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Using brass from another rifle in competition

Tony1320

Hello everyone,

What are your thoughts on using brass (Lapua .308 Palma) from my other rifle in competition?

With this lot of brass from my other rifle, it fits and cycles normally in my main rifle, but I was wondering if you would use it in competition.

There is still a brass shortage in Canada. I haven’t seen any Lapua brass in a while, but I have fired brass from another rifle.

Some lots of brass from other rifles, even after being full-length sized, do not fit and cycle normally after firing. It’s hard to lift the bolt and extract.

Why is this, and how can I solve this issue?

Thank you.
 
It probably depends on the competition. I'd use it for PRS, but I know BR and F-class shooters who are very particular about that stuff.

As far as hard bolt lift with brass fired from other rifles, it's most likely the .200 line near the head. A FL die doesn't size all the way down, so if the brass was fired in a chamber with slightly larger dimensions, it could cause issues in other rifles. A small base die could help with that.
 
Tony1320 said:
Hello everyone,

What are your thoughts on using brass (Lapua .308 Palma) from my other rifle in competition?

With this lot of brass from my other rifle, it fits and cycles normally in my main rifle, but I was wondering if you would use it in competition.

There is still a brass shortage in Canada. I haven’t seen any Lapua brass in a while, but I have fired brass from another rifle.

Some lots of brass from other rifles, even after being full-length sized, do not fit and cycle normally after firing. It’s hard to lift the bolt and extract.

Why is this, and how can I solve this issue?

Thank you.
Click to expand...
Tony,
Simple solution is don't do it. Rifle chambers have a dimension range. If one rifle has a chamber towards the "big" end of that dimension range. And your rifle is to the "small" end of the dimension range. The brass has to be sized down to fit your chamber severely beyond the point of its springing back . If it has multiple firings on it. It may not size back at all to fit your chamber. AND you may have the expense of having a full length or body die made to do this. Not to mention the shortening of brass life due to oversizing of the brass. If your chamber is on the large end of the dimension range and the brass was fired in a small dimension chamber. You could experience case head separation depending on the difference in chamber dimension. The good news is that LAPUA will be producing the brass on its " postponed production " list ( that the .308 PALMA brass is on along with about 12 other LAPUA cartridge case offerings) again soon.
 
barefooter56 said:
Tony,
Simple solution is don't do it. Rifle chambers have a dimension range. If one rifle has a chamber towards the "big" end of that dimension range. And your rifle is to the "small" end of the dimension range. The brass has to be sized down to fit your chamber severely beyond the point of its springing back . If it has multiple firings on it. It may not size back at all to fit your chamber. AND you may have the expense of having a full length or body die made to do this. Not to mention the shortening of brass life due to oversizing of the brass. If your chamber is on the large end of the dimension range and the brass was fired in a small dimension chamber. You could experience case head separation depending on the difference in chamber dimension. The good news is that LAPUA will be producing the brass on its " postponed production " list ( that the .308 PALMA brass is on along with about 12 other LAPUA cartridge case offerings) again soon.
Click to expand...
Thank you for the reply

Do you have an idea when they will start producing .308 palma brass? Would it be possible to have some for this summer?
 
Tony1320 said:
Thank you for the reply

Do you have an idea when they will start producing .308 palma brass? Would it be possible to have some for this summer?
Click to expand...
You are very welcome Tony. LAPUA just said this year. Hopefully very soon. Get on all the back order and notify lists you can with LAPUA DEALERS.
 
Tony1320 said:
Thank you for the reply

Do you have an idea when they will start producing .308 palma brass? Would it be possible to have some for this summer?
Click to expand...
Since i Do NOT compete in F Class I can only speculate on how I might proceed
Assuming that the lot of ammunition was carefully prepared for the other gun and is held to repeatable standards why not take 20 or 30 rounds to the range and actually see how it performs?
If it meets your expectations-great
If there issues, so be it, at least you will know and you can make other arrangements

I tend to be practical in most things and would probably go this route

YMMV

Good luck

Gary
 
if both rifles were chambered with the same reamer (and assuming the reamer wasn't badly worn between chamberings) it should work, otherwise you're taking a chance of having problems at the most inopportune time, it's usually futile to force brass (that has memory) from a chamber with slightly larger dimensions to work in a chamber with slightly tighter dimensions
 
No two bbls, actions or chambers are IDENTICAL in size and it's much like a go/no-go deal. The brass fired in the smaller chamber will typically work but not the other way around...at least not for very long. You can get by with it for a while if they are extremely close but even the same reamer, same smith and same setup will produce a very slight difference. Ya gotta remember that the brass wants to return to its largest state, which is in the larger chamber while under pressure. So theoretically, the smaller brass could still give trouble if the bigger chamber doesn't swell as much under pressure. Fine hair, I know. But it matters. Again, you may not see any trouble at all or at least for a while. I'd say do it and hope for the best or at least that it works without clickers until you can find new brass.

I've done it but it's not a good thing if you can avoid it. I understand that right now is a time when we are doing things that we might not otherwise do, if availability was better. You could also have the chamber polished out just a tad to make sure the bbl you are shooting is the larger of the two. Won't take much, if anything.
 
I've done it a few times with .308 Win F-TR rifles/loads. In my case, it worked out OK and there was not any issue with noticeable size differences in the chamber/brass between the two rifles and/or hard bolt lift, etc. Presumably, this was because the chambers had been cut with the same reamer and any dimensional differences were not sufficiently large enough to notice by this particular practice (i.e. switching brass between rifles). However, as most noted above I would try to avoid doing this unless absolutely necessary. It's just not a good practice.

