6.5 Creedmoor, small vs large primers

[Laurie]

Your using much faster powder. Also Palma is shot almost exclusively in hot weather. Lapua does warn its customers never to use Palma brass for hunting as it can cause hang fires. In one of Brian Litz books he demonstrates with a 308W that slower powders with not enough primer detonation increased SD measurably.

As I said in an earlier post, this whole area is riddled with apparent contradictions and exceptions to rules. Nevertheless, we in the UK shoot BR, F-Class, and 'Target Rifle' (ie 'Palma' at different ranges) all year round, and although our winters are mild by north American or continental European standards, we will shoot in ambient temperatures barely above freezing, and Palma brass still works fine, although I suspect it is just becoming marginal with some powders. In the Palma Teams' Long Range shooting forum Dan Simpson went through the exhaustive test procedures that were employed just because of such likely problems or objections. One was to put the standard Palma VarGet load ammo in a fridge overnight and take it it to the range in a cool box. No problems, so that was repeated putting the ammo overnight in a freezer - again no problems. I can quite understand Lapua advising 'not for hunting' as some continental European, Scandinavian and north American hunting season temperatures aren't just below freezing, they are way below. After all, the military think the same way too as they must with Arctic warfare and similar a possibility. So, the PPC's ancestor the 7.62X39mm uses a large rifle primer as standard to guarantee reliability, but you don't see many BR competitors re-adopting this form.

As to 'slower burning' powders, that depends on how one defines slow burning. The norm in the UK is to use slower burners than H4895 and VarGet with many 308 loads especially with 185gn and heavier bullets. Viht N150 is a very common choice, and some people use N550 which is harder to ignite, again all year round. In reformed Palma brass, 260 Rem, 7mm-08 Rem and similar all use slower burners perfectly happily with this brass. I use nearly 50gn Viht N160 in my SRP 7mm-08 loads and have no issues with it over two years of competition. In testing / load development, I ran N165 with literally as much powder as could be got into the case (in a long freebore chamber for 3-inch COALs) a shade under 52gn. You don't get much slower burning than N165 without going onto the propellants designed for really over-bore capacity ultra magnums and the 50 BMG. ES/SD values were consistently good, and you don't see that if suffering even the most minor of ignition issues. And the weather wan't 'hot' by any means - a hot day on Diggle Ranges located 1,000 ft ASL in the north of England is 20-deg C (68F) and we see those infrequently enough in a year to count them on our fingers. 14-18 deg C is the typical summer ambient temperature range.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

I did the pepsi challenge on my 243 with lrp and palma brass and burning h1000 it made a measurable difference at 1000 and 1200yds. I believe lapua and bryan litz as well as my own testing and wouldnt think of using a small primer case esp with the small flash hole in anything i take to the line thats creedmoor size and up. Had a 260 customer say the same thing

 

[Milo 2.0]

4 of us here have shot Lapua 6.5 creed brass necked down for over 1 year. I'm not going to claim benchrest accuracy, but we like what we have going on. A couple of the loads are pushing the envelope on pressures, with no real adverse affects seen.
A CCI 450 coupled with Norma MRP created a few hangfires, went back to 205M's and all is good. With RL 16, 205M, and a 110 Sierra, most of pushing 3100-3110fps, just a hammer of a load.

 

[Laurie]

I did the pepsi challenge on my 243 with lrp and palma brass and burning h1000 it made a measurable difference at 1000 and 1200yds. I believe lapua and bryan litz as well as my own testing and wouldnt think of using a small primer case esp with the small flash hole in anything i take to the line thats creedmoor size and up. Had a 260 customer say the same thing

Do a bit of research on GB and British Commonwealth 'Match Rifle' Dusty. This is a slightly strange discipline that long predates F-Class (by decades, not mere years). Sometime late last century it reverted from a free calibre discipline to 308 Win only and is governed by ICFRA, again like F-Class it's a TR/Fullbore Rifle derived form of competition.

The standard course is a stage at 1,000, 1,100, and 1,200 yards using the standard 2-MOA (at 1,000 reducing thereafter) 5-Ring Fullbore target, but there are one of two ranges in the world, none here, that allow shooting to over 1,400 yards and they shoot at that distance if available. These guys and girls use freebore like you've never seen and their loads are 'hot', like really hot. They tend to be very secretive about what they load and do, but one thing we do know is that they moved en masse (as per FTR) to Palma brass once they found out about its strength and its reduction in ES/SD.

