Best 260 brass..... Alpha/Lapua/Petersen?

[86alaskan]

Getting a new build together and I feel like it's time to get some real good brass. I've been feeding my current 260 rem brass and it works, but I feel it may be leaving a bit on the table. So, who's tried some and what's the best of the best in the brass game these days. I've heard excellent stuff about Alpha, and Lapua is always pretty good. So?

 

[Bc'z]

I hear starline ain't bad either.
I'm shooting nosler, cuz it was cheaper to buy thier loaded ammo for break in purposes and first fire forming, verses buying empty brass.

 

[Patrick Comte]

I really like my Peterson brass. The only thing I did to mine was uniform the primer pocket depth. It’s good stuff at a really good price.

 

[JFrank]

I really like my Peterson brass. The only thing I did to mine was uniform the primer pocket depth. It’s good stuff at a really good price.

Might I add that for the 260 Remington you may want to look at Nosler brass, It's very uniform in length and neck wall thickness and weight I use it for 308 and prefer it to all I've tried except Lapua also you can buy it in a box of 50 so no big deal for good uniform from batch to batch brass.
Just a vote for Nosler!
SPJ

 

[Delfuego]

I would look at the Small Primer brass from either Peterson or Alpha. My only gripe with Lapua was loose primer pockets after a few firings. I cannot judge on which of those 2 companies makes a better case, but the SRP is how I would go.

 

[JLT]

I would look at the Small Primer brass from either Peterson or Alpha. My only gripe with Lapua was loose primer pockets after a few firings. I cannot judge on which of those 2 companies makes a better case, but the SRP is how I would go.

I wonder if you got an unusually soft lot of .260 Lapua. I've been running the same 200 cases for 3 barrels now (.260 AI) and I've long ago stopped counting the cycles on the brass. Still going strong and while the primer pockets are not as snug as new, they're still pretty snug. More than a few cycles were with pretty stiff charges of RL-23, as my second barrel shot 47.3 gr. of this powder brilliantly. My current barrel performs best at a more modest charge, so this brass has been one of the best shooting-related investments I've ever made.

I grabbed 100 Peterson cases to give them a try - that American Flag sticker on the box spoke loudly to me. Initial impressions were really, really positive with respect to dimensional uniformity and weight, perhaps a little better than Lapua. We'll see how they compare over the long haul. As for on-target performance, I certainly cannot shoot the difference if there is one. Lapua is the gold standard as far as I'm concerned and it will take remarkable performance to beat it. I keep an open mind, though, and I would love to go 'Made in America' . . . .

 

[Catfur]

I hear starline ain't bad either.
I'm shooting nosler, cuz it was cheaper to buy thier loaded ammo for break in purposes and first fire forming, verses buying empty brass.

The Starline brass I tested was soft. Loads that were not super hot loosened the primer pocket and left ejector marks. It seems to be a good alloy though, because after marking easily and the primer pocket loosening, it hardened up and stopped showing ejector marks and the primer pocket didn't get any worse. It's also not nearly as weight consistent as Lapua/Alpha/Peterson.

It's way better than Remchesternaday brass though.

 

[lb-ft]

Alpha SRP in 6 Creed has quality that stunned me. NO debur necessary, NO dented necks, pockets absolutely uniform, weight variations near nil. The stuff is beautiful. I literally loaded it and shot with no size no prep, .3 MOA with a factory budget rifle.

I always shot Norma and Lapua LRP in my 308.

Alpha is nicer and I didn’t think anyone could beat the European brass.

I can’t yet comment on Alpha durability/longevity. Certainly Norma and Lapua were great in 308, with Lapua having a slight edge.

If you’d asked about 338 Lapua, I’d have said you’d be crazy to buy anything BUT Lapua brand.

 

[Prose]

I own LR Lapua and Peterson in both 260 rem and 6.5 creedmoor. The Peterson brass is every bit as good, if not better. When it comes to value, the Peterson is much cheaper. If you want absolutely perfect brass, you can buy weight and length sorted directly from Peterson for a few dollars more, but still less than Lapua.

 

[Fast14riot]

I was also losing primer pockets in Lapua brass (260AI) after 5-6 firings and switched to Peterson SRP. So far it's been excellent. I just run a mandrel through it to get the neck tension I want from new. After forming is when I chamfer. Plus they come in actually useable boxes. Cant beat the price either.