Rather than using some of your existing brass in a different rifle, my suggestion would be to find another source of brass. I purchased some Alpha Munitions .308 Win SRP brass about a year prior to Lapua halting production of their .308 Win SRP brass due to the Ukraine conflict. I had wanted to try the Alpha Munitions .308 Win SRP brass for some time and ultimately have been completely satisfied with its performance. The case capacity is slightly less than Lapua and there are some other very subtle differences prompting changes in the loads, but otherwise it shoots just as well as Lapua. There is also the choice of Peterson .308 Win SRP brass. I have not used the Peterson myself, but have spoken with others that have, and their take is that it is also of very good quality. In other words, you have at least two choices for .308 Win SRP brass other than Lapua.

www.bluecollarreloading.com

Alpha 308 Winchester SRP Brass with OCD Technology

Product Information Cartridge: 308 Winchester Finish: Brass Condition: New Quantity: 100 or 500 - Same Lot Number Primed: No Primer Size: Small Primer Pocket *This is not loaded ammunition.
www.bluecollarreloading.com www.bluecollarreloading.com

www.lg-outdoors.com

Peterson Brass 308 Win 50Bx

Peterson Brass 308 Win 50Bx Cartridge: CTT_308 Winchester Rounds: 50 Manufacturer: Peterson CartridgeModel: PCC308WM
www.lg-outdoors.com

ammomart.com

Peterson Brass 308 Win 50bx

Manufacturer: Peterson Cartridge50 Casings3 Available$1.050Per Casing
ammomart.com

If you're dead set on using Lapua SRP brass, it appears as though Blue Collar Reloading has it in stock right now, something I just discovered when looking for the link to Alpha Munitions brass. If this is the route you choose, I wouldn't wait very long to buy some.

www.bluecollarreloading.com

Lapua 308 Winchester Palma Brass #4PH7226C

Product Information Cartridge: 308 Winchester Finish: Brass Condition: New Quantity: 100 Primed: No Primer Size: Small Primer Pocket *This is not loaded ammunition.
www.bluecollarreloading.com www.bluecollarreloading.com
 
Tony1320 said:
Some lots of brass from other rifles, even after being full-length sized, do not fit and cycle normally after firing. It’s hard to lift the bolt and extract.

Why is this, and how can I solve this issue?
Click to expand...

I've had that exact problem when trying to re-use 308 brass - also Lapua, though I don't think the brand nor the caliber really matters here between barrels on my FTR guns in the past. Particularly when I was using factory barrels for a time. Didn't matter how much I sized them, I still had heavy bolt lift and/or 'clickers'.

I was fairly certain the barrels were head-spaced the same, as there was only one person doing the installation (me) and I was using the same set of go/no-go gauges, and the brass was going through the same sizing process through the same dies...

Turns out that it doesn't take very much difference in size at the case web to cause all kinds of headaches like this. I don't have the numbers handy anymore, but wasn't much - maybe a thou or so - if that. But if one barrel has a 'fat' bottom chamber, and the next one doesn't... you're probably not going to be a happy camper. Regular F/L sizing dies tend to not put much squeeze in this region, so the brass expands to fit the chamber it's fired in.

Find either a ring die, or a very tight small-base die. I have a ring die, made by @Pbike years ago, that will sqwarsh the base down to ~0.468" without touching the rest of the body or shoulder. Not readily available, though. I also have a Redding Type S F/L bushing small base die, that will usually get the job done. And a regular Bullet Central Micron F/L sizer will squeeze a little more than the Redding SB die.

One thing to be aware of is that not all dies are equal - my Redding Type S F/L bushing small base die squeezes the *shoulder* quite a bit more than I care for - from 0.455 down to 0.450, rather than 0.453 like all my other 308 dies - including my 'regular' Redding Type S die. That doesn't do anything good for case length growth, trust me.

Nowadays that my barrels are chambered by custom gunsmiths using my reamer, it's much less of an issue, but still not outside the realm of possibility.

HTH,

Monte
 
Last edited:
^^^^^^ Everything he said . I went through this when changing barrels because I had the "new" barrel done by a different "Smith" with a different reamer . The "200" line dimension wasn't the same , ( smaller ) in the new barrel , and since I wasn't prepared to throw away four hundred Lapua SRP cases , I sprang for a Ring Die , and it was well worth the cost .
 
I guess I got lucky because my two 6 Dashers both work perfectly between my brass. I chambered my new rifle and then rechambered my benchrest gun after I set it back 0.250 because it was originally chambered with a Norma chamber. Now they’re both in Alpha Legacy and headspace is so close to each other that I can’t distinguish between the two. I don’t shoot the same load because of barrel length differences but the brass is happy.
 
before months end we should have this brass in canada

hirsch precision or prophet river will have stock

buy your 2 year requirement or we will be back on,this thread in a month complaining again

don't hoard but buy what you will use don’t be shy

jefferson

might have a box or 2 left if you cannot find any
 
Jefferson said:
before months end we should have this brass in canada

hirsch precision or prophet river will have stock

buy your 2 year requirement or we will be back on,this thread in a month complaining again

don't hoard but buy what you will use don’t be shy

jefferson

might have a box or 2 left if you cannot find any
Click to expand...
Great news

Thanks for the offer if I can’t find any I will send you a pm
 
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