If Remington had made 6mm BR cases, 6 PPC would never have existed

[SteveOak]

A friend of mine who has been shooting BR for a long time, and I, were discussing the 6 BR and 6 PPC (I know, heresey.) the other day.

He told me about a conversation he had with Jim Stekel. Jim approached Remington and tried to convince them to make BR brass. The best they would do is to make thin 308 brass with small primer pockets. Jim's contention was that had Remington been willing to make BR brass, the impetus for developing the 6 PPC would not have been sufficient for it to occur nor to become so prevalent.

That is my recollection of the story, to the best of my (feble) ability.

 

[Rat Rifle]

It’s an interesting theory, but I’d bet the PPC would have found its way into existence regardless.

 

[JEFFPPC]

Just to showed how stupid the upper management was at Remington.....they never built a 700 for it. No 40x does not count.

 

[DaveTooley]

I started shooting BR in 1978 with a 40X in 222. The transition to the PPC was well under way. In 1979 the writing was on the wall. The PPC was here to stay. I bought my first custom BR rifle in the winter of '78. A sleeved 700 in 6PPC. I then had Ferris Pindell put a 22 PPC barrel on it.

From Wiki

6mm BR Remington[edit]​

In 1978 Remington started manufacturing their Remington 40-X rifle in the 6mm BR and named their version of the cartridge the 6mm Bench Rest Remington.[11] By 1988 Remington was also manufacturing ammunition.[12] Remington continues to offer the 6mm BR Remington in the 40-X series rifles.[13] The Remington version of this cartridge is now considered to be obsolete.

 

[BRGUY]

Another of Jim Stekl's creations was the 6mm American, based off of Federal's 30 American brass, which was basically a 30-30 with a small rifle primer pocket. I still have over a thousand pieces of new brass, plus my formed brass that I using in both my 6mm American rifle and handgun.

I met Jim back in the early 90's and he showed me one of his XP-100 pistols that was chambered in the 6mm American, and at the time, it was one of the most accurate 6mm's that I had seen. Jim showed me a target that he had framed, with a 5-shot group that measured .032 for 5 shots @ 100 yards.

Jim have me permission to copy his reamer specs, and as soon as I could back in the shop, I ordered a 6mm American reamer and a small stockpile of brass. The rest as they say, is history...

 

[Tommie]

Another of Jim Stekl's creations was the 6mm American, based off of Federal's 30 American brass, which was basically a 30-30 with a small rifle primer pocket. I still have over a thousand pieces of new brass, plus my formed brass that I using in both my 6mm American rifle and handgun.

I met Jim back in the early 90's and he showed me one of his XP-100 pistols that was chambered in the 6mm American, and at the time, it was one of the most accurate 6mm's that I had seen. Jim showed me a target that he had framed, with a 5-shot group that measured .032 for 5 shots @ 100 yards.

Jim have me permission to copy his reamer specs, and as soon as I could back in the shop, I ordered a 6mm American reamer and a small stockpile of brass. The rest as they say, is history...

There were several versions of that cartridge. Our own @DaveTooley campaigned his design. IIRC Dave was instrumental in convincing Federal to make that brass.

 

[BRGUY]

There were several versions of that cartridge. Our own @DaveTooley campaigned his design. IIRC Dave was instrumental in convincing Federal to make that brass.

Way back when, Dave Tooley was the one that opened the bolt faces on my Remington 700 and XP-100's for use of the 6mm American. Of course there were others, but Dave was the only one I trusted to this work for me.

