Certainly there are guys such as yourself that go thru weighing and sorting. My meaning was, I'm not a competition shooter and so it's not so portant to me that those things matter. What does matter to me is longevity. I'll simply pay the double dollar for brass that will last 3-4 times longer than the others. I have 5 different calibers that I use Lapua brass for and it's all alike in that I can get at least a dozen reloads from them. That's huge for me. Less running or ordering or worrying about split necks or lose pockets etc. You simply benefit from other qualities that lapua offers. Currently building or built a 22-250 AI so I will begin fireforming for it soon. Lapua all the way for this too.
What is the big deal about Lapua brass
- Thread starter Clinton Mullins
- Start date
Well i do use lapua in my Robert Whitley 6mm AR turbo 40 improved. It is a.pretty consistent 1/2 MOA gun. Now ARs are rough on brass but if you put a little pad on the shell deflector and use a brass catcher it helps
ImBIllT
Silver $$ Contributor
Remington-Occasionally I'll help a free reload and the Remington brass usually has so many oval primer pockets, visible neck concentricity issues, split necks after being fired once etc. that I talk them into throwing their Remington brass in the trash.
Federal-I've only shot a little of their nickel plated stuff in .222, .308, and 30-06. I've done NO sorting. Primer pockets and flash holes were fine. Pressure signs appeared on the brass before they did on the primers, so the brass is soft...a little softer than Norma. It's easy to find in the field, and despite being soft has lasted through TONS of reloading in the .222. Keeping loads mild it seems to last just fine.
Winchester- I have done full prep on a fair bit of Winchester. If fully prepped, it will shoot as well as Lapua or Norma or anyone else. It is very hard and brittle, which makes for extra work when in all stages of prep. There is usually an extra step...deburring flash holes. They have punched flash holes rather than drilled. Primer pockets vary in depth considerably. I uniform primer pockets on all brands except RWS, but Winchester will not only have pockets so shallow that you feel like you will never be able to cut them to the proper depth, but will also have some DEEPER than spec. When I uniform Winchester brass I adjust my primer pocket uniformer to cut deeper. When turning necks you can see the brass chip off rather than come off in long spiral chips. I'm not sure whether they don't anneal their brass, or just use a brittle alloy. The brittle necks may actually be easier to trim to length, but pre-trimmed length usually varies wildly, sometimes requiring quite a bit of trimming. Case neck concentricity and uniformity are both terrible. Uniforming by turning does not fix the thickness variation throughout the whole body. For a custom or blue-printed action used in benchrest competition, I would throw out every case with poor concentricity....which will be quite a few. After fully uniforming brass, I sort by weight to +- .1gr for small cases and +- .2gr for larger cases. Weight sorting prior to prep tells you little about actually capacity. With Winchester from 100pcs I usually get 4-5 groups, with a few cases falling outside of those. You can see that you really need to more than 100pcs to shoot a very long shot string at a match without having to shoot two different groups at the same target.
Norma-Drilled flash holes! Very smooth cutting. A pleasure to prep. Requires very little cutting to uniform primer pockets and trim to length. Creates very long chips when turning necks. Turning necks requires minimal effort. After sorting by weight I usually get two very large groups with only or few pieces falling outside, sometimes I get a third smaller group. You can see how 100pcs can yeild very suitable groups for competitions. It is softer than Lapua and sometimes shows pressure signs before primers do. Loading to flat primers will yeild loose primer pockets quickly. Loading just under that yeilds very long lived brass! It is my opinion that Lapua is more prevalent in benchrest for reasons other than uniformity. A: Benchresters usually like to load PPCs very hot, and Norma brass won't handle the same loads that Lapua will. B: I'm not certain that Norma PPC brass has the balloon case head that Lapua .220 Russian has. C: Starting with .220 Russian ensures that no matter how tight your chamber is, your brass will fit. A Norma PPC case could be a tight squeeze in many benchrest chambers.
