Lapua brass problems

[fdshuster]

M-61: Very interesting: thanks for posting that. If I could speak to the person who wrote that statement, my simple, one word question would be "Why"? They made a statement, but never gave a reason for the purpose of following the "advice".

Hope Kevin Thomas is "listening" to this conversation and chimes in with his thoughts. Now, his advice I would follow without question.

Their statement that the new brass be cleaned because of the annealing stains on the neck also raised some eyebrows. Guess I've been doing it all wrong since 1998.

I again question their actual hands-on knowledge and experience.

 

[lpreddick]

early on i measured neck runout on 6 br lapua that i necked down to 22 cal...holy moley! i was afraid the bullet in these cases would really be off, so i fireformed them using the cow method and, yes, almost all runout was gone. i suspect a lot of runout in case necks of new brass is related to case body and ffing evens this out.

 

[bouddha]

fdshuster-

My guess is that bit of info is a CYA statement from Midway, not Lapua. It is probably meant to reduce the complaints of dented or misshapen cases more than anything else.

 

[fdshuster]

bouddha: You're probably right as it relates to the rare (for me) dented case necks.

 

[mcxring]

Hey Guys,
Well I fired the 20 rounds at the range today, they all shot very well, came home and inspected them, all looked fine, tumbled, re sized, reprimed and reloaded them, put them on the concentricity gauge hoping for the best and low and behold, only one had a runout of 4, one had a deviation of 2 and the other 18 where 1 to2, all easily corrected to 0 to 1/4 (about the best I can do), so needless to say, I'm very happy, and for all you guys that said just shoot em, you were certainly right, and thanks for the great advice, it was funny, of course it was the first one that I checked that was off by 4, fortunately, it was also the only one, as simple as the reloading process is, it is amazing how much there really is to know, thanks again, I think Ill go load some up.

 

[KevinThomas]

Sorry guys,

Been away from the board the past two days and hadn't caught this one until now. Couple of observations here; Yes, the advice on the Midway site is a bit of a CYA statement, and goes a bit beyond what we actually recommend. As Erik correctly stated, WE DO suggest running new brass over an expander mandral, just to uniform neck tension and remove any out of round condition caused during shipping. This sort of assumes the handloader has (or has access to) an expander mandral. I personally use the Sinclair, but there's several on the market and readily available. If you don't have an expander die and mandral, then a standard neck die and expander ball is an option. Not one I really like, ut it's an option. Third choice is a F/L die, but it shouldn't be doing any actual resizing on new, unfired brass. What you're using here is merely the neck portion and the expander, with the rest of the die body being somewhat incidental. Best solution, pick up and expander mandral and die and be done with it.

Mcxring, I'll be out of the office tomorrow for most of the day (Bianchi Cup match in progress!) but you can leave me a message here. You can also reach our office at 660-826-3232. I'll be in for a while in the AM, but will be on the range for the remainder of the day. Let me know, we'll figure out what's up and get you taken care of here.

 

[fdshuster]

mcxring: Your results, after firing new brass are very similar to mine: Maybe 2 out of 20 that are a little sub-par/ just a little more runout than you would expect. When this happens, I mark the case head with a black Magic Marker, and after firing the second & third times, will continue to check for runout. Many times a particular case can take 2 or 3 firings to straighten out, and sometimes, a "crooked" case will never straighten regardless of how many times it's fired. I write these cases off as being defective from the time they were formed during manufacture. They are then kept for first round fouling, basic sight-in, 100 yards maximum, and never used in a match.

Several years ago bought a 50 count bag of new Winchester in the factory sealed bag, 308. All of those 50 were perfect, the best Winchester I've ever seen. Rushed back to the store (Gander Mtn.) to quickly buy another bag or two, and I did, but the lot # was different. Every one of those 50 were really bad, some of the worst I've ever seen. I've never had this happen with Lapua, and I use a lot of Lapua in 220 Russian/6ppc and 6BR.

 

[mcxring]

Thanks Kevin,
i appreciate you getting evolved and willing to help me out, I ordered 300 and have only loaded 50, 20, 10 20,...... I fired the 20 that where the worst with 14 out 20 having excess run out, after shooting and reloading they all can out just fine, so I feel that should be the cases for the rest of the new ones, when I get them all once fired. I love the lapua brass I use 308 and 223, some of my older 223 have 13 reloads and still going strong, I have heard that lapua does not make there 223 brass, is that true??
Mike