If you're going to win a match where the 1,200 yard stage is the make or break one, you have two gods you worship - really high MV allied to BC; tiny, like really tiny ES/SD values. For a 308 at 1,200 yards, elevation variation loses points, as simple as that - and MR competitors have spent a long, long time eliminating it. The norm there are slow burning, high energy powders to suit the heavy 210gn plus weight bullets. H1000 is a bit slow burning even for this in 308, and may be very hard to ignite for all I know, but a good few hundred international FTR shooters and a rather smaller number of international Match Rifle shooters know a good thing in 308 Win Palma brass when they saw it .... and it works .... and it is a bigger cartridge than 6.5X47L and 6.5 Creedmoor.

Anyway, it's a free country(ies) and nobody tells you or me what components to choose. You won't use SRP brass in Creedmoor and up whilst I would normally seek it out. As the French say: "Chacun à son goût!" Ironically, I use LRP brass in 260 - not because I want to, but because the bolt/firing pin in my rebarreled FN SPR simply won't tolerate the SR form without blanking them - but that's not a case capacity issue, in fact originally discovering this on rebarreling the rifle to 6.5X47 Lapua back in year zero with this cartridge.

I don't believe the SRP form is any sort of panacea, which unfortunately some around now seem to view it as. As with everything, there are horses for courses, but unfortunately fashion intrudes into shooting as everywhere else. The answer to everything precision-wise was for a while the short, fat case - the concept taken to excess with those abominations the Winchester WSSMs. Now it appears to be SRP. There are times when LRP is superior. As I said in an earlier post, I'd also be unhappy to see Scottish deerstalkers use SRP 243 Win even in our winter conditions, although a lot would depend on their choice of powder. Reliability and a clean kill trump an little extra bit of precision every time in live game shooting, so if there is any possibility of degrading accuracy and killing power in adverse field conditions, it is an option that has to be avoided.

 

[Grimstod]

As I said in an earlier post, this whole area is riddled with apparent contradictions and exceptions to rules. Nevertheless, we in the UK shoot BR, F-Class, and 'Target Rifle' (ie 'Palma' at different ranges) all year round, and although our winters are mild by north American or continental European standards, we will shoot in ambient temperatures barely above freezing, and Palma brass still works fine, although I suspect it is just becoming marginal with some powders. In the Palma Teams' Long Range shooting forum Dan Simpson went through the exhaustive test procedures that were employed just because of such likely problems or objections. One was to put the standard Palma VarGet load ammo in a fridge overnight and take it it to the range in a cool box. No problems, so that was repeated putting the ammo overnight in a freezer - again no problems. I can quite understand Lapua advising 'not for hunting' as some continental European, Scandinavian and north American hunting season temperatures aren't just below freezing, they are way below. After all, the military think the same way too as they must with Arctic warfare and similar a possibility. So, the PPC's ancestor the 7.62X39mm uses a large rifle primer as standard to guarantee reliability, but you don't see many BR competitors re-adopting this form.

As to 'slower burning' powders, that depends on how one defines slow burning. The norm in the UK is to use slower burners than H4895 and VarGet with many 308 loads especially with 185gn and heavier bullets. Viht N150 is a very common choice, and some people use N550 which is harder to ignite, again all year round. In reformed Palma brass, 260 Rem, 7mm-08 Rem and similar all use slower burners perfectly happily with this brass. I use nearly 50gn Viht N160 in my SRP 7mm-08 loads and have no issues with it over two years of competition. In testing / load development, I ran N165 with literally as much powder as could be got into the case (in a long freebore chamber for 3-inch COALs) a shade under 52gn. You don't get much slower burning than N165 without going onto the propellants designed for really over-bore capacity ultra magnums and the 50 BMG. ES/SD values were consistently good, and you don't see that if suffering even the most minor of ignition issues. And the weather wan't 'hot' by any means - a hot day on Diggle Ranges located 1,000 ft ASL in the north of England is 20-deg C (68F) and we see those infrequently enough in a year to count them on our fingers. 14-18 deg C is the typical summer ambient temperature range.

Varget is not a slow powder. Its a rather fast one. It usually has not problem with smaller primers.

 

[Laurie]

Varget is not a slow powder. Its a rather fast one. It usually has not problem with smaller primers.