 

[DaveTooley]

I was one of three investors and the distributor of the 30 American case. Hugh Reed at Federal got them made for us. Myself and Nick Young did all the design work. Jim Schultz the other investor did some early development work on several wildcats prior to our launch. He had a big machine shop and could shoot inside. I've got all the correspondence filed away somewhere. Fun times
Hugh Henriksen made the first reamers. We started shooting large primer cases while we waithed for the SM primer brass to arrive.
There was a large cast that had a hand in this as things progressed and/or participated with follow up testing after production of the first lot.
Dave Brennan, editor PS magazine was the nexus for information flow.
Nick Young
Jim Schultz
Harold Broughton
John Bunch
Speedy Gonzalez
Rick Hornbeck
Merrill Martin
Bill Diefenderfer
Mike Walker
Jeff Summers
Dr. Lou Palmisano
Jim Stekl
Al Angerman

And I'm sure I missed some.

 

[Will Henry]

I think Jim Stekl was sort of right. Especially during a couple of 220 Russian brass droughts, the availability of BR brass would have made a real difference. As it was, the forming of PPC brass was a snap; the forming of BR brass was a PITA. The easy way was to pay Cindy Six for formed brass.
I made my first PPC in late 1978 and my first 6BR the following year. The thing is, the BR was always going to be playing catch-up because the PPC was first. Today, I have a 6BR because brass is readily available. I shoot the original Remington version for short range BR and the Norma version for other stuff. WH

 

[BoydAllen]

At the Visalia range during the late 90s I met a fellow who came down from the bay area to shoot those matches. He was a friend of Lee Six, the stock maker, who was also shooting those matches. The shooters name was Mel Iwatsubo (not sure of spelling). At one match I asked him about the short 6BR and he told me that he had shot a regular BR. I asked him if the extra capacity was a problem and he told me that he shot powders that would fill the case, and also mentioned that it was competitive at matches. I assume that it was not better than a PPC because at the time we were speaking he was shooting a 6PPC. Nevertheless, I did find it interesting that a straight 6BR would, with suitable powder, be competitive against 6PPCs. He was a good shooter.

Many years later, after a long recovery from some sort of a health program, he was back at a Visalia match. By that time I had stopped shooting them for health reasons of my own. We got to talking and had a good conversation about his personal history, that I enjoyed. In the course of that conversation I may have mentioned his choice of press for loading at the matches, which was unique at those matches. It was an old RCBS Jr. that had the handle from a Partner press adapted to it. He asked me if I knew why he used that press, which I did not, whereupon he raised the ram and wiggled it from side to side showing that it had a lot of play, a lot more than wear would generally produce. He was an experimenter and evidently had found that having a loosely fitting ram let the case align with the die better than it might with a tight fit. Jackie Schmidt has done something to his range presses, Partners that I believe he has reduced the diameters of the rams by .006", if memory serves.

 

[BRGUY]

I was one of three investors and the distributor of the 30 American case. Hugh Reed at Federal got them made for us. Myself and Nick Young did all the design work. Jim Schultz the other investor did some early development work on several wildcats prior to our launch. He had a big machine shop and could shoot inside. I've got all the correspondence filed away somewhere. Fun times
Hugh Henriksen made the first reamers. We started shooting large primer cases while we waithed for the SM primer brass to arrive.
There was a large cast that had a hand in this as things progressed and/or participated with follow up testing after production of the first lot.
Dave Brennan, editor PS magazine was the nexus for information flow.
Nick Young
Jim Schultz
Harold Broughton
John Bunch
Speedy Gonzalez
Rick Hornbeck
Merrill Martin
Bill Diefenderfer
Mike Walker
Jeff Summers
Dr. Lou Palmisano
Jim Stekl
Al Angerman

And I'm sure I missed some.

Oh wow! Thanks for the information Dave, and another trip down memory lane...

I was not aware that there were so many different people involved in all of this.

When you opened the bolt face on my actions, and we talked about the cartridge I was going to build around them, I did not realize at the time that you, and others, were so instrumental in wonderful little 6mm cartridge.

Do you or others that you know of, still shoot this cartridge?

Addendum:

My apologies for getting off topic.

 

[NH30]

The 1988 Gun Digest, 42nd annual edition, pp 154-160 has Dave Brennan's report of the development of the 30 American brass in the article "The Assault on Palmisano". N

 

[DaveTooley]

Oh wow! Thanks for the information Dave, and another trip down memory lane...

