6XC Peterson Brass?

[Hoot]

if anyone has a good QuickLoad workup for this case, PM me. It's darn close to a 6 Creedmoor but there's no QL data for that either.

Doh! Its in QuickLoad as 6XC Tubb.

Hoot

 

[klmshooterk]

I got some in 6.5 CM. Haven't shot it yet, but so far it looks good. Primers seat OK (see thread on Hornady and Starline 6.5 CM). Comes individually packed in a nice plastic cartridge box - no battered necks. Competitively priced, IMO.

 

[Hoot]

Well, I finally got a chance to experiment with the loads that were experiencing heavy bolt lift and ejector swipes. To eliminate the possibility of this just being a simple overly hot load, instead of seating the 87gr Vmax .030 off the lands, I loaded them up against the lands so that the 1.508 Peterson brass could not be bouncing ahead of the firing pin. My recipe was the same otherwise from the last time where I experienced the above-mentioned symptoms. Lo and behold, with the cartridges being pressed against the bolt face, no hard bolt lift or ejector swipes. That's the good news. The bad news is I have something like 270 cases left that will have to be fireformed by loading all of them with the bullets up against the lands. Some of the light varmint bullets I wanted to experiment with, are so short, I can't load them into the lands and still have anything but the boattails left in the necks. I think I'll work with 50 at a time so I get a break from having to stretch all of them to 1.520 all at once. I do have some 108 ELD-M bullets that will naturally be shot up against the lands. I realize this caliber is for shooting heavy bullets long distances. That's its strong suit. Still would be nice to shoot ones lighter than 87gr without the appearance of over-pressure conditions. Should have suspected the $30/100 was too good to be true.

Hoot

PS: Tried communicating with Peterson by email for advice and the response I go back made me feel ridiculed. IE "That can't be happening, you have to be loading them too hot" from the Sales and Marketing guy who I won't name.

 

[tomswede]

Well, I finally got a chance to experiment with the loads that were experiencing heavy bolt lift and ejector swipes. To eliminate the possibility of this just being a simple overly hot load, instead of seating the 87gr Vmax .030 off the lands, I loaded them up against the lands so that the 1.508 Peterson brass could not be bouncing ahead of the firing pin. My recipe was the same otherwise from the last time where I experienced the above-mentioned symptoms. Lo and behold, with the cartridges being pressed against the bolt face, no hard bolt lift or ejector swipes. That's the good news. The bad news is I have something like 270 cases left that will have to be fireformed by loading all of them with the bullets up against the lands. Some of the light varmint bullets I wanted to experiment with, are so short, I can't load them into the lands and still have anything but the boattails left in the necks. I think I'll work with 50 at a time so I get a break from having to stretch all of them to 1.520 all at once. I do have some 108 ELD-M bullets that will naturally be shot up against the lands. I realize this caliber is for shooting heavy bullets long distances. That's its strong suit. Still would be nice to shoot ones lighter than 87gr without the appearance of over-pressure conditions. Should have suspected the $30/100 was too good to be true.

Hoot

PS: Tried communicating with Peterson by email for advice and the response I go back made me feel ridiculed. IE "That can't be happening, you have to be loading them too hot" from the Sales and Marketing guy who I won't name.

Why don’t you set the headspace down instead of trying to make up for it being excessive. You have the ability to adjust it.

 

[Hoot]

Why don’t you set the headspace down instead of trying to make up for it being excessive. You have the ability to adjust it.

It did go through my mind several days ago but The Gen1 brass already gives up a little case capacity due to wall thickness. I was greedy and wanted to get that back by getting the outside of the case up to full size. Also, being new to this, I was waiting for someone with more experience to validate doing that before deciding to do it on my own. I've never intentionally set a switch barrel to less than the specified headspace and did not see a lot of posts recommending doing that, out on the web. In theory (see sig), there's no reason why that door doesn't swing both ways but I'm not rich and would not want it to hit me in the butt once I walked through.

