I just had the chance to shoot in a rifle tournament for the first time in my life at the SW Nationals last week.
I had been using Lapua brass for my 6MMSLR but decided to switch to Winchester as it is so much easier to resize the necks. I have used Win brass for this gun many times in the past.
I bought 100 rounds from Brunos and did all the case prep to make up my loads.
I was really surprised at the ease the primers seated. I always seat all my primers with hand-held Hornaday primer.
At the practices on Mo and Tue I noticed I was getting signs of smoke around the primers on about 1/3 of all cases fired. This is new, virgin brass.
I'm using the exact loads I have proven with Lapua and WW brass prior to this. 43.5 gr of RL19 and it cronos at 3100 to 3150. Absolutely no signs of overpressure.
I took 50 of them to the final matches at 1,000 yards on Sa and shot a 193 7X so was really pleased but still concerned about the primer situation.
The final three shots of the morning match were 10s with one X. my sighters for the final match Sa afternoon were 10s so I told the scorer I was ready to go on record. First shot, 10X second shot was a 10, but it blew the primer out completely and stuck a piece of it under the bolt face so I could not open the bolt. Nothing we tried including a hammer would open the bolt enough to remove the shrapnel. So my match was fini.
Also, some of my rounds did not even fire when I pulled the trigger and barely made a dimple in the primer face. So the pockets were not uniform in depth either.
I have since deprimed the brass I used and cleaned it to reload and the primer pockets are so loose I can almost use the primers into them with my thumb. One load and they are junk. At a $1 each that is a little pricey. I anneal my brass so usually get 12 to 15 or more, loads out of them.
I had also noted during my case prep that when I weighed the brass, the margins over a 100 pieces ranged almost 4 grains. I actually have 4 different weight groups within 1 grain and 3 that were so far out they are culled.
Compare this with my Lapua brass and there are two groups and one round culled.
I don't know how to contact Win to tell them of this, but a heads-up to you guys if you are loading new, win brass.
This batch, two bags of 50 each are junk.
I had been using Lapua brass for my 6MMSLR but decided to switch to Winchester as it is so much easier to resize the necks. I have used Win brass for this gun many times in the past.
I bought 100 rounds from Brunos and did all the case prep to make up my loads.
I was really surprised at the ease the primers seated. I always seat all my primers with hand-held Hornaday primer.
At the practices on Mo and Tue I noticed I was getting signs of smoke around the primers on about 1/3 of all cases fired. This is new, virgin brass.
I'm using the exact loads I have proven with Lapua and WW brass prior to this. 43.5 gr of RL19 and it cronos at 3100 to 3150. Absolutely no signs of overpressure.
I took 50 of them to the final matches at 1,000 yards on Sa and shot a 193 7X so was really pleased but still concerned about the primer situation.
The final three shots of the morning match were 10s with one X. my sighters for the final match Sa afternoon were 10s so I told the scorer I was ready to go on record. First shot, 10X second shot was a 10, but it blew the primer out completely and stuck a piece of it under the bolt face so I could not open the bolt. Nothing we tried including a hammer would open the bolt enough to remove the shrapnel. So my match was fini.
Also, some of my rounds did not even fire when I pulled the trigger and barely made a dimple in the primer face. So the pockets were not uniform in depth either.
I have since deprimed the brass I used and cleaned it to reload and the primer pockets are so loose I can almost use the primers into them with my thumb. One load and they are junk. At a $1 each that is a little pricey. I anneal my brass so usually get 12 to 15 or more, loads out of them.
I had also noted during my case prep that when I weighed the brass, the margins over a 100 pieces ranged almost 4 grains. I actually have 4 different weight groups within 1 grain and 3 that were so far out they are culled.
Compare this with my Lapua brass and there are two groups and one round culled.
I don't know how to contact Win to tell them of this, but a heads-up to you guys if you are loading new, win brass.
This batch, two bags of 50 each are junk.
... Bought about 6 months ago but only started using it a couple weeks ago so it's still on it's first firing. Primer pockets are very tight as they should be with virgin brass.
.... I decided to retire it since it had 20 reloads on it, even tho I have not scrapped any pieces nor have the primer pockets loosened any.