I was not aware that there were so many different people involved in all of this.

When you opened the bolt face on my actions, and we talked about the cartridge I was going to build around them, I did not realize at the time that you, and others, were so instrumental in wonderful little 6mm cartridge.

Do you or others that you know of, still shoot this cartridge?

Addendum:

My apologies for getting off topic.

I don't. The case is still used in the hunter class for those that have the brass. Hell most of us have passed on. I may be last of the "Group" as Dave called us.
There were a handful that had our hands on the development along with a large supporting group.
It's interesting to go back and read the correspondence and realize there was no such thing as email in 1985.

 

[Tommie]

I was one of three investors and the distributor of the 30 American case. Hugh Reed at Federal got them made for us. Myself and Nick Young did all the design work. Jim Schultz the other investor did some early development work on several wildcats prior to our launch. He had a big machine shop and could shoot inside. I've got all the correspondence filed away somewhere. Fun times
Hugh Henriksen made the first reamers. We started shooting large primer cases while we waithed for the SM primer brass to arrive.
There was a large cast that had a hand in this as things progressed and/or participated with follow up testing after production of the first lot.
Dave Brennan, editor PS magazine was the nexus for information flow.
Nick Young
Jim Schultz
Harold Broughton
John Bunch
Speedy Gonzalez
Rick Hornbeck
Merrill Martin
Bill Diefenderfer
Mike Walker
Jeff Summers
Dr. Lou Palmisano
Jim Stekl
Al Angerman

And I'm sure I missed some.

I know Seeley Masker did a version with rims cut to PPC bolt face. He talked like his SM Wasp could take on everybody.

 

[DaveTooley]

Seely used the 225 Win case. We didn't want to limit the market with a .473" rim and went with the 30-30 case. I ran across one letter where Norma said they would make it for us. Minimum order 100,000 pcs. Today that's not a lot but it was back then.

 

[Bill K]

Don't think so, when those two gentlemen came up with the 22 PPC and were winning and setting new records, which it is still doing, it was just the first step to a 6mm PPC coming out and also doing so well. Which is is still doing for many shooters.

 

[gunsandgunsmithing]

A friend of mine who has been shooting BR for a long time, and I, were discussing the 6 BR and 6 PPC (I know, heresey.) the other day.

He told me about a conversation he had with Jim Stekel. Jim approached Remington and tried to convince them to make BR brass. The best they would do is to make thin 308 brass with small primer pockets. Jim's contention was that had Remington been willing to make BR brass, the impetus for developing the 6 PPC would not have been sufficient for it to occur nor to become so prevalent.

That is my recollection of the story, to the best of my (feble) ability.

A 6BR is great. Most will say that it won't agg with a ppc but had a BR come first, then the shoe is on the other foot to prove it. I suspect it would at least have taken a good bit of time to hash out the difference. But...woulda, shoulda, coulda didn't happen and here we are, where the king has been crowned and has a die hard following. It amazes me how personally some people take even the insinuation that anything might be as good as a ppc. God forbid anyone claim something to be better. It is written...somewhere. Has to be. It's like a religion, or a cult might be more like it. Great cartridge but I don't worship it and I don't claim anything to be the best. I'll leave that up to the ones that make up a very small group of people that are qualified to shoot the difference. Apparently score shooters need not apply.

 

[Jud96]

These threads are very interesting to me. I’m a tinkerer and experimenter at heart. I’m very new to BR, but not new to shooting rifles from short range to long range with the intent of shooting small groups and being consistent. I’ve never been one to follow the crowd without questioning it. I just built my first BR rifle and acquired all of the necessary components and equipment to get me started, I followed the crowd and I’m starting with pretty much the “go to” components and went with the 6PPC.