Lapua- hard strong brass. Seems to be a superior allow to Winchester, as cuts a little more easily yet seems to show pressure signs with slightly hotter loads. Primer pockets have never opened up on me, and I have some .308 cases that have been fired close to 30 times with max loads. It's a lot more effort to cut than Norma, but just like Norma, you don't have to remove much material. After prep, I usually get three groups with a couple peice falling outside of those groups. You can see how Norma has a certain added value by yeild two larger groups of brass. Nonetheless, Lapua yeilds very suitable group sizes for shooting competitions without having to use two groups of brass on the same target. In fact, I've had one 100 piece batch of Norma that fell so evenly between two groups that I didn't have enough rounds in either group to shoot two relays on just one group, and without having three groups, I still had to shoot two groups of brass on one target, so the "advantage" became a disadvantage.
RWS-between Lapua and Norma for hardness. Weight sort immediately, and throw out the two or three cases that aren't perfect. Don't waste your time turning necks unless you're shooting it in a tight neck chamber. Don't waste time uniforming primer pockets or length...you will be less uniform when you finish than when you started. Just buy and shoot!
Why Lapua? Well because it will allow you to hot rod it more than Norma, and costs less than RWS. Uniforming brass other than Norma, Lapua, and RWS takes soooo much longer and soooo much more effort, and requires a larger batch to start with, that I just don't feel like I'm saving any thing by going "cheap" and not using Lapua, RWS or Norma. Norma and RWS are probably both more consistent than Lapua, but the the price increase, lack of availability, and the softness of the Norma leaves most people sticking with Lapua.
None of the above applies to 6.5-284. Most of it that I have encountered is hard, brittle, and crappy. That's probably why the 6.5-284 is falling out of favor.
Federal-I've only shot a little of their nickel plated stuff in .222, .308, and 30-06. I've done NO sorting. Primer pockets and flash holes were fine. Pressure signs appeared on the brass before they did on the primers, so the brass is soft...a little softer than Norma. It's easy to find in the field, and despite being soft has lasted through TONS of reloading in the .222. Keeping loads mild it seems to last just fine.
Winchester- I have done full prep on a fair bit of Winchester. If fully prepped, it will shoot as well as Lapua or Norma or anyone else. It is very hard and brittle, which makes for extra work when in all stages of prep. There is usually an extra step...deburring flash holes. They have punched flash holes rather than drilled. Primer pockets vary in depth considerably. I uniform primer pockets on all brands except RWS, but Winchester will not only have pockets so shallow that you feel like you will never be able to cut them to the proper depth, but will also have some DEEPER than spec. When I uniform Winchester brass I adjust my primer pocket uniformer to cut deeper. When turning necks you can see the brass chip off rather than come off in long spiral chips. I'm not sure whether they don't anneal their brass, or just use a brittle alloy. The brittle necks may actually be easier to trim to length, but pre-trimmed length usually varies wildly, sometimes requiring quite a bit of trimming. Case neck concentricity and uniformity are both terrible. Uniforming by turning does not fix the thickness variation throughout the whole body. For a custom or blue-printed action used in benchrest competition, I would throw out every case with poor concentricity....which will be quite a few. After fully uniforming brass, I sort by weight to +- .1gr for small cases and +- .2gr for larger cases. Weight sorting prior to prep tells you little about actually capacity. With Winchester from 100pcs I usually get 4-5 groups, with a few cases falling outside of those. You can see that you really need to more than 100pcs to shoot a very long shot string at a match without having to shoot two different groups at the same target.
Norma-Drilled flash holes! Very smooth cutting. A pleasure to prep. Requires very little cutting to uniform primer pockets and trim to length. Creates very long chips when turning necks. Turning necks requires minimal effort. After sorting by weight I usually get two very large groups with only or few pieces falling outside, sometimes I get a third smaller group. You can see how 100pcs can yeild very suitable groups for competitions. It is softer than Lapua and sometimes shows pressure signs before primers do. Loading to flat primers will yeild loose primer pockets quickly. Loading just under that yeilds very long lived brass! It is my opinion that Lapua is more prevalent in benchrest for reasons other than uniformity. A: Benchresters usually like to load PPCs very hot, and Norma brass won't handle the same loads that Lapua will. B: I'm not certain that Norma PPC brass has the balloon case head that Lapua .220 Russian has. C: Starting with .220 Russian ensures that no matter how tight your chamber is, your brass will fit. A Norma PPC case could be a tight squeeze in many benchrest chambers.