It's actually a mid burning rate powder. As you raised the two issues of temperature and slow burning powders, but not necessarily in conjunction with each other, I mentioned it first in the context of temperature. As I said it was (still is AFAIK) the propellant that the original adopters of the Palma case, the US Palma team use, and that in their pre-adoption tests team members cooled SRP 308 ammunition loaded with it right down in both fridges and freezers before shooting.

But I also pointed out, the norm in the UK is to use slower burners than VarGet in 308 and also in necked down Palma brass as in my 7mm-08. (Varget as with some 90% plus of Hodgdon powders is no longer imported here anyway thanks to EU regulations these days.) The specific grades I mentioned in this context are Viht N150, 550, 160, and 165 in that post. If you think they are fast burning powders, have a look at a comparative burning rate chart.

I really don't see what you're trying to prove or disprove here - other than you apparently believe in the face of all evidence from around the world that the small primer / small flash-hole form of 308 cannot work efficiently because it is in a case larger than that of the 6.5X47L and uses larger charges. All the 'evidence' that you and one or two others quote that SRP ignition can only handle powder columns up to a certain size are now very dated and were aired at considerable length (and vehemence in some cases) by the sling-shooting opponents of the SRP form in 2010, and were disproved at the time and subsequently in the form of millions of 308 Win Palma cased cartridges fired in competition from club matches shot over lying snow to international matches in 100F temperatures. As I said in my previous posts, there were serious ignition issues in the 1970/80s with Remington SRP UBBR cases when used in 308 form, but something has obviously changed significantly in propellant and/or primer characteristics between then and the first decade of the 20th century.

Incidentally, I notice that another initial doubter of the SRP form in cases longer than that of the 6.5X47L has apparently joined the heretics in this increasingly quasi-theological debate - ie one Mr. G. David Tubb. I happened to notice a mention here somewhere literally yesterday that he has 6XC brass available in stock right now, and it is now available in either SRP or LRP form according to customer preference. David Tubb doesn't sell or promote things that don't work ..... nor for that matter does Lapua.

 

[Brians356]

Slow-burning powders have taken center stage here. But none of the three industry experts cited by Lane Pearce in his article mentioned burn rate, they all focused on single-base powders and cool temperatures.
-

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Incidentally, I notice that another initial doubter of the SRP form in cases longer than that of the 6.5X47L has apparently joined the heretics in this increasingly quasi-theological debate - ie one Mr. G. David Tubb. I happened to notice a mention here somewhere literally yesterday that he has 6XC brass available in stock right now, and it is now available in either SRP or LRP form according to customer preference. David Tubb doesn't sell or promote things that don't work ..... nor for that matter does Lapua.

Actually here about a week ago the man you quoted mr @DTubb said his tests just showed the srp had misfires in the xc so im not sure how much he’s promoting it. I guess its all in the size of your targets. In a sling rifle which you speak of it may not show up but shooting groups you can see it. But thats why they sell both kinds. Glad a highpower legend like mr tubb shares results every so often.

 

[Grimstod]

It's actually a mid burning rate powder. As you raised the two issues of temperature and slow burning powders, but not necessarily in conjunction with each other, I mentioned it first in the context of temperature. As I said it was (still is AFAIK) the propellant that the original adopters of the Palma case, the US Palma team use, and that in their pre-adoption tests team members cooled SRP 308 ammunition loaded with it right down in both fridges and freezers before shooting.

But I also pointed out, the norm in the UK is to use slower burners than VarGet in 308 and also in necked down Palma brass as in my 7mm-08. (Varget as with some 90% plus of Hodgdon powders is no longer imported here anyway thanks to EU regulations these days.) The specific grades I mentioned in this context are Viht N150, 550, 160, and 165 in that post. If you think they are fast burning powders, have a look at a comparative burning rate chart.

I really don't see what you're trying to prove or disprove here - other than you apparently believe in the face of all evidence from around the world that the small primer / small flash-hole form of 308 cannot work efficiently because it is in a case larger than that of the 6.5X47L and uses larger charges. All the 'evidence' that you and one or two others quote that SRP ignition can only handle powder columns up to a certain size are now very dated and were aired at considerable length (and vehemence in some cases) by the sling-shooting opponents of the SRP form in 2010, and were disproved at the time and subsequently in the form of millions of 308 Win Palma cased cartridges fired in competition from club matches shot over lying snow to international matches in 100F temperatures. As I said in my previous posts, there were serious ignition issues in the 1970/80s with Remington SRP UBBR cases when used in 308 form, but something has obviously changed significantly in propellant and/or primer characteristics between then and the first decade of the 20th century.