Hoot

 

[tomswede]

It did go through my mind several days ago but The Gen1 brass already gives up a little case capacity due to wall thickness. I was greedy and wanted to get that back by getting the outside of the case up to full size. Also, being new to this, I was waiting for someone with more experience to validate doing that before deciding to do it on my own. I've never intentionally set a switch barrel to less than the specified headspace and did not see a lot of posts recommending doing that, out on the web. In theory (see sig), there's no reason why that door doesn't swing both ways but I'm not rich and would not want it to hit me in the butt once I walked through.

Hoot

There is no reason to try to “reclaim” internal volume. The difference is small. I’m not sure if it’s you gage or what the reason is but it looks like your headspace is towards max. Since you don’t have any previous brass or settings changing towards the lower end of headspace seems to be a good idea to me, but it’s obviously a personal preference. The Peterson cases are at a normal length for new brass.

 

[Hoot]

There is no reason to try to “reclaim” internal volume. The difference is small. I’m not sure if it’s you gage or what the reason is but it looks like your headspace is towards max. Since you don’t have any previous brass or settings changing towards the lower end of headspace seems to be a good idea to me, but it’s obviously a personal preference. The Peterson cases are at a normal length for new brass.

Sage advice Tom. I hate getting off on the wrong foot with this group of folks but I'm man enough to admit I was mistaken. Peterson was right, you are right, everyone but me is right. Won't belabor the details. Thanks to a stereo microscope and an exchange with the gunsmith who built up my rimfire BR rig, I now see my error. I'm usually more cautious about going off on a rant. Heading down to my shop as soon as I write this, to correct my misunderstanding. A little older and little wiser. Never too old, too experienced or too over confident to learn something. I owe Peterson an apology as well.

Humbled Hoot

 

[Frankr]

Hoot I dont know what you want to shoot with light bullets for. I used to be a Light bullet nut and if it wasn't going at least 3,600 FPS it was too slow. I tell ya anything lighter than 75-85 grs is not where you want to be...spin up some 105 Bergers and go shoot it and I am quite sure you will be impressed and if you spent some time shooting the 105's I doubt you would go back to the light bullets...I have 87 I might even have 75's I know I have tons of 65-70 grs around and haven't fired one in years now.. the 105's shoot as well as far as groups go and at any distance they are just hands down better and never had nothing yet take a 105 and get away as far as game goes. coyotes, deer, G-hogs it just wackes em.

 

[Hoot]

Hoot I dont know what you want to shoot with light bullets for. I used to be a Light bullet nut and if it wasn't going at least 3,600 FPS it was too slow. I tell ya anything lighter than 75-85 grs is not where you want to be...spin up some 105 Bergers and go shoot it and I am quite sure you will be impressed and if you spent some time shooting the 105's I doubt you would go back to the light bullets...I have 87 I might even have 75's I know I have tons of 65-70 grs around and haven't fired one in years now.. the 105's shoot as well as far as groups go and at any distance they are just hands down better and never had nothing yet take a 105 and get away as far as game goes. coyotes, deer, G-hogs it just wackes em.

Just an itch I want to scratch and I have an assortment of them from 55 Varmageddons, 58 Vmax, 70 Blitzkings, 75 Vmax and 87 Vmax on hand. I could have selected any caliber for my Criterion Remage and a 243 was first in my mind for varmints, but I liked the better barrel life the long neck the XC has without giving much up to the 243. I rarely concentrate on milking every last fps from any of the calibers I reload for.

I will be heading out for some ladder testing with a selection tomorrow morning, culminating in some 108 ELD-M, just to see how they fly and to provide me with some calibration loads to establish some Quickload coefficients. With those different bullets and powders I plan to try, I will have a better idea about how to plan future experiments after modeling them beforehand in Quickload. As I stated in the beginning, I'm not a competitor. I just enjoy toying with less mainstream recipes. Never know when I'll find a truffle. Most esoteric load for tomorrow morning will be the 55 Varmageddon over 40gr of AR-Comp. A great temperature compensated powder up here in the land where temps vary from double digit below zero to 100+ deg.

