6mm Dasher Brass.
- Thread starter dave7mm
- Start date
Here ya go, it’s towards the end. I will copy and paste what Richard Schatz said. Obviously it shoots great if he won LG group agg in MT.
“I'll shut down my snow blower for a bit to add some input.
First thing, my Alpha Dasher brass is from a preproduction run.
I'm pointing this out in case there were any tweaks made between the preproduction and the regular run.
The Alpha Dasher brass is some of the most consistently uniform brass that I've had my hands on.
Weighing 50 pieces resulted in an 0.8 gr. total weight variation.
Checking neck thickness runout reminded me of the first Lapua 6BR brass I'd ever handled with my dial indicator needle never moving more than .0005".
I prepped the Alpha brass to the same dimensions that my Lapua brass is currently being run at.
I clean the necks to .0127' and after firing with a moderate load, I trimmed to 1.550" length.
Worth noting is that when I turn my Lapua necks to .0127', I have about an 80% cleanup, with the Alpha, I had about a 95% cleanup. Did I say this brass is uniform!!!
I then took 15 Alpha and 15 Lapua cases, all fired in the same chamber but not resized and did a volume comparison with Accurate 2230 ball powder.
My findings as follows:
The Alpha Dasher brass weighed an average of 5.5 gr. heavier than my Lapua brown box brass. (Sorry, I don't have any Blue boxDasher brass to use for this comparison)
Alpha Dasher brass held an average of 1.1 gr. less ball powder than my Lapua brass.
This difference in volume required a reduction in the charge weight from my Lapua loads of 0.2 gr. with H4895 and CCI 400 to put me back in my tune window with the Alpha cases.
I used this combo in the Montana 1000 yard season championship in August for all of my targets on Saturday and managed to clinch Heavy Gun group agg for the day.
Since then I haven't had decent enough conditions to do any more testing.
Maybe in a few months!!!
Meanwhile, back to the snow blower.”
6Dasher brass came in last week. Piece-to-piece consistency is very tight and much better than the Lapua 6br. I was having some issues seating bullets, shot Alpha an email and Tom Danielson called me with 2 minutes of hitting the send button. Discussed some options, their manufacturing process and even some loading and expected velocities. Never had Alpha brass before, but, Alpha earned a customer today.
Plan was to shoot them today Joe, but didn't work out. Hopefully tomorrow will work out.
I measured 10 Alpha's and 10 Lapua's for case volume. Alpha was average 2% lower volume (A=39.62gr, Lapua=40.24gr)
One of my loads in Lapua is 33.0 Varget with velocity typically around 2970 fps. For today, I loaded 50 Alpha's with 32.0 Varget. Only prep work to the brass was chamfer mouth and debur flash holes. I also used Imperial dry lube on the inside of the case necks and on the bullets. Since I was fire-forming, I didn't get as strict on loading as normal. Charge was +/-.04 gr and the CBTO varied +/-.004. I was surprised that the bullet runout was really close--I had one at .003 TIR and the other 49 were .002 or less. The average shoulder measured .004 less than my chamber.
Setting primers felt the same as with the Lapua brass. Only time will tell about how the pockets will hold up.
I didn't warm up the barrel, just shot 10-5 shot groups. Best group had V=2935, ES=4, SD=1.6. Worst 5 group had v=2942, ES=27, SD=10.2. The total stats for the 50 rounds (less first two cold bore) was V=2936, ES=37, SD=6.9. It was 59 degrees today and it took almost 20 rounds to get my barrel up to optimal temp (104 degrees).
Very impressed with the Alpha brass.
I believe that everyone is missing the main advantage to starting with exceptional 6br Laupa brass to create a Dasher. The ability to turn the neck of a BR case beyond that shoulder junction in my opinion is the key to the Dashers accuracy. That distance is key for flame propagation thru the neck junction.
Lapua makes some of the finest rifle brass. Other manufacturers do also. If Lapua for some crazy reason would start manufacturing Dasher brass I would still purchase 6BR, and have the ability to control the finished product. The neck/shoulder junction thickness is critical for the success of the Dasher case. The BRA shooters also have the ability to turn beyond the junction. Also, a very accurate round.
It seems crazy to most people not competing in the bench rest game. If one can get 3-4 firings out of a set of prepared cases that is excellent. Lapua 6br brass, $1 each. Custom made bullet, .50$ each. 4 firings of each piece of brass $2.00 in bullets with the same piece of brass. Seems like a good division to rotate brass as needed considering that the projectiles cost more. BR shooting is not a cheap game. 1000yd more so than 100-300.
Thanks for the info on the alpha brass gents, i did note the flash hole being .080". As many people say the Lapua BR with its .060" is not to be enlarged but only uniformed, was there any indication this larger hole changed ES or SD in testing. WIB3 thanks for the tip on neck turning before fireforming this makes a lot of sense. Do you then expand to 6.5 and introduce your false shoulder with correct 6 bushing? I also use a 6XC with formed 22-250 Lap brass which does form a massive donut after a couple of firings. i do seat above that but was curious if disrupted flame travel would cause any issues? thanks for any advise.
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