New Lapua brass vs fire formed and seating consistency

[mrjdasr]

This is the second time, second blue box, where this has happened to me. I am using 105VLD in 6Br. I take new brass, run through body die to check and then set neck with my LCD and then chamfer for vld. All the brass is a tad undersize with healthy shoulder setback as usual. However when I seat the bullets with my Wilson arbor I can get erratic BTO's with up to 4 tho variance.

BUT if I do the identical process as above (less chamfer obviously) with 5-10x cases then I can seat the same bullets all dead nuts with at most a thousandth variance, excluding a rare and occasional cull.

So my conclusion is the new cases or bases have a little warp to them and need a firing to get flattened out and squared up. Makes sense to me, but what does not is how many times I have read of people shooting noteworthy scores in matches with new brass. Would this be attributed to them using a conventional press with a shell holder that indexes off the top of the rim base? Or using a different case brand or what am I missing? ( not enough lube when seating in the new clean necks or too much nt?)

Because the lcd process transfers any case thickness inconsistency to the outside ( where it dosent matter in a no turn neck chamber) and leaves a perfectly round and aligned tube inside the neck. When you use a bushing to squash the neck down to size then any inconsistency in thickness is transferred to the inside, and you wind up having to shove a round bullet into a not so round a tube. This causes the bullets to not be pointed as straight as with the lcd on average. Imo seating after using a bushing only works great when you turn necks so they have a consistent thickness, and you dont reduce them much per bushing stage so as to not deform the neck alignment. Or Bushings work great if you under size the neck and then run it through a mandrel die to expand out to your target size. But then you are doing 2 steps in reverse of what a lcd does in one step!

In a perfect world Mr. Wilson would have invented and patented the neck collet die! But there are things you can do to the lcd to clean one up.

where do you get a"LCD"for a 6 BR

 

[Tesoro]

where do you get a"LCD"for a 6 BR

From Lee Reloading. They will make one to fit your chamber if u send in casings.

 

[Tesoro]

Stop press: I am not going to extol the lcd anymore! Yes the concept is genius and can make super straight ammo and simply but the quality of the ($100) custom die I received is garbage. When I got it and took apart, the outside of the collett was full of ring machine marks wihich would grab on the edge of the bushing on extraction. So I took out the diamond pastes and dremel and polished it up beautifully and lubed. Not a big deal. I have loaded around 200x with the die and just took it apart to inspect with a loupe. By the looks it appears the collett ( and the rest) is made with some kind of recycled ss kitchen pots and pans chinese scrap crap. The die is shedding rust spots and the outside of collett which jams into the bushing is already getting some bad gouges. This means the petals arent exerting even pressure and the die is starting to 'pop' on extraction. Some might say that I am exerting too much pressure, but nope I have my little Harrels c-press set on cam lock where I barely wind up with 2 tho tension and zero impressions on my 6br case necks, unless I smoke them. And yes I know Lee and Accurate Shooter are contradictions! However my Lee $30 thrower is way more precise and consistent than my $200 Redding competition for stick powder. If only Lee would up their game!! I dont like to rag on a manufacturer but in this case I see them blowing a missed opportunity.Back to the Wilson and bushings!! Live and learn

 

[Old Navy]

This is the reason why Harrell's want brass that was fired three times to make you a die. I only have one of their dies and it is the best one on the rack.

 

[JFrank]

Nothing wring with a little kidding around!

All good bro, everyone makes mistakes… Even @Bc’z