Old Lapua brass?
- Thread starter robbor
- Start date
jackieschmidt
Gold $$ Contributor
Has Lapua stopped producing 222?
Shooter13
Gold $$ Contributor
They quit producing "Gold Boxes!" I've never been caught up in the gold box craze, maybe I should be the way I shoot!!
I just e-mailed Capstone -distributor- and it is on the infamous" postpone" list.
The .222 brass shown is new as it is headstamped .222 Rem Match. I bought my first gold box .222 brass in 2006- it was not Lapua quality- I suspect it was outsourced. Absent from the market until 2010. The new brass headstamp was changed to add "MATCH" and the quality was equal to the .220 Russian, and 6 BR brass I was also using. FWIW the necks on this newer lot measure just under 0.013".
I'd say @LHSmith has pretty well nailed it down.
I think Lapua changed to the blue plastic box around 10 years ago, but with the 222 being headstamped with the word 'Match' it was definitely made a good few years into the 21st century. I can't remember when Lapua introduced its 6.5-284 brass, but I'd guesstimate between 15 and 20 years ago. I still have a fair few 'gold box' cases in 6BR, 223 'Match', 308 Win (large primer) from that era, all very consistent in their weights and dimensions.
As both products are on Lapua's temporarily discontinued list, if you don't want / need them, I'm sure there are others who do.
You have to wonder too what 'temporarily' means in this context. Finland has just joined NATO and as it currently doesn't make much use of 5.56 or 7.62 NATO cartridges having retained the Soviet era 7.62s X39mm and X54Rmm, the country now has to make a complete changeover and restock of its infantry weapons and ammunition - same as the US and UK in the late 1950s. For a small country, Finland has a large military if you take the size of its reserve forces into account, and I suspect both uses a lot of ammo in training annually and holds larger back-up supplies than almost any other western country if judged on a population basis. Even if there is a palace revolution in the Kremlin tomorrow and the Ukraine war peters out as a result, Nammo Lapua and Vihtavuori are going to be heavily committed to military ammo for a long time. (A Kremlin palace revolution appears more likely to put an even more hawkish warmonger into power than Comrade Putin anyway.)
I think Lapua changed to the blue plastic box around 10 years ago, but with the 222 being headstamped with the word 'Match' it was definitely made a good few years into the 21st century. I can't remember when Lapua introduced its 6.5-284 brass, but I'd guesstimate between 15 and 20 years ago. I still have a fair few 'gold box' cases in 6BR, 223 'Match', 308 Win (large primer) from that era, all very consistent in their weights and dimensions.
As both products are on Lapua's temporarily discontinued list, if you don't want / need them, I'm sure there are others who do.
You have to wonder too what 'temporarily' means in this context. Finland has just joined NATO and as it currently doesn't make much use of 5.56 or 7.62 NATO cartridges having retained the Soviet era 7.62s X39mm and X54Rmm, the country now has to make a complete changeover and restock of its infantry weapons and ammunition - same as the US and UK in the late 1950s. For a small country, Finland has a large military if you take the size of its reserve forces into account, and I suspect both uses a lot of ammo in training annually and holds larger back-up supplies than almost any other western country if judged on a population basis. Even if there is a palace revolution in the Kremlin tomorrow and the Ukraine war peters out as a result, Nammo Lapua and Vihtavuori are going to be heavily committed to military ammo for a long time. (A Kremlin palace revolution appears more likely to put an even more hawkish warmonger into power than Comrade Putin anyway.)
divingin
Gold $$ Contributor
Maybe email Lapua with the lot number codes?
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