6.5 Creed - Should I Get Large or Small Primer Brass

[Idaho-Lefty]

All that, "Cratering" ???,.. they Do, LOOK,.."Warm" !
What,... Primers / Load ??

 

[jds holler]

They ARE, a little warm. jd

 

[Idaho-Lefty]

With an EXPENSIVE and, somewhat "Fragile" Jewell BR Trigger, in My Rem-Age, Rem 700 action, 6 XC,
I CAN'T "afford",.. a "Blown Primer",..
So I, always,.. Stay a Bit,.. Under Max and Use, an Extra Click Up, on My Scope !
CCI 200's and Fed 210 M's work BEST, in Both, the 6 XC and 6.5 Creed for,. Me

 

[Idaho-Lefty]

You MIGHT Tell the "Difference" Between SRP's and LRP's,.. in an $5,000 to $12,000,.. Bench Rest, Rifle.
with, the BEST, Heavy, "Truck Axel" sized Barrels, Made,.. on the Planet
SRP Cases, Do Help with, Extreme Pressure,.. Primer Pocket,.. "Life"

 

[ebb]

I "think" the issue with misfires goes away with small rifle magnums. But they may be really hard to find. A friend tried to load for 5.7-28 and said that most cases had lose pockets after the first firing of factory loaded ammo.

 

[Rob01]

It's time to quit screwing around and get som GOOD brass. I'm gonna get a hundred Lapua for now. Both primer sizes are available. I kinda like the idea of small primer, but -- I'd rather someone with experience with this cartridge tell me why I should or shouldn't.
jd

Either will work. Been using large rifle primered brass since 2008 in my match rifles. I use my factory ammo brass for my hand loads also. They load very accurate ammo and I never saw a need to change to small rifle primer brass when they started making them.

I have thousands of pieces of brass so no worries about brass life and some of it has over 8 loadings and still tight pockets. Maybe if only buying 100 and wanting to use those for the life of the barrel then small may give you some more life from the brass.

 

[Kracken McGraw]

I still think you could get all the once fired Creedmoor brass you wanted locally for $5 a box if you put the word out.

 

[MGYSGT]

I had issues with small primer loads with 2 6mm creedmoors, particularly in cold weather (35 to 40 deg. F). Lots of hang fires, and several that just plain failed to ignite. The SRP brass seemed to work OK for 308 cases with Varget, but not the 6 Creed and H4350 or RL16. So when I finally had a 6.5 creedmoor built, I went 100% LRP Lapua for the brass and have been very pleased with it.

Always use Mag primers (CCI 450)

 

[6.5 forever]

Always use Mag primers (CCI 450)

Yup. NEVER had a ignition problem. Even below 0°F.

 

[Steve Donlon]

It's time to quit screwing around and get som GOOD brass. I'm gonna get a hundred Lapua for now. Both primer sizes are available. I kinda like the idea of small primer, but -- I'd rather someone with experience with this cartridge tell me why I should or shouldn't.
jd

Like Laurie had to say, I have tried both Lapua SRP and LRP and enlarged the SRP flash hole on some of them to see what the effects are in my rifle with my powders. There are so many variables that you just have to try as many options as you can to find what works for you. There is no simple answer with the 6.5 Creedmoor. I forgot to add that 147 gr. Hornady bullets were effected much more than the 144 gr. Berger bullets. Got pressure signs sooner with the 147's with LRP's and the SPR's worked better with the 144's.

 

[Straightshooter1]

Always use Mag primers (CCI 450)

Though, in HOT country, I've found non-mags in SRP's work quite well in .308 cartridges.

 

[Rob01]

Or just use large rifle primers and not worry about opening flash holes or whatever the temp is.

 

[Rob01]

I think there is value in SRP's in the 6.5 Creedmoor if you do the work to find out how they can help your shooting. Especially if you can improve the longevity of your brass when shooting warmer loads. But I'm sure a lot of people will do just fine without them. I could use them or not, but like the idea that they can withstand more pressure.

They can’t help my shooting. Been using the large rifle since 2008 in my match rifles with 140s going 2750-2850fps from factory and hand loads and now loading 153s going 2680fps and no issues with brass longevity or accuracy. Been through a bunch of barrels. Never saw a need or desire to even try small rifle primers and no plans to try them and deal with their issues.

