6.5x47 L brass quality????

[65BR]

Reading gunweek 85, wondering what QUALITY brass like Lapua's reputation has, SHOULD be in variance? Weight and neck thickness?

Showed 5 grain variance? How 'off' is that vs. say good 6BR brass and/or other brass in similar sized rounds, % wise?

Is the 6.5x47 Lapua brass as good as was hoped for, or less than expected?

Thanks for insight.

 

[SongdogHunter]

c' mon on Cliff you know the answer to that. It's just like your 6 BR brass only larger.

FWIW: you need a 6.5 x 47l on one of those Sako's of yours.


SDH

 

[memilanuk]

At least one local guy happened upon a batch of Lapua 6.5x47L that would not fit in the shell holder. Given other reports of 'soft' Lapua .308 that pop up... one starts to wonder if Lapua isn't coasting on their reputation a bit from time to time.

 

[65BR]

SDH, I honestly never sorted nor turned brass, just loved the way MY Lapua 6BR brass shot in the past, bought a few hundred close 10 yrs or more ago.......wondered about the quality of todays brass, in particular the 47 as my Stiller Predator action will be on its way......and what to chamber......

Rather not have to turn or sort cases that cost nearly $1 a piece if you can understand that.....makes me want to start looking more at the Creedmore if there is nothing gained but higher expense with the Lapua.....

 

[Macs]

Everybody has a bad day from time to time but for the most part I've not found any brass better than Lapua but that's just my opinion.
Chuck

 

[billmo]

I guess from time to time every manf. will let some bad products slip away, but I agree with Chuck on this one. For the most part Lapua has been the best brass I have reloaded in all of my reloading years. Just another opinion. Bill

 

[sawhornsoff]

I have not weighed out my brass. My 2 friends that are also shooting the Lapua 6.5x47 brass from the same batch/production as the brass I have have noticed the same variance in weight and in neck wall thickness as was in the article. Both guys found about 5% of the brass had variance in the wall of 0.002" and they found the brass weights were 4-5 grains extreme variance. Going to have to sort brass and measure necks.

 

[sawhornsoff]

One of my friends had shot a batch of 100 brass for about 10 loads. His rifle was giving him fits as he would shoot 4 shots in less than a 0.2" group and then typically one pretty bad flier.

 

[65BR]

How does that variance compare to Lapua 6BR? Anyone?

Thanks for the info guys.

 

[lmorrison17]

About 2 months ago I bought a box each of 6BR and 6.5x47. On mine the 6.5 brass was more consistent in weight and WAY WAY more consistent in neck wall thickness. I didn't record the numbers but it seems the BR brass had about 4.5 grain spread and 6.5 was about 3 grains top to bottom. But the big deal was the neck walls. I seem to remember them being .014 thick with very little variance, I only take .002 off for a .012 neck on the 6.5 and the all cleaned all way. I for get the total variance on the 6BR cases but it was bad. I havn't used the cases yet so they're still all segregated as fallows, My 30BR necks get cut to .010, lost 2 blowing out the necks, 83 cleaned up good, 3 were so bad I just trashed em the other dozen are only good for fouler's/barrel heaters. But 6.5 flashholes did the bit flash in the hole thats been mentioned in the past.

 

[Liebetrau88]

I am personally sponsored by Lapua/Vihtavuori, so I'm not sure if my brass is different, I don't think it is, but I have never had a single problem with any of the 308 brass, dont neck turn ever, never takes the weights, all i do is barely debur the flash hole. I just got 500 pieces of the 6.5x47 Lapua brass and it looks amazing, hopefully I won't have any problems with it.

 

[k6ctw]

Interestingly, my latest lot of 6.5x47 was a bit more consistent with a total spread of 3 gr.

My lot of 6BR brass was amazing. When I weight sorted 300 rounds,before case prep) the total variance of all 300 rds was within 1.0 gr. I easily sorted it into 3 lots with the best lot at +- 0.2 gr for use in 600 yd prone competition. I'll use the other 2 lots,+- 0.4 gr) for the XC matches.

My 308 brass from Lapua has also been quite good and I easily find lots +- 0.5 gr to begin my case prep with for my Palma shootng.

As this should indicate, I have ended up using exclusively Lapua brass.

 

[LongRanger]

Check for other aspects to case quality than weight and neck thickness. Other issues have also been reported, such as burrs in the flash hole.

