30BR brass life and why?

[Leadfarmer]

I had 200 pieces of 30BR brass done up for me. You fellas think 200 pieces is enough to get say 20-25 good firings from?

Second. Why is this so? What makes the 30 BR brass last so long?

 

[Leadfarmer]

@Link why the wow reaction? Is that asking too much? Haha! I read an article in here by Joe Entrekin about case prep and it stated that he starts off with 500. That seemed excessive. Perhaps he's weight sorting and culling outliers. Not sure.

 

[swd]

Lapua 6BR is great brass. Any wildcat made from lasts a long time. But as with any brass if you get too hot you can still kill a primer pocket of your loads are too ambitious..

 

[Bill Norris]

I had 200 pieces of 30BR brass done up for me. You fellas think 200 pieces is enough to get say 20-25 good firings from?

Second. Why is this so? What makes the 30 BR brass last so long?

The 30BR simply seems to be easy on brass. I would think your 20 - 25 firings would be a cake walk. One very prominent 30BR shooter (and winner many times) said after well over 7000 rds. down the tube with his rifle he was still using the same brass. Maybe it does have to do with the care and attention to detail with original prepping. I went into the 30BR with no experience with it and have a few pieces of brass with 18 firings on it to date. Primer pockets and basically the brass as a whole looks fine.

 

[jackieschmidt]

I think Rand Randy Robinette said that you knew a 30BR case was worn out when the neck finally fell off.
I know I have cases that have maybe 40 firings on them.

 

[6ShotsOr5?]

Just my opinions, YMMV.

Possible or actual? I have heard a lot of people brag about long case life and long barrel life for the 30-BR. Some of them are top target match shooters. But I have also asked a handful of them two questions. First question is “How often do you actually re-barrel your 30-BR competition rifles?” Many answered “every year”. I then asked them “How often do you replace your 30-BR match brass?” The most common answer has been “whenever I re-barrel”! Unless they are shooting more practice rounds than match rounds, they are around 1200-2000 total rounds per year.

Another top 30-BR shooter that I know “refreshes” his chamber by setting his 30-BR barrels back around one thread after every 200-300 rounds. I’m no gunsmith so I don’t understand some of the details there, I’m just repeating what he said.

In another case, I was having trouble getting a club 30-BR to shoot, so I talked to one of my mentors. When I told him I had 1800 rounds on the barrel, he said, “sounds like you need a new barrel.”

So this is one of those areas where you might want to ignore what some of them say and just do what they do, if you can wring it out of ‘em.

 

[Leadfarmer]

Just my opinions, YMMV.

Possible or actual? I have heard a lot of people brag about long case life and long barrel life for the 30-BR. Some of them are top target match shooters. But I have also asked a handful of them two questions. First question is “How often do you actually re-barrel your 30-BR competition rifles?” Many answered “every year”. I then asked them “How often do you replace your 30-BR match brass?” The most common answer has been “whenever I re-barrel”! Unless they are shooting more practice rounds than match rounds, they are around 1200-2000 total rounds per year.

Another top 30-BR shooter that I know “refreshes” his chamber by setting his 30-BR barrels back around one thread after every 200-300 rounds. I’m no gunsmith so I don’t understand some of the details there, I’m just repeating what he said.

In another case, I was having trouble getting a club 30-BR to shoot, so I talked to one of my mentors. When I told him I had 1800 rounds on the barrel, he said, “sounds like you need a new barrel.”

So this is one of those areas where you might want to ignore what some of them say and just do what they do, if you can wring it out of ‘em.

I'm trying to gather an actual number if possible. That's interesting! Was the 30BR you were shooting have accuracy issue from the start or sis accuracy fall off?

I have 4 firings on those 200 pieces so far and I'm averaging groups in the high .1s and low .2s with the occasional high .0s.


I was hoping to get 4-5000 rounds out of it before I could measure a decline in accuracy

 

[JMayo]

I just retrimmed the necks on my 250 cases.
When the necks start coming off I'll make some new.
2020 was their start. I shoot 1500 + - a year.
I think I'll start new soon just because Im not gonna fool with blown off necks at matches.

 

[6ShotsOr5?]

It was a gradual fall off, but a lot of things changed during that 1800 rounds, different front rest, front bag, bullets, loading practices, gun handling, etc. I just set it back by the tenon length. It seems to be shooting better during Load development, but I need to shoot a few matches before I will know if the setback helped.

 

[Jager]

My best guess as to why 30 BR brass has such a long service life is because it's almost always fired in a custom gun with tight tolerances; and by shooters who know what they're doing at the loading bench... which is to say brass gets sized relatively less than a lot of other cartridges.

 

[OMW57]

Just my take on it, I have always thought that with the powder charge available vs size of bore vs weight of bullet equals a very fast dumping of presure at the case, making it " relatively " easy on the cases?

 

[Geronimo Jim]

I have two sets of 50 cases used in competition. One has 60 firings and the other 56. Never lost a
single case. I bump shoulder 1 1/2 thousand and anneal every time. Load between 33.9 to 34.5
gr H4198. Two other set for another gun with about 40 or so each and still perfect.

 

[Leadfarmer]

I have two sets of 50 cases used in competition. One has 60 firings and the other 56. Never lost a
single case. I bump shoulder 1 1/2 thousand and anneal every time. Load between 33.9 to 34.5
gr H4198. Two other set for another gun with about 40 or so each and still perfect.

Alright then 200 pieces should get me 4-5000 rounds then, haha! I've been bumping 2 thou, and I plan on annealing after the next round of firing which would be five firings.

That's incredible though! Has accuracy been about the same with that many firings?

 

[Geronimo Jim]

I forgot to mention that I trim every time. Can't detect any accuracy loss due to cases.

 

[Silo1616]

I forgot to mention that I trim every time. Can't detect any accuracy loss due to cases.

Must not be trimming very much if your at 60 firings.

 

[Websurfer]

I started with the 30 BR three years ago, and 300 Peterson cases. Approx 7000 rounds and 1 barrel later, my finance and I just had our best year yet in VFS - I guess my brass is finally getting broken in…
Just finished prepping the same brass for 2025… first match of the year is late February…

 

[Kevin1990]

When I bought my lapua 6br brass, I bought 3 boxes. (after waiting 7 months) I wanted to use 1 of those boxes for a 6br. I opened 2 boxes and all 200 pieces were within 1 grain of each other, with the exception of 2 that were out of that range by a tenth of a grain.
I expect those 200 to last me the life of the barrel. Which is plenty good enough for me.
Perhaps the article you read by Joe Entrekin were he used 500 pieces was to weight sort them and cull the outliers? 500 pieces for a 30BR seems excessive. Someone will be along to correct me if I'm wrong though.