tried both of these on the dies and they wouldn't work. I'm going to send the set I can use to them and let them check the dimensions and see if you might be right. Never can tell. The two sets I have will size the fired brass from the barrel I'm shooting now.
On the lube, I have tried RCBS, Sinclair, Hornady dry spray and another by Lyman.
All with the same results.

JDK- I asked Hornady and SSK and they both said with the Contender barrel, there is nothing they can rechamber to clean up the barrel like it is.

Mike