Personally, I have found the 6.5 x 47 Lapua cases to be the highest maintenance cases of any brass I use and have suffered a huge fallout for bad case quality...not usable for precision shooting at 600y and 1000y... due to various defects in 400 cases from 2 separate lots. These lots were bought about 1 year apart. From the get-go, a high percentage of the new cases had as much as .035" variance in base to shoulder length. Some bases would not fit in my shell holder and were too thick for the claw-extractor on my Nesika bolt to grasp. Most necks and mid-shoulders measured wildly non-concentric....like over .008. About 3% of new cases were terribly banana shaped and I could never get them to fire-form to become concentric. And, 75% had visible burrs inside the flash hole. The inside of most of the necks are corrugated and could benefit from an inside-neck reamer, but who wants to do that?

After trimming necks for thickness and de-burring flash holes, I thought that the first firing would beat these cases into shape. Not so. I ended up annealing all the necks after the first firing, and then still ended up by chucking 25% after second firing due to concentricity/case volume issues which persisted and which had showed up on target as flyers, and through the chrono as wildly varying speeds.

While getting really great accuracy from the cases that eventually did make the grade, I feel that $.80-$1.00 each is a total rip off for these cases and have wished to high heaven that Norma would add it to their product line.

As a final note....I do not think there is any way in h... that the European match shooters are having such great success shooting factory-loaded Lapua ammo in 6.5 x 47 that is made from using "run of the mill" brass of the same quality I have bought. For me, every first-firing of these cases is virtually a fire-forming exercise with resultant wild and unexpected results not conducive to accurate shooting results.

Frank

 

[Liebetrau88]

Where did you buy the brass? I talked to my sponsor and the stuff I get is no different than the stuff everyone else gets, it comes from the same production lines. I have had over 2000 pieces of various calibers of brass and have never had those issues. Never once have I seen a burr in the flash-hole,albeit I clean them anyways) Never have I had any odd shaped brass. I use this stuff from 300 yards all the way to 1200 yards. I used this brass in Canada when the USA Young Eagles won the U21 World Championship.

 

[datp]

I am currently using the the 6.5X47 in NRA 1000 yd F-Class matches and in any/any palma matches. Of the 600 cases I received from Sinclair about a year ago I have been nothing but pleased. All cased segregated out into 4 lots,+/- .5 grains) with less than 20 sighter cases,culls). I found that when I turned the necks, as I do with all cases, the neck thickness was close enough the whole neck ended up getting turned <meaning there were no high/low spots to clean up> I did have a about 1/3 of the cases with a small burr in the flash hole which was easily removed.
As far as case life goes, I am still using the first hundred cases I started with and they are on their 11th firing but I am only neck sizing,bumped shoulder back twice). No loose primer pockets or separation. I'm using Berger 130 vld's in front of 41 grains of H4350 and cci br primers.

 

[65BR]

Based on variety of posts, I am undecided on choosing this round in my next build for a NO hassle OUT THE BOX brass set up.

Interesting variances in experience. I like the design......sad to see 47L brass has not had a consistent run of success as perhaps the 6mm BR has in Lapua.

 

[sawhornsoff]

Described the variances of the brass and the inconsistencies in the neck wall to Lapua via their website. Got a phone call within a few hours. Sent the brass to Lapua rep in the US and they sent me replacement brass that was weight sorted. So far this stuff has been very consistent in my F-class rifle.

 

[Forum Boss]

Described the variances of the brass and the inconsistencies in the neck wall to Lapua via their website. Got a phone call within a few hours. Sent the brass to Lapua rep in the US and they sent me replacement brass that was weight sorted. So far this stuff has been very consistent in my F-class rifle.

That's impressive customer service. I know the guys at Lapua are very sincere about quality control.

 

[65BR]

Agreed, great service, BUT, why is inconsistent brass getting out to consumers I wonder, when Lapua is reputed to be so great, and their pricing reflects it? Seems like they are 'shooting themselves in the foot' while launching a new round?

 

[LongRanger]

65BR et al....

I think that there is enough evidence thus far to indicate that the quality of the 6.5 x 47 brass is, at the least, inconsistent.

However, the case quality rejects I've experienced, when reduced to overall costs of shooting in competition don't make a single blip on the dollar radar screen. If through my high-grading I lose even 100 cases, at $1.00 a pop, out of 400 cases that cost is today only a couple of tanks of gas, or less than the entry fee at many competition meets.

Soooo...my point is, I would not let the possible hassles of working with these cases be a sole determinant of whether or not to adopt the 6.5 x 47. In the right gun, and with proper reloading components and discipline/technique, it is a proven equal to the 6.5-284 in both calm and windy conditions...even very windy conditions.

Frank