 

[STOMP442]

I just put together a .260 Ackley a few months ago and decided to use Starline brass just to see how it would do. So far I have been very happy with it. 44.5gr of Reloader 16 under a 140 Berger is giving me 2938fps and grouping in the .3s. For the price, I don't think you can beat it. I've got at least three firings on it now and pockets are just as good as the first time.

 

[Clark]

I got some Lapua 308 Palma brass with small primer pockets, necked it down to 260, turned the necks, and thought I was going to be able to shoot some really high pressure 260... but it turns out a small magnum rifle primer cannot set off a 260 case full of CFE223.
The powder is unburned.

 

[Prose]

I got some Lapua 308 Palma brass with small primer pockets, necked it down to 260, turned the necks, and thought I was going to be able to shoot some really high pressure 260... but it turns out a small magnum rifle primer cannot set off a 260 case full of CFE223.
The powder is unburned.

Did you verify that your primer actually went off? Could be excess headspace causing a light strike. Lotsa folks have to figure that one out after switching to SP.

 

[mikeeg02]

I got some Lapua 308 Palma brass with small primer pockets, necked it down to 260, turned the necks, and thought I was going to be able to shoot some really high pressure 260... but it turns out a small magnum rifle primer cannot set off a 260 case full of CFE223.
The powder is unburned.

Its more likely you had too much headspace, or light firing pin strike, to set off a 450 than the primer not setting off the powder charge.

I have no trouble using 450s or any srp primer Ive tried to set off 46 or so grains of rl26, 48 grains of h4831, or any other powder I used in my 260ai srp.

But on initial fire forming with 450s or hard cupped primers, headspace is critical, or jam the bullets good.

 

[Walt Schmidlin]

On the 13th reload with Alpha 260 Rem SP brass. Primer pockets still tight with 205Ms. Last weekend HM score w/30x at 3x600 (sling) & 123SMKs, H-4350.

 

[86alaskan]

Alpha SRP 260 brass is the new go to. I run mine hard and get almost 260AI speeds from my standard 260. Sure they're hot, and the primers might crater a touch, but if you're not running hard why bother? The brass is very consistent and has held up to 4 loadings that would have smoked factory Rem brass at 1 shot.

 

[Laurie]

I got some Lapua 308 Palma brass with small primer pockets, necked it down to 260, turned the necks, and thought I was going to be able to shoot some really high pressure 260... but it turns out a small magnum rifle primer cannot set off a 260 case full of CFE223.
The powder is unburned.

CFE223 seems to be a hard powder to ignite. When I tried it in 308, it worked fine in Lapua LP brass, but 50 test rounds in 'Palma' cases, 25 each with 155 and 178gn Hornadys were hopeless. ES values were all over the place, and two failed to ignite. Both primers had burned but like @Clark I couldn't find any scorched or clumped kernels in the charge so ignition had apparently failed completely. Those that did fire apparently all suffered minor hangfires. It took me some time to identify what was happening - I knew something was as the rifle appeared to have developed a rattle. I stopped and checked everything over several times, but nothing was loose or broken and I eventually identified the sound as hearing the firing pin drop fractionally before the bang, the two sounds merging. Without electronic muffs amplifying the partial 'click' I doubt I'd have noticed it.

Ambient temperature wasn't an issue it being ~14/15-deg C (low 60s F), and the brass was on its second or third firing, fully fireformed to the 'minimum SAAMI' chamber and with the neck and shoulders alone sized using a Forster Bushing-Bump type die set up to provide 0.001-2" 'bump'. The primers, both large and small types in these tests, were Italian Fiocchi which I don't use often in SR form so they may be weak. They provided typical MVs though with Viht N150 in other 308 Palma brass loads.

I read somewhere that the Russian Murom primer manufacturer (Tula and Wolf brands in the US) introduced its 'SMALL RIFLE-223 Rem' SRM primer with a more powerful pellet for American XTC competitors who'd been getting FtFs or hangfires with its KVB-5,56M existing SRM type due to a new harder to ignite ball powder. I suspect that was CFE.

It's traditionally said that ball type powders are as a rule harder to ignite than extruded grades, but when Lapua 308 Palma brass first appeared in the UK over the winter of 2011/12 I tested them with various powder grades on a chilly winter's day running in the low to mid 30s F deliberately putting the cartridges out in a box with the lid open directly in a cold wind for some time before shooting, to see if SR primers would cause ignition problems in lowish temperatures and ~45gn charge weights. Whilst one extruded grade appeared to be adversely affected (reduced MVs / increased SDs) a 185gn bullet Hodgdon H414 'spherical' powder combination worked exceptionally well - better than its LRP equivalent and both in Lapua brass. The primer in these tests was the CCI-BR4. So it appears to be specific to CFE as a grade not necessarily the genre.