Lapua- hard strong brass. Seems to be a superior allow to Winchester, as cuts a little more easily yet seems to show pressure signs with slightly hotter loads. Primer pockets have never opened up on me, and I have some .308 cases that have been fired close to 30 times with max loads. It's a lot more effort to cut than Norma, but just like Norma, you don't have to remove much material. After prep, I usually get three groups with a couple peice falling outside of those groups. You can see how Norma has a certain added value by yeild two larger groups of brass. Nonetheless, Lapua yeilds very suitable group sizes for shooting competitions without having to use two groups of brass on the same target. In fact, I've had one 100 piece batch of Norma that fell so evenly between two groups that I didn't have enough rounds in either group to shoot two relays on just one group, and without having three groups, I still had to shoot two groups of brass on one target, so the "advantage" became a disadvantage.
RWS-between Lapua and Norma for hardness. Weight sort immediately, and throw out the two or three cases that aren't perfect. Don't waste your time turning necks unless you're shooting it in a tight neck chamber. Don't waste time uniforming primer pockets or length...you will be less uniform when you finish than when you started. Just buy and shoot!
Why Lapua? Well because it will allow you to hot rod it more than Norma, and costs less than RWS. Uniforming brass other than Norma, Lapua, and RWS takes soooo much longer and soooo much more effort, and requires a larger batch to start with, that I just don't feel like I'm saving any thing by going "cheap" and not using Lapua, RWS or Norma. Norma and RWS are probably both more consistent than Lapua, but the the price increase, lack of availability, and the softness of the Norma leaves most people sticking with Lapua.
None of the above applies to 6.5-284. Most of it that I have encountered is hard, brittle, and crappy. That's probably why the 6.5-284 is falling out of favor.
Ok i just checked necks on 100 pieces of new lapua 6.5 creedmoor brass with my sinclair neck checker. Now i have a neck turner but am trying to avoid using it
I culled 5 pieces of brass. One was just thicker on one side, two had flash hole problems and wouldn't fit on the rod, one had like a lump or.bulge in the neck in one spot now this is after running an expander mandrel in all the cases and one case was just thicker than the rest all the way around by about .0015.
The rest were very consistent .014 to .0145 neck thickness. Less than .001 in neck variation most less than .0005
Now this is the first time i have done this. Just wanted to know what this brass really measured. I feel like this is pretty good and there is no need to neck turn. Recreational shooter only.
What do you guys think?
I culled 5 pieces of brass. One was just thicker on one side, two had flash hole problems and wouldn't fit on the rod, one had like a lump or.bulge in the neck in one spot now this is after running an expander mandrel in all the cases and one case was just thicker than the rest all the way around by about .0015.
The rest were very consistent .014 to .0145 neck thickness. Less than .001 in neck variation most less than .0005
Now this is the first time i have done this. Just wanted to know what this brass really measured. I feel like this is pretty good and there is no need to neck turn. Recreational shooter only.
What do you guys think?
ImBIllT
Silver $$ Contributor
I think that outside of short range benchrest competition that neck turning doesn't matter tremendously if you size with a die that uses an expander button. If you size with a bushing and do not use an expander after the neck is sized down, then neck thickness variation results in significant neck tension variation, and that will reduce precision even with standards looser than those applied to benchrest shooting. The expander button on most sizing dies will reduce this tension variation even with large variation in neck thickness. Another thing your measurement is showing is a variation in thickness that continues down the entire case, not just the neck. The thin side of the case will stretch more than the thick side causing the case head to be out of square with te case walls. This usually only shows up on the target when using custom or blue-printed actions that have squared bolt faces, actions faces, and locking surfaces. The difficulty in forming a .222mag length/width case that was the same thickness all the way around is theorized to be one of the reasons for the 6PPCs superiority over the 6x47. For maximum precision, definitely cull the cases with side to side thickness variation. Cull the thick or thin ones too, but these would likely have been culled by weight anyway. With Remington .222mag brass you probably would have culled 70-90% of your brass instead of the 5% or so that you did with Lapua.
My experience with Win brass as well.
Shynloco
You can lead a horse to water, but ........
