This post is a little long. If you want the short answer I’ll buy more in the future.
I was wanting to get some more experience with the alpha brass before I gave my feedback. I had bought 200 cases to try back in June 2021. At the time I got them I inspected them and was very please with what I found. I was saving them for my bench gun when I got it put together.
In the mean time in 2022 I had a friend with a bra, I told him buy some alpha. I showed him how to work up a load with them. Knowing the case capacity was less we started with about 1.0 less powder. I don’t remember for sure the exact charge. In a few rounds we had it working. No issues. 28” barrel with 103 edlx at about 2950.
Fast forward to this year when I got my bat bench gun chambered and in a stock. Started to break it in, high pressure signs from the start. Went jamming bullets to make sure case was against bolt. I was using up odds and end components. I had to keep backing it down. Thought was there something wrong with the gun? Went to a known powder and bullet, still high pressure. Something is wrong this just can’t be with the charges I’m using. (I use Quickload and things are just not adding up). Threw together a load with lapua brass and some varget I had. Same load as other rifle. Velocity just a little slow and no pressure signs.
When I was done had 105 berger’s and 108 both shooting at about 2700. It was grouping good but I couldn’t go any higher without problems. It seemed whatever I did with the two different Bergers it shot small. Too bad I only had one box of each.
I called Andrew and talked to him about what I was seeing. They have made changes to the brass since my lot. We talked about some of the changes, I don’t know all the details. He sent me 10 cases of the latest lot to test. I got a chance to shoot them before my wife and I went on vacation. I loaded up a ladder working them up from where the others had been. My quick assessment, May have not been perfect but was definitely usable. Gave the feedback to Andrew and they sent me two boxes of the latest lot.
Got back from vacation with one chance to put a load together before the next match. Of course the wind was blowing like usual. Barrel was very low round count so I went with .2 low on charge(I now know I shouldn’t have done that).
I’m trying some Vapor trail VDAC 103s with the new brass. I’ve ran the velocity up to what quick load would show me to be about 65k with no issues. I could go higher but it’s not going to shoot up there and no reason to wreck the brass. I would recommend a mild load for the first firing. I’ll be using that to fireform the second box at the next match.
I’ll give a shout out to Tom E at vapor trail,
@Tom E these VTAC 103 are shooting and they are available on the shelf. If you are waiting for Berger, you might want to try these instead. I have a new batch of 105 Vld hunting which has been my go to bullet and the 103 are working well enough I haven’t even opened them to try.
From everything I’ve seen I have no reservations taking these to the nationals at vapor trail next month.
Only thing I’m still out on is what it think about the primer pocket. I’m going to have to change from my normal on how it treat those.
Happy shooting,
Forrest