wvuredneck09 said:
Okay if i went with a standard 7-08 would it be easier to start with lapua 260 brass or 308 and how would you all go about forming? Step by step for a guy that has never done any necking up/down/changing shoulder angles etc. are the 284 shooters out their simply expanding the case mouths or lapua 6.5-284?
Before I would go through the trouble of necking Lapua Brass I'd shoot Winchester. I've been going through this evaluation for this years F class season. I'm still working up loads in a new barrel and maybe I'll change my mind after I shoot some more, but I doubt it.
Before everyone freaks out there are a number of reasons I'd not neck up/down for a 7-08.
The time it takes to sort and prep the W-W is not going to be significantly different to the time you spend resizing Lapua, in fact I'm guessing that it may actually be less because you're going to end up having to turn and/or ream necks. (Do some research on it, one poster here says he has no problems, there are a host of others that tell a different story.) Weigh the W-W and toss out the really light or heavy's, clean up the flash hole and the primer pocket, and then measure and trim after they are fired the first time. (Which I do with Lapua too)
I've loaded and shot Lapua, yes, it's beautiful out of the box, but at more than 2x the price it better be.
-->W-W has more case case capacity.
<-- I shoot F-TR, and there are a number of F class shooters (self included) that use W-W because it allows you to load one to two full grains more powder before you start crunching. If you are trying to push into or to the top of the next node it's worth it.
Conventional wisdom says you can load Lapua 8 to 12 times, Darrell shoots on the US/F-TR team and he says his W-W 308 stuff starts to get loose primers after 8 reloads. That's loaded smokin hot. Back to the how many rounds do you plan to shoot a year? Buy 200 W-W, even if you cull them hard you'll keep 175 or more, if you shoot 200 rounds a year (a lot for a hunting rifle) that will last you 9 years.
With my Kreiger barreled F-TR rifle doing load workups at 200 yards with W-W brass I've got lots of groups under .5 moa and several groups under .25 moa. (I'm currently shooting 3x fired brass) In the 308 that I hunt with I reload in brass from Lake City M80 ball, (free is as cheap as it gets) and can shoot under .75moa at 200 yards 165SGKs and that is plenty good for deer. LC cases are very thick and hold at least two grains less powder than a W-W case, but I'm happy in a lower node with this rifle.
SO, all that said, if this is for a hunting rifle how many rounds do you think it will see a year? Just how accurate do you need to be? Do you need to spend that much time and $$ and other than being able to say "I'm using Lapua brass" what does it buy for you?