Well, longevity and consistency sometimes depends heavily on the caliber and the loads your are shooting in the brass. Take my 6mmbr Savage, I got 33 reloads out of my Lapua brass before a single neck showed signs of cracking. Compared that to my 22-250 (that I no longer have) where I was LUCKY to get 8 - 10 reloads out of my Lapua brass. Now I no longer compete either, but chase accuracy and consistency each and every time I hit the range. And I've spend alot of time over a few summers in comparing various brands of brass loaded with the same loads, shot through various caliber rifles I own where my principle interest was accuracy and consistency. Now take AR's out of that equations as I won't waste my Lapua brass in my ARs because Lapua tends to be on the soft side and AR's are notorious for having mean extractors/ejectors and they bang up any brass. SO I use primarily Lake City which holds up the best in that category and stills gives me decent accuracy. But in my bolt guns, Lapua is #1 in my book and gives me what I'm chasing when I reload and shoot. I personally consider any other make of brass, inferior to Lapua.
Alex
If you are referring to the Lapua 6.5-284, you do realize that a majority of folks shooting the .284 family of chamberings (straight .284, .284 Shehane, .284 Walker, etc) in F-Open neck up and use this brass, right? I would venture to guess that you have a lot of shooters dissagreeing with you on this..including me.
Very true. ARs love beating up the brass. I don't use lapua in my ARs either. I just get much better longevity in my bolt guns with lapua. 25-50% more when comparing apples to apples.
ImBIllT
Silver $$ Contributor
I don't believe the difference between Lapua's regular .308 Win and Palma .308 Win has anything to do with quality or consistency.
I'm referring to everyone's 6.5-284. I don't think it equals the quality of other Lapua brass. I assume that it's a difficult case to form because what I've encountered of it is not of particular good quality. I'm sure Lapua's is better than Winchester's and possibly Norma's. None of the three seemed up to par to me.
Alex maybe the 22-250 had a bigger neck diameter in the gun over the 6BR. That would mean more expansion and sizing and brass would get worked harder. Just a thought. Matt
dcali
Bullet Maker
No, but the Palma brass is so much more durable that I wonder why they even make the large primer brass.
ImBIllT
Silver $$ Contributor
Not everyone likes the small primer.
dcali
Bullet Maker
As far as turning brass, there was a company in Cody, Wyoming a few years back that had a machine that they used to turn small quantities of obsolete, hard to find brass (cowboy type stuff) from stock. I remember thinking you could probably make some really good PPC brass like that. I'm sure someone has tried it.
Can't say if they are much better. I've bought 400 new cases for a .308 in 3 different lots. I neck turn them to .0125". Some lots turn 95% of the way around, others less than half. I also noticed the ends of the necks on most seem slightly smaller, rolled in like they has been cut off with a pipe cutter, maybe a slight inside burr. Not enough to be visible, maybe only .0005 - .0010 but I notice it when resizing. The flash holes are usually nice because they are drilled but I still slightly chamfer them. Other than that, most are straight and out of the box new don't have much runout. These are new unfired cases after resizing and neck turning. Probably the worst I've seen from them. The weights also vary as much as most brands I've tried. Still, I use them because I don't know of any better. I weed out the worst ones after firing them once and use them for warm up or fouling shots.
I'm going to be totally contrarian on this. I recently worked up some loads for my .223 F/TR rifle. The 10-shot group was with Nosler 80 grain bullets in random years of Lake City cases, which have been fired an unknown number of times. 0.46" center to center at 100 yards. The 10th shot took the group from 0.3 to 0.46". But that was the group. Same day, also shot 75 JLK's over Varget in Winchester commercial cases loaded an unknown number of times. 0.27" for 5-shot group. Those were the only groups I shot that day. I have won an F/TR match with that rifle at 600 yards. That day was all 9's and 10/X's, for a 40-shot match. First 10 shots of the two 20-shot strings were 99 and 100, and second 10 shots had the rest of the 9's. That was a hot day. I was shooting JLK 80's in WCC cases with IMR3031, and I think the temp-sensitive powder contributed to the lower scores in the second string of 10 on each relay. None of the 9's was a "wide 9", either, so the rifle and cases are plenty accurate. Don't spend more money unless you can demonstrate that you get better scores by doing so.
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