 

[Frankr]

A great temperature compensated powder up here in the land where temps vary from double digit below zero to 100+ deg

best powder for that is RL17 test is and get back to me. Hey I hear ya. Have fun and be safe.

 

[chino1969]

I just ordered some 6XC Peterson Brass from Graf n Son I read where it was the first production run and not quite up to Norma Brass quality. I thought for the price of 100 cases I would give it a try.
Any one using this Brass ? When will the new Norma spec Peterson 6XC Brass be out ?

I bought 50 rds. of .243 with small rifle primer and was impressed with the quality. I just began fireforming the brass in my .243 AI.

 

[Hoot]

The Peterson Gen1 6XC brass I bought also seems of good quality other than a very slight burr on the outside of the mouths. They started off holding 48.4gr of H2O and wound up holding 48.8gr after firing them (before resizing). The neck OD on them new was .2694, bigger than the two bushings Peterson told me to get (.267, .268) yet the bullet seating in them was firm enough to cause a ring on several different bullets from the Forster seating die. Polishing the lip of the stem cup did not help. Suffice it to say, they have thick neck walls though I don't have a wall thickness mic.

Hoot

 

[Baer45]

Hun I thought I read where had to run it part throttle due to less capacity and s o f t e r head. You know if they have less capacity and you can run a hotter load with no pressure signs that would be ideal for longer range. well I will get them and start at 39.0 and work up to my 40.5 with a drop tube.lol and if the primers fall out I will just toss it or maybe melt it down and sell it for scrap.

Have you ever tried an electric toothbrush to settle powder? I read about it on 6.5 Guys and it really works...

 

[Frankr]

No but I seen the Baker shaker in use once. I got 40.5grs of RL17 in the case with a regular funnel and had room to spare.

 

[Hoot]

Unfortunately, the forum I wrote the "How To" article for is gone but I detailed about buying a Wen electric pencil engraver that had the intensity adjustable by a knob on it. Take a #2 pencil and pull out the eraser. Shove the pointed tip of the engraver into the eraser far enough for it to stay put. Dial it down to barely vibrating. Charge your case and holding it upright, hold the base down on the erase and let the vibration penetrate. The powder column will magically settle down into the case. Large extruded powder has the most dramatic result as the grains align. You can tune the intensity of the vibration for best results. It only takes a few seconds to perform this on each case. I use mine all the time. If I can find my image host location, The images are probably still out there though the thread vanished with that forum.

Hoot

 

[Hoot]

Unfortunately, the forum I wrote the "How To" article for is gone but I detailed about buying a Wen electric pencil engraver that had the intensity adjustable by a knob on it. Take a #2 pencil and pull out the eraser. Shove the pointed tip of the engraver into the eraser far enough for it to stay put. Dial it down to barely vibrating. Charge your case and holding it upright, hold the base down on the erase and let the vibration penetrate. The powder column will magically settle down into the case. Large extruded powder has the most dramatic result as the grains align. You can tune the intensity of the vibration for best results. It only takes a few seconds to perform this on each case. I use mine all the time. If I can find my image host location, The images are probably still out there though the thread vanished with that forum.

Hoot

I found the 5 images which are worth a thousand words. Well maybe a hundred. If you all want, I could put the 5 of them in this tread or start a new one.

Hoot

 

[Hoot]