My intent is once I get this setup working and shooting consistent Aggs, I’ll begin tinkering. A lot of the questions I ask BR shooters about why they use this or that, or why something is done that way or this way, most of the time I don’t get a straight forward answer. It’s usually something along the lines of “because that’s what works” or “that’s what is winning.” That’s all well and fine and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I just want to try different things and prove to myself what works best for me. The first thing I’d like to test is different powders in the PPC. I would really like to pre-load ammo and load it long and just adjust seating depths throughout the day if need be. If N133 is so temperamental, there has to be something else more stable like H322, Benchmark, IMR 8208, maybe LT30/LT32 that can be preloaded and shoot small aggs. If that doesn’t pan out, I’d like to test a PPC improved so 30+ grains of N133 isn’t such a compressed load. The 6BR is what I originally wanted to build, but I decided to follow the norm and do a PPC until I master that cartridge and learn it and what everyone else is doing. I think a 6BR that was shortened a tad to be similar capacity to a Grendel would be fun.

One other thing I’d like to test is faster twist barrels and heavier bullets. Wind is still one of the biggest contributors to the groups shot at 100, so if a heavier bullet or slightly faster twist could buck the wind a little more, I’d love to try it. The 65-68gr bullets with 13-14 twists is said to be the most consistently accurate combination, I’d like to test that and compare it to 80-90gr bullets with 10-12 twist barrels or even 95-105gr bullets in 8-9 twist barrels. To me it’s all worth testing out and having a spare barrel to fool around with.

 

[geo.ulrich]

I don't. The case is still used in the hunter class for those that have the brass. Hell most of us have passed on. I may be last of the "Group" as Dave called us.
There were a handful that had our hands on the development along with a large supporting group.
It's interesting to go back and read the correspondence and realize there was no such thing as email in 1985.

Dave , Looking at the list , You, Jeff ,Speedy and Jim are left . wow what a list of friends I haven't thought of in years....

 

[DaveTooley]

These threads are very interesting to me. I’m a tinkerer and experimenter at heart. I’m very new to BR, but not new to shooting rifles from short range to long range with the intent of shooting small groups and being consistent. I’ve never been one to follow the crowd without questioning it. I just built my first BR rifle and acquired all of the necessary components and equipment to get me started, I followed the crowd and I’m starting with pretty much the “go to” components and went with the 6PPC.

My intent is once I get this setup working and shooting consistent Aggs, I’ll begin tinkering. A lot of the questions I ask BR shooters about why they use this or that, or why something is done that way or this way, most of the time I don’t get a straight forward answer. It’s usually something along the lines of “because that’s what works” or “that’s what is winning.” That’s all well and fine and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I just want to try different things and prove to myself what works best for me. The first thing I’d like to test is different powders in the PPC. I would really like to pre-load ammo and load it long and just adjust seating depths throughout the day if need be. If N133 is so temperamental, there has to be something else more stable like H322, Benchmark, IMR 8208, maybe LT30/LT32 that can be preloaded and shoot small aggs. If that doesn’t pan out, I’d like to test a PPC improved so 30+ grains of N133 isn’t such a compressed load. The 6BR is what I originally wanted to build, but I decided to follow the norm and do a PPC until I master that cartridge and learn it and what everyone else is doing. I think a 6BR that was shortened a tad to be similar capacity to a Grendel would be fun.

One other thing I’d like to test is faster twist barrels and heavier bullets. Wind is still one of the biggest contributors to the groups shot at 100, so if a heavier bullet or slightly faster twist could buck the wind a little more, I’d love to try it. The 65-68gr bullets with 13-14 twists is said to be the most consistently accurate combination, I’d like to test that and compare it to 80-90gr bullets with 10-12 twist barrels or even 95-105gr bullets in 8-9 twist barrels. To me it’s all worth testing out and having a spare barrel to fool around with.

It's all fun and a great learning experience. God knows I've run to ground a lot of what if's. Reality is that there is not anything new, just new shooters. Enjoy the journey.