Other than in 308, I use necked-down Palma brass in 7mm-08 in a long FB F-Class rifle with excellent results with a compressed charge of >47gn Viht N160 year round.

I have seen a comment by one or two 243 Win using match shooters on the AS Forum of poor results with the new Peterson SR brass with H1000. I have a 6SLR coming shortly and intend to try reformed Peterson SR cases in it. The intended powder is Viht N165 which seems to be a very tolerant, easy to ignite grade, but I'll have to see how it works out on the day.

 

[MikeMcCasland]

I don't think there's a huge difference in terms of durability/quality.

I've got some .260 Lapua brass with over 25-30 reloads on it. Wore one barrel out with it, and started using it in another barrel I'd set aside years ago.

I've also got some 6.5CM Alpha brass that had ~22 reloads on it. I ended up just tossing it when I replaced the barrel, but I'm sure it could have gone on longer.

So long as you're not running things stupid hot i.e. trying to achieve 3100 FPS with a 140 out of it, it's going to last a while.

I'd probably go Alpha if I were going to buy new brass, just because you get a nice case box & foam inserts.

 

[Clark]

The surprising thing to me was that 120 gr Nosler BT moly, and CCI 450 small rifle magnum primers will set off 40 gr of CFE, but not 42 gr.

I would have thought the more powder the easier to light.

 

[Baer45]

CFE223 seems to be a hard powder to ignite. When I tried it in 308, it worked fine in Lapua LP brass, but 50 test rounds in 'Palma' cases, 25 each with 155 and 178gn Hornadys were hopeless. ES values were all over the place, and two failed to ignite. Both primers had burned but like @Clark I couldn't find any scorched or clumped kernels in the charge so ignition had apparently failed completely. Those that did fire apparently all suffered minor hangfires. It took me some time to identify what was happening - I knew something was as the rifle appeared to have developed a rattle. I stopped and checked everything over several times, but nothing was loose or broken and I eventually identified the sound as hearing the firing pin drop fractionally before the bang, the two sounds merging. Without electronic muffs amplifying the partial 'click' I doubt I'd have noticed it.

Ambient temperature wasn't an issue it being ~14/15-deg C (low 60s F), and the brass was on its second or third firing, fully fireformed to the 'minimum SAAMI' chamber and with the neck and shoulders alone sized using a Forster Bushing-Bump type die set up to provide 0.001-2" 'bump'. The primers, both large and small types in these tests, were Italian Fiocchi which I don't use often in SR form so they may be weak. They provided typical MVs though with Viht N150 in other 308 Palma brass loads.

I read somewhere that the Russian Murom primer manufacturer (Tula and Wolf brands in the US) introduced its 'SMALL RIFLE-223 Rem' SRM primer with a more powerful pellet for American XTC competitors who'd been getting FtFs or hangfires with its KVB-5,56M existing SRM type due to a new harder to ignite ball powder. I suspect that was CFE.

It's traditionally said that ball type powders are as a rule harder to ignite than extruded grades, but when Lapua 308 Palma brass first appeared in the UK over the winter of 2011/12 I tested them with various powder grades on a chilly winter's day running in the low to mid 30s F deliberately putting the cartridges out in a box with the lid open directly in a cold wind for some time before shooting, to see if SR primers would cause ignition problems in lowish temperatures and ~45gn charge weights. Whilst one extruded grade appeared to be adversely affected (reduced MVs / increased SDs) a 185gn bullet Hodgdon H414 'spherical' powder combination worked exceptionally well - better than its LRP equivalent and both in Lapua brass. The primer in these tests was the CCI-BR4. So it appears to be specific to CFE as a grade not necessarily the genre.

Other than in 308, I use necked-down Palma brass in 7mm-08 in a long FB F-Class rifle with excellent results with a compressed charge of >47gn Viht N160 year round.

I have seen a comment by one or two 243 Win using match shooters on the AS Forum of poor results with the new Peterson SR brass with H1000. I have a 6SLR coming shortly and intend to try reformed Peterson SR cases in it. The intended powder is Viht N165 which seems to be a very tolerant, easy to ignite grade, but I'll have to see how it works out on the day.

Do you have any source for Russian Primers?