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6BRA Alpha Brass question

Hillbilly Shooter said:
Yeah, same here. Very strange considering people posted that they had to bump the shoulders back during the initial testing of Alpha 6BRA brass and now it’s excessively short. I’m baffled by why you would have such rave reviews about a product then change everything you could to make it horrible.
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So I was using a 6bra case guage...the neck shoulder junction starts at the same point, however the angles are different 30 to 40 deg. But there is between .008 to .010 difference. The Lapua are exactly .002 to .0025 short. The Alpha are .010 to .013 short, compared to the case guage. I'm not sure I feel comfortable with that much headspace.
 
I don’t know if Alpha is watching this thread but I hope others are. My advice to them is save yourself headache and money, stay away from Alpha!

Money spent, resources used for useless testing, wear on my barrel (and bolt!) and all I get from them is it’s my fault my gun had the wrong reamer used apparently. Made in the USA would’ve been a great thing if it wasn’t a junk with no customer service or support.
 
I tried Alpha brass awhile back in one of my 260AI s. Very disappointing to say the least. As bad as I hate to say it I rather have Winchester and of course that ain't saying much.
 
Bill Norris said:
I tried Alpha brass awhile back in one of my 260AI s. Very disappointing to say the least. As bad as I hate to say it I rather have Winchester and of course that ain't saying much.
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That's nuts Bill. I have three different lots of Alpha 6 Dasher brass and each lot is a little better than the lot before. The third lot was so consistent out of the box, I shot them in a 600 yard IBS match and won the two gun without any prep except to turn the necks so I could safely chamber them. I tried it again the following match and won that one also...... no fireforming, no prep, except to turn necks.
I am puzzled why some chamberings are getting so much negative press and others rave reviews?
My only experience is with the dasher brass.
CW
 
Mulligan said:
That's nuts Bill. I have three different lots of Alpha 6 Dasher brass and each lot is a little better than the lot before. The third lot was so consistent out of the box, I shot them in a 600 yard IBS match and won the two gun without any prep except to turn the necks so I could safely chamber them. I tried it again the following match and won that one also...... no fireforming, no prep, except to turn necks.
I am puzzled why some chamberings are getting so much negative press and others rave reviews?
My only experience is with the dasher brass.
CW
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Yea, it is odd no doubt. I wanted to give it a try and on the surface the brass looked great but it was very inconsistent across the board when firing necks were all over the place. Actually made me go back and re-check my Lapua brass. LOL.
 
I guess I'm gonna learn the hard way. I have 2 rifles getting put together. 6 bra and a dasher. I've already got 300 pieces of alpha for each. Hope mine is on the blessed side. Jgs reamer for bra and a manson reamer on the dasher.
 
mjl650 said:
Different lots but I’m hoping both will work in the rifle that Alpha does work in, which is a no turn neck. Haven’t tried it yet.
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I’ve personally had 3 chambers (same reamer) that I have shot the same lot in and was fine after the first firing on virgin brass. I tried a couple pieces of 2x fired brass from a different lot in one of the barrels and had pressure. The same 2x fired (now 3x) also has pressure in a customers barrel cut with the same reamer. Looking back, I wish I would’ve shot my known good brass in that barrel as well. I’m betting it would’ve been fine.
 
I spoke with the guys at Alpha today. Im going to tell you what I was told.
The problem is that the brass does not expand enough to grab the chamber. I asked what is the max chamber size at the .2" line. The actual chamber size, not the reamer spec because reamers measure larger than spec intentionaly and poor setups can cut bigger chambers. The number is .4712" max. So this brass is not going to work in the BRA chamber which is specd .4713" but will normally measure at least .4716".

I had Glenn bring some of the stuff over that worked. It measured .0005 larger at the base than the new lot that pressured up. So this stuff may be that sensitive to chamber diameter.

So if you want to run this brass I guess you need to order a reamer from alpha or a certifed JGS guaranteed to be under .4712.

I was told they are not going to increase the diameter of the brass to work in BRA chambers.

I appologize to anyone that bought this on my recomendation and is having trouble.
 
Yes. That was my advice. Call it something else. Put it on the description it wont work in BRA chambers.
Trust me, Im willing to work with anyone to bring better stuff to our game. I have done a lot of that work. I dont get paid. I just like to see groups get smaller. But when it hurts me because I recomended something that ends up not working it makes me very hesitant going forward.
 
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BRA brass that won't work in a BRA chamber...

I switched to a 260AI in my PRS rifles last year, I am more pleased by that decision every day.

I do have about 600 pieces of brand new Alpha BRA brass, that I bought about 2 years ago. Hopefully that's the older stuff that works well?
 
It never ceases to amaze me how out of touch a company can be with what their customer's wants and needs are, or how they have no idea, or they don't care, about the customer's perception of the company. I mean they named it 6BRA brass, right?

That said, you can almost see and hear the internal events and meetings that led to this.

What? Our new lot of brass won't work in a BRA chamber? What are we going to do? Our phony baloney jobs are at stake here. Why won't it work.

It is a 1/2 thou under

1/2 a thou? How much of the batch did we run before we caught it?

all of it.

How Much?

all of it.

All of it? Isn't this batch the largest batch we've ever run?

Yes,

What are we going to do?

I don't what we are going to do, but I damn sure know what we are not going to do.

Maybe we could tell them it takes a different reamer? Remember when those guys had all that special Dasher brass made? Didn't they have to use a different reamer? They eventually sold all that brass, didn't they?
 
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Alex Wheeler said:
I spoke with the guys at Alpha today. Im going to tell you what I was told.
The problem is that the brass does not expand enough to grab the chamber. I asked what is the max chamber size at the .2" line. The actual chamber size, not the reamer spec because reamers measure larger than spec intentionaly and poor setups can cut bigger chambers. The number is .4712" max. So this brass is not going to work in the BRA chamber which is specd .4713" but will normally measure at least .4716".

I had Glenn bring some of the stuff over that worked. It measured .0005 larger at the base than the new lot that pressured up. So this stuff may be that sensitive to chamber diameter.

So if you want to run this brass I guess you need to order a reamer from alpha or a certifed JGS guaranteed to be under .4712.

I was told they are not going to increase the diameter of the brass to work in BRA chambers.

I appologize to anyone that bought this on my recomendation and is having trouble.
Click to expand...
No apologies needed here. The brass that you and others tested worked and was good stuff. It’s not on you that they took a good product and a lot of time and effort invested by all you guys testing and turned it to crap. I understand that things happen but the fact that Alpha doesn’t stand behind anything is the biggest problem. I hope this story spreads to enough people to damage their all mighty bottom line. Probably not but one can dream. Thanks again Alex for the time and work put in
 
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