Incidentally, I notice that another initial doubter of the SRP form in cases longer than that of the 6.5X47L has apparently joined the heretics in this increasingly quasi-theological debate - ie one Mr. G. David Tubb. I happened to notice a mention here somewhere literally yesterday that he has 6XC brass available in stock right now, and it is now available in either SRP or LRP form according to customer preference. David Tubb doesn't sell or promote things that don't work ..... nor for that matter does Lapua.

You seam to think you know more then people like Brain Litz, Louis Palmisano and Ferris Pindell. They all did testing and said that SD would increase if the primer was not sufficient. I like to shoot things that are certain to yield good reliable results. Not get to a match and have a bad day suddenly. Here is a video of a gent. having problems with Vt 550.

 

[rafale]

Do a bit of research on GB and British Commonwealth 'Match Rifle' Dusty. This is a slightly strange discipline that long predates F-Class (by decades, not mere years). Sometime late last century it reverted from a free calibre discipline to 308 Win only and is governed by ICFRA, again like F-Class it's a TR/Fullbore Rifle derived form of competition.

The standard course is a stage at 1,000, 1,100, and 1,200 yards using the standard 2-MOA (at 1,000 reducing thereafter) 5-Ring Fullbore target, but there are one of two ranges in the world, none here, that allow shooting to over 1,400 yards and they shoot at that distance if available. These guys and girls use freebore like you've never seen and their loads are 'hot', like really hot. They tend to be very secretive about what they load and do, but one thing we do know is that they moved en masse (as per FTR) to Palma brass once they found out about its strength and its reduction in ES/SD.

If you're going to win a match where the 1,200 yard stage is the make or break one, you have two gods you worship - really high MV allied to BC; tiny, like really tiny ES/SD values. For a 308 at 1,200 yards, elevation variation loses points, as simple as that - and MR competitors have spent a long, long time eliminating it. The norm there are slow burning, high energy powders to suit the heavy 210gn plus weight bullets. H1000 is a bit slow burning even for this in 308, and may be very hard to ignite for all I know, but a good few hundred international FTR shooters and a rather smaller number of international Match Rifle shooters know a good thing in 308 Win Palma brass when they saw it .... and it works .... and it is a bigger cartridge than 6.5X47L and 6.5 Creedmoor.

Anyway, it's a free country(ies) and nobody tells you or me what components to choose. You won't use SRP brass in Creedmoor and up whilst I would normally seek it out. As the French say: "Chacun à son goût!" Ironically, I use LRP brass in 260 - not because I want to, but because the bolt/firing pin in my rebarreled FN SPR simply won't tolerate the SR form without blanking them - but that's not a case capacity issue, in fact originally discovering this on rebarreling the rifle to 6.5X47 Lapua back in year zero with this cartridge.

I don't believe the SRP form is any sort of panacea, which unfortunately some around now seem to view it as. As with everything, there are horses for courses, but unfortunately fashion intrudes into shooting as everywhere else. The answer to everything precision-wise was for a while the short, fat case - the concept taken to excess with those abominations the Winchester WSSMs. Now it appears to be SRP. There are times when LRP is superior. As I said in an earlier post, I'd also be unhappy to see Scottish deerstalkers use SRP 243 Win even in our winter conditions, although a lot would depend on their choice of powder. Reliability and a clean kill trump an little extra bit of precision every time in live game shooting, so if there is any possibility of degrading accuracy and killing power in adverse field conditions, it is an option that has to be avoided.

Laurie ,

Chacun fait ce qu'il veut ! .What do you think about the new Peterson brass 243 SR I really like N165 in this caliber it's a very slow powder but what will be the result of this combinaison?

Michel

 

[Laurie]

You seam to think you know more then people like Brain Litz, Louis Palmisano and Ferris Pindell. They all did testing and said that SD would increase if the primer was not sufficient.

Not at all. However, Messrs Pindell and Palmisano are both sadly dead and gone - their period of active and very productive partnership was some decades ago. I am becoming tired of resaying that small primer / small FH brass gave serious ignition problems in the 1970s/80s with the powders and primers of the time. ....... but that was getting on for a half century ago. You do believe do you that there has been no progress or improvements in firearms industry R&D and technology in the components we use over that period?

I have all Bryan Litz's books and I cannot for the life of me remember his stating anywhere that SRP brass causes problems. Yes, he says that adequate ignition is essential for precision and that small and often unnoticed hangfires are often the cause of large ES values and poor performance.