 

[Rob01]

I can live without them also but if I wanted to maximize velocity and accuracy, that is a reason of me to see how well they can do. The BR guys started the whole thing. Might as well see how good we can shoot also.

That’s the problem. This isn’t a BR cartridge and will never be used for BR. It was made for hunting and PRS style matches. You can load very accurate ammo with either LRP or SRP. Nothing draws me at all to even want to try SRP brass but if people want to then have at it. Just wanted to the OP to know he’s not gaining anything over maybe a few more loadings. Maybe.

 

[Rob01]

I think it was made for long range target shooting. Hitting the bullseye. Every little bit helps from my point of view.

Yup that too but not BR. The guys who developed it used LRP.

 

[jds holler]

I appreciate all of ya's opinions, and some of ya's have a strong one.
Things seem to break pretty evenly on large vs small vs doesn't matter.

I guess I'm gonna shoot some more and try these Feds SP to see how I like em. The Federal cases have a similar thickness/capacity to the Lapua. I was kinda surprised at the difference of Feds and Hornady. I won't use the same load in those two.

I appreciate the feed-back, and everybody oughta read Laurie's
article if ya haven't. It's good - as you might expect from him. jd

 

[Steve Donlon]

I appreciate all of ya's opinions, and some of ya's have a strong one.
Things seem to break pretty evenly on large vs small vs doesn't matter.

I guess I'm gonna shoot some more and try these Feds SP to see how I like em. The Federal cases have a similar thickness/capacity to the Lapua. I was kinda surprised at the difference of Feds and Hornady. I won't use the same load in those two.

I appreciate the feed-back, and everybody oughta read Laurie's
article if ya haven't. It's good - as you might expect from him. jd

It's a very good article. Hope you find a good load. It's worth the effort to find out. All those people must know something.

 

[tennesseeshooter]

I've Had, NO,.. "Accuracy issues" with, 123 to, 143 grain Bullets, in my 6.5 Creed, using Both,.. Peterson and Lapua,.. LRP Brass.
Everyone SHOULD Buy, the Small Rifle, Primed Brass,.. IMO,.. so, More,.. LR Primers for,.. Me !

I hate to get into this "argument", it is similar to asking, "Which mfg make the best pickup truck", you're going to get a lot of "expert" opinions. In my opinion, most experts have actually tested lrp vs srp in thier rig and are sold on one-and for them they are right. I'd just like to add, primer lot testing will reveal a lot, by changing lots (or mfgs) some serious bench testing often reveals how much better one lot is better than another. Just a thought to throw in here.

 

[windcall]

As Steve Donlon pointed out earlier, there's another factor at play with the Lapua SRP cases. The flash hole is smaller than a "standard" SRP flash hole, which undoubtedly affects ignition to some degree.

I found that my ES and SD numbers go up in cold weather with the Lapua brass, but that's normally not competition season for me anyway. I'm told that opening up the flash hole to a normal size will eliminate that issue, but I've not done that.
I wanted to keep the small flash hole intact for the warm weather season.

There's undoubtedly a reason Lapua uses the combination of SRP and a smaller flash hole in their 6.5 cases.
The small primer pocket withstands high pressure better, being more supported by the thicker head that results from using that design. That part's easy to see.

Why they chose to use a smaller flash hole is probably about ignition consistency under normal shooting conditions, and they have more resources than I do to determine that. I'm not going to second guess them.

95% of my 6.5 CM brass is Lapua SRP, just because it's what was available locally when I started loading for that rifle several years ago. Some of the original cases have 25 firings on them now, and are still going strong.

I started annealing every 4th firing, then switched to annealing at every firing. That's definitely a factor in long brass life, the cases that didn't get annealed regularly early on failed at about 8-10 firings due to cracks in the neck area.

I'm shooting Lapua SRP brass in my 6.5 Creedmoor and when I uniform pockets, I have found that they are not flat. My cutter cuts to a depth of .120" which is in the middle of SAAMI spec, but it only cleans up the outer edge of the pocket bottom, leaving carbon in the middle. I clean up the carbon with a RCBS wire pocket brush but am concerned about the tapered bottom. I wonder if Lapua punches their flash holes and deforms the bottom of the pocket.

 

[Chilly807]

My understanding is that they're drilled, not punched.
I've noticed on my Lapua 223 cases that the uniform cutter usually only touches the outer corners of the pocket too.