Lapua brass 308

[Jinx-)]

After wasting my time with Winchester and Remington brass trying to get it to shoot without getting unexpected fliers, I finally gave up and ordered a box of Lapua brass. Very nice thick brass, few necks got dented so I decided to run them through neck sizing die. As you might know my Lee Collet die haven't been friendly to me here is the link http://www.longrangehunting.com/forums/f28/lee-collet-die-questions-55987/index3.html so I decided to use RCBS die for its first resize, to my suprize or not it left scratches on the necks, I inspected the die before use it had mirror shining surface, after playing with die some more I found the reason for scratches, since Lapua brass is more thicker then the ones I had resized before it was scratching brass necks just before shoulders ends and neck begins, this area of the die was not polished. So I had to polish it with stillwool. After I was done with resizing I measured case length most of them were 2.007 few were 2.008 and 2.009, that was very good I would say, so I trimed them all to 2.007, then I weight them all and there were exactly 2 groups 174.0 (+-0.1) gr and 173.5(+- 0.1) that is also amazing but why I have 2 groups with such difference still a mystery, I think they were done on 2 different machines then mixed. I also measured primer pocket depth and it was 0.127 and my primer pocket uniformer is setup to 0.132 so I trimmed them to uniformed length, then I deburred case mouth, primed the cases and took them shooting to get them fire-formed for my chamber. As far as as prep did I missed anything, or maybe something I shouldn't done it like primer pockets? By the way they did shoot alright so far, 1.65" 5 shot group at 300 yards and 500 did show 5.17" but it was windy that day...

 

[Gene]

Congrats on finding the fix for your die. Many would have sent it back to RCBS. I buy a lot of Lapua brass in 6BR and 223. I have checked it often, and now I simply trim, champfer and expand the necks, Then load em up. Primer pockets are right on. No need to debur flash holes. No doubt the best brass available.

 

[Buffalobob]

After wasting my time with Winchester and Remington brass trying to get it to shoot without getting unexpected fliers,

If you want to try to salvage some of the brass and get some practice at the same time then do this: Weight sort the brass if it hasn't been trimmed too many times and throw away the ten heaviest and ten lightest in each brand. Load every thing up and go to a 500 yard or more range and begin shooting. Every piece of brass that gives you a flier, throw it away. This will help a whole lot but not totally cure everything because there are cases that only give semi-fliers. It at least gets rid of the really goofy cases. It will probably never shoot as well as the Lapua for competition but if you just want to kill a deer or something it will do fine.

 

[Jinx-)]

Thanks for the advise! I did sort my rem and win brass but I was shooting them at 100 and if I would get flier greater then MOA from the group I would mark them and try them again if I get 2 strikes I would separate them from the rest of the group. Then when I tried them on 500 yards they performed terribly 12" 5 shot groups. I will save them for hunts in the woods where shots usually placed withing 100 yards.

 

[Jinx-)]

Went to the range today and for some reason nothing would group... this is second time I used them, could be Nosler Competition bullets which I brag about for a while now with extreme weight spread, but on 500 yards I had 10" spread like 2 MOA...

 

[Chas1]

I wouldn't concern yourself with less than 3/10ths of 1% variance. +1 w/gene.