Please quote the actual reference in one or more of of his books to Mr Litz coming down against the use of SRP in this context.

 

[Laurie]

Actually here about a week ago the man you quoted mr @DTubb said his tests just showed the srp had misfires in the xc so im not sure how much he’s promoting it. I guess its all in the size of your targets. In a sling rifle which you speak of it may not show up but shooting groups you can see it. But thats why they sell both kinds. Glad a highpower legend like mr tubb shares results every so often.

If I were a sling shooter, I think by now I'd have become pretty fed up with superior beings from other branches of the shooting sports saying words to the effect of .... "but they're only sling shooters, they don't need precision rifles or ammunition, so we'll discount anything they do." It's a pretty patronising attitude from others.

However, I'm not a sling shooter - not since a long time anyway - and I keep mentioning FTR which you seem to be ignorant of. They may have shared genes, but are very different animals these days. If you want to be competitive in this discipline, you need a rifle and ammunition that whilst not quite at BR precision levels is approaching them and which produces performance whose groups would have been competitive on the bench not very many years ago. For 308 Win rifles to produce ~half-MOA groups at 1,000 yards over 20 shots when fired at slow speeds (by BR standards) over an extended period requires a quarter-MOA or better mechanical capability.

I've shot both FTR (223 and 308) and F-open rifles many times in UKBRA 600 and 1,000 yard matches - it's one of the best ways I know of seeing how the rifle/ammunition performs without the 'distractions' of constantly changing wind / waiting for the target to be marked and re-presented etc, although the appearance of affordable electronic targets now at club level is offering new testing and load development opportunities. I've shot several sub half-MOA 5-shot groups with 308 and Palma brass at 1,000 on a near permanently windy range (managed that with my old 223 rifle and 90gn Bergers which people believed impossible). We shoot 600 yards BR in the north of England over the winter and I've produced this performance level with the 308 on the occasional days when the temperature was on or just below freezing. As I keep saying though, I have doubts about ignition in such conditions and one needs to be very careful on the choice of powder.

The 'problem' from a competitive point of view is that with their weights, FTR and F/O rifles fall into Heavy Gun and it is very difficult, actually impossible, to be competitive against a 40lb 6mm Dasher or BRA 'Heavy Gun' built with the sole aim of shooting tiny groups at these distances. As an FTR rifle must use a bipod in its primary role, my 308 and those of others who try this provide far from ideal handling characteristics using a front rest and a bag-riding plate slotted into the forend accessory rail. My rifle also uses a non-ejector bolt (common in the discipline), so it takes greater dexterity than I possess these days to shoot groups at anything like the speed usually regarded as essential in BR.

 

[Laurie]

Laurie ,

Chacun fait ce qu'il veut ! .What do you think about the new Peterson brass 243 SR I really like N165 in this caliber it's a very slow powder but what will be the result of this combinaison?

Michel

I'm awaiting reports on Peterson 243 brass performance with interest Michel. My instinct is that going SRP in this cartridge will be a step too far. It will certainly limit powder selection, and I'm unhappy at the prospect of some people who fail to appreciate the issues here using this version on live game with inappropriate loads or in adverse weather conditions affecting performance. If nothing else, it's going to cause confusion amongst both retailers and purchasers, and retail sales staff will need to be well briefed to advise most customers properly.

What people often forget because the 243 is a 'common or garden' hunting round to most shooters is that it is (for a factory cartridge that was introduced in the 1950s) a rather over bore-capacity design.

http://bulletin.accurateshooter.com/2016/03/defining-overbore-cartridges-the-great-debate/

This restricts the powder range that is optimal. (It is in fact a remarkably flexible design in its internal ballistics. I've just started work on examining 243 in a budget Howa 1500 Varminter as a clubman's F-Open tool given how many people own accurate 243s and fancy the occasional match; some clubs here offering 'Sporting Rifle' F-Class too restricted to hunting rifles. Looking through a large clutch of manuals and online data, I've been struck again and again by the large range of powder burning rates quoted - but that may well be a result of the bullet and powder companies testing and quoting loads for what customers want to use rather than what are the best choices)

So, returning to your question, I've found N165 to be very accommodating in SRP 7mm-08, and N160 is my primary propellant in the cartridge, so these powders may be suitable in the SRP-243 too, but nothing is guaranteed. It really is a case of try it and see. Unless you're shooting at very long-range though where some reduction in ES/SD over LRP brass is a possibility, I don't believe you'd see any noticeable change in precision from a good make of LRP 243 brass - the likely main benefit will be improved case life with high-pressure loads.