A question for you more experienced 6XC owners. That would be everybody here with me in last place. I've been having a ball trying to find a good load for as many different bullet/powder combinations as I have time for. Being a working stiff for the next two years, that's not a lot of time each week. Anyway, I've been working hard at determining what brass preparation my rig likes. Its not a high buck competition setup made by a high buck gunsmith but it promises to provide lots of fun experimenting with reloading which is my main passion. I've noticed some loads, both potent and gentle, sustain sooting to lesser and occasionally greater amounts, on the necks. No rhyme or reason, they just do. The obvious cause is them not sealing before enough gas pressure allows some to leak back. I get that. Is the main cause a too generous chamber? Mine produces fired necks using this Peterson Gen1 SRP brass, averaging .2748 OD measured with a good micrometer that is NIST traceable, not inexpensive calipers, though they have their usefulness as well. Through experimentation, I've found that sizing them to .269, not .268 or .267 which I also have, yields seating tension that doesn't cause a force ring on the bullets from the seating die cup. Tactilely, it feels like the right resistance as well. I hate seeing copper streaks on the inside of the necks, even after they've been pin tumbled. I don't feel comfortable sizing them any larger, so my question is, is the sooting more a function of starting loaded outside diameter of the neck or the speed of the powder for that bullet? I've held my QL predicted pressures pretty low to avoid ejector swipes as I hate pulling down ammo. The bullets are so compromised as to not be reusable. The sooting doesn't seem to build up on the chamber, judging from what my borescope reveals but then I clean and re-foul every 4 groups of 5 shots. Is there a correlation to work hardening from resizing? Have you guys experienced sooting and is it nothing worth worrying about as long as the groups are good? I log just about every other possible observable data but not the sooting vs recipe (so far). Do I need to start?

Thanks,

Hoot

 

[tomswede]

A question for you more experienced 6XC owners. That would be everybody here with me in last place. I've been having a ball trying to find a good load for as many different bullet/powder combinations as I have time for. Being a working stiff for the next two years, that's not a lot of time each week. Anyway, I've been working hard at determining what brass preparation my rig likes. Its not a high buck competition setup made by a high buck gunsmith but it promises to provide lots of fun experimenting with reloading which is my main passion. I've noticed some loads, both potent and gentle, sustain sooting to lesser and occasionally greater amounts, on the necks. No rhyme or reason, they just do. The obvious cause is them not sealing before enough gas pressure allows some to leak back. I get that. Is the main cause a too generous chamber? Mine produces fired necks using this Peterson Gen1 SRP brass, averaging .2748 OD measured with a good micrometer that is NIST traceable, not inexpensive calipers, though they have their usefulness as well. Through experimentation, I've found that sizing them to .269, not .268 or .267 which I also have, yields seating tension that doesn't cause a force ring on the bullets from the seating die cup. Tactilely, it feels like the right resistance as well. I hate seeing copper streaks on the inside of the necks, even after they've been pin tumbled. I don't feel comfortable sizing them any larger, so my question is, is the sooting more a function of starting loaded outside diameter of the neck or the speed of the powder for that bullet? I've held my QL predicted pressures pretty low to avoid ejector swipes as I hate pulling down ammo. The bullets are so compromised as to not be reusable. The sooting doesn't seem to build up on the chamber, judging from what my borescope reveals but then I clean and re-foul every 4 groups of 5 shots. Is there a correlation to work hardening from resizing? Have you guys experienced sooting and is it nothing worth worrying about as long as the groups are good? I log just about every other possible observable data but not the sooting vs recipe (so far). Do I need to start?

Thanks,

Hoot

If you are using the very short bullets you mentioned previously, how far are they from the lands?

 

[Hoot]

If you are using the very short bullets you mentioned previously, how far are they from the lands?

I've given up on the 55 and 58gr pills. Gave my stock of them to my range buddy to use in his .243. I generally load bullets that are not jammed into the lands, to a neck depth of no less than their diameter since they do have to jump. The 87 and 95gr pills are loaded for approximately .030 jump. I tried the 87s kissing the lands and the accuracy in my brief encounter was not as good as jumping them .030. My to-do list of recipes to try, reaches far beyond the available range time I have left up here before the weather is not comfortable without being bundled up like the Michelin Man. I'll get as much done before the fur flies but fully intend to take up where I left off come the return of comfortable weather in April. We occasionally have a fluke comfortable day in March but they can't be counted upon as we can also have 40 inches of snow still on the ground as well. and that's not including the drifts.

Are you saying that minor and major sooting is more common with light bullets that have a long jump?

Hoot

 

[Willow]

Does anyone out there know when the second (and improved) batch of Peterson 6XC brass is anticipated to hit the shelves? Are we looking at 2019 now?