Many applicable powders to this cartridge and heavy bullets such as the H1000 that Dusty Stevens mentions in an earlier post may prove problematic with SRP ignition, and some undoubtedly will.

So, all in all, it's a bit of a 'shot in the dark' ......... which is why I await real life results with interest. It may produce some interesting niche application outcomes such as varmint hunters using it in very high performance loads with lighter bullets and easy to ignite powders and some specialist competition loads. I doubt if it'll become mainstream though.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

If I were a sling shooter, I think by now I'd have become pretty fed up with superior beings from other branches of the shooting sports saying words to the effect of .... "but they're only sling shooters, they don't need precision rifles or ammunition, so we'll discount anything they do." It's a pretty patronising attitude from others.

However, I'm not a sling shooter - not since a long time anyway - and I keep mentioning FTR which you seem to be ignorant of. They may have shared genes, but are very different animals these days. If you want to be competitive in this discipline, you need a rifle and ammunition that whilst not quite at BR precision levels is approaching them and which produces performance whose groups would have been competitive on the bench not very many years ago. For 308 Win rifles to produce ~half-MOA groups at 1,000 yards over 20 shots when fired at slow speeds (by BR standards) over an extended period requires a quarter-MOA or better mechanical capability.

I've shot both FTR (223 and 308) and F-open rifles many times in UKBRA 600 and 1,000 yard matches - it's one of the best ways I know of seeing how the rifle/ammunition performs without the 'distractions' of constantly changing wind / waiting for the target to be marked and re-presented etc, although the appearance of affordable electronic targets now at club level is offering new testing and load development opportunities. I've shot several sub half-MOA 5-shot groups with 308 and Palma brass at 1,000 on a near permanently windy range (managed that with my old 223 rifle and 90gn Bergers which people believed impossible). We shoot 600 yards BR in the north of England over the winter and I've produced this performance level with the 308 on the occasional days when the temperature was on or just below freezing. As I keep saying though, I have doubts about ignition in such conditions and one needs to be very careful on the choice of powder.

The 'problem' from a competitive point of view is that with their weights, FTR and F/O rifles fall into Heavy Gun and it is very difficult, actually impossible, to be competitive against a 40lb 6mm Dasher or BRA 'Heavy Gun' built with the sole aim of shooting tiny groups at these distances. As an FTR rifle must use a bipod in its primary role, my 308 and those of others who try this provide far from ideal handling characteristics using a front rest and a bag-riding plate slotted into the forend accessory rail. My rifle also uses a non-ejector bolt (common in the discipline), so it takes greater dexterity than I possess these days to shoot groups at anything like the speed usually regarded as essential in BR.

I did not belittle the sling shooters- far from it- but what i was getting at if you think that a palma rifle can see the difference between a small flash hole or a large one on the target well thats another topic. And as far as f/tr i do know a bit about it. Theres more than a couple f/tr rifles on the line with my name on the barrel and i’ve tuned a few of them in my day. If you like the palma brass thats why they make both.

 

[bobcat93]

Well if one wishes to use irony (not sarcasm here) or humour (to use English spelling as I do), the norm is to signal that by adding an appropriate smiley to the comment.

This is a serious forum after all and there are people who, as we all did on starting out, have various and sometimes very serious misconceptions. I looked long and hard at your comment, but couldn't see any indication that it was meant to be humorous, so decided to take it at face value.

Of course, if I'd looked to see how many posts you've made, I'd have realised that you couldn't be so dumb, ........ so please accept my aplogies, Sir.

(.............. Oh, and strange though it is to relate, I have heard that comment made in all seriousness by handloading beginners on forums, or others on the lines of: Where I can I buy the next size up of primer as the present ones keep falling out of my cases? )

 

[SeabeeKen]

Found that out a while back myself, had to file down Lee universal decapprec die pin to work on lapua brass

My mighty armory decap die didnt seem to be concerned with Lapua brass. It easily fixes those flash holes. Whether Lapua's test is valid in all rifles is another story

 

[Clark]

From my range report October 2012 handloading at the range.

7) 308 Lapua palma brass with small primer pocket, necked down to 260, neck turned, 120 gr Nosler BT moly, and CCI 450 small rifle magnum primers will set off 40 gr of CFE, but not 42 gr.