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JonE
Guest
Is there any one brand that stands out as being significantly better then the rest?
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JeffVN
Guest
better in what context: performance, consistentcy, price?
Lapua seems to be the hardest and in some cases the most consistent in neck thickness.
Winchester has ths largest case capacity and if properly prepped seems to be just fine. Plus, at less than 1/2 the price you can buy lots more when it wears out. It used to be that Black Hills and HSM loaded match ammo used Winchester cases. Now only Black Hills does so, at least as of a year or so ago. I bought the loaded ammo used it for plinking and then prepped and reloaded the cases for my own use. If you anneal every 4 firingins they stay nice and consistent from a neck tension perspective.
From my personal experience, Federal brass is VERY soft, and is not worth using in opinion beyond 2 or 3 firings. Take it from someone who had wholesale impending case head separation after 5 firings - with a mid-pressure load - you don't want to spend much time playing with this crap.
JeffVN
Lapua seems to be the hardest and in some cases the most consistent in neck thickness.
Winchester has ths largest case capacity and if properly prepped seems to be just fine. Plus, at less than 1/2 the price you can buy lots more when it wears out. It used to be that Black Hills and HSM loaded match ammo used Winchester cases. Now only Black Hills does so, at least as of a year or so ago. I bought the loaded ammo used it for plinking and then prepped and reloaded the cases for my own use. If you anneal every 4 firingins they stay nice and consistent from a neck tension perspective.
From my personal experience, Federal brass is VERY soft, and is not worth using in opinion beyond 2 or 3 firings. Take it from someone who had wholesale impending case head separation after 5 firings - with a mid-pressure load - you don't want to spend much time playing with this crap.
JeffVN
C
criver600
Guest
308 Brass
Prepped Winchester is as good as it gets
Prepped Winchester is as good as it gets
Normally I'm about as big a Lapua brass fan-boy as they come. The batch of .308 I got at the end of 2006 and used in 2007 was some very good stuff. The 6BR stuff I've gotten has always been good. The batch of .308 brass I got earlier this year (2008) was not as good. Still way better than unsorted Winchester, but for the price, not as good as it should be (and has been in the past). Hopefully the next batch will be back up to snuff.
Winchester .308 brass... just makes me cringe when I measure it and do statistics on it... way more variation in case weight and volume, but sorted into batches (and kept that way) it actually does really, really well. It's two biggest virtues are internal volume (due to being quite a bit thinner/lighter than others) and cheap. It's usually grossly undersized - both in OAL (as much as 5-10 thou shorter than published specs for minimum trim-to length) and in case head size. For a cartridge that uses a .473 bolt face, and usually measures .470-.471" @ the case web... Lapua cases usually start out around .4685-4690" at the web. Virgin Winchester on the other hand, can measure as small as .463-.464" as the web. I know one fellow who was using virgin Winchester in an old pre-64 M70 when that much stretch proved to be just a bit too much for the case wall... it 'vented' and blew out the bottom of the magazine box - in a blind magazine/wood stock! I think they fixed it with some new bottom metal and a fresh pair of underoos...
Despite all these 'horror' stories, Winchester .308 brass can and does shoot amazingly well for the price, and I know more than a couple top shooters who absolutely swear by it. If you have some slow time during the off-season and don't mind segregating your brass, you can save a lot of $$$ with the Winchester stuff...
Winchester .308 brass... just makes me cringe when I measure it and do statistics on it... way more variation in case weight and volume, but sorted into batches (and kept that way) it actually does really, really well. It's two biggest virtues are internal volume (due to being quite a bit thinner/lighter than others) and cheap. It's usually grossly undersized - both in OAL (as much as 5-10 thou shorter than published specs for minimum trim-to length) and in case head size. For a cartridge that uses a .473 bolt face, and usually measures .470-.471" @ the case web... Lapua cases usually start out around .4685-4690" at the web. Virgin Winchester on the other hand, can measure as small as .463-.464" as the web. I know one fellow who was using virgin Winchester in an old pre-64 M70 when that much stretch proved to be just a bit too much for the case wall... it 'vented' and blew out the bottom of the magazine box - in a blind magazine/wood stock! I think they fixed it with some new bottom metal and a fresh pair of underoos...
Despite all these 'horror' stories, Winchester .308 brass can and does shoot amazingly well for the price, and I know more than a couple top shooters who absolutely swear by it. If you have some slow time during the off-season and don't mind segregating your brass, you can save a lot of $$$ with the Winchester stuff...
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mike in co
Guest
i have a question for some of the 308's shooters.
since we use a special reamer for LAPUA 6ppc , why not sped a reamer for WINCHESTER 308 brass ?
smaller base dia,,,say maybe small base die size, shorter neck/clearance ??
inquiring minds want to know....
thanks
mike
and my answer is lapua.....so far so good.
since we use a special reamer for LAPUA 6ppc , why not sped a reamer for WINCHESTER 308 brass ?
smaller base dia,,,say maybe small base die size, shorter neck/clearance ??
inquiring minds want to know....
thanks
mike
and my answer is lapua.....so far so good.
Asa Yam
New member
There is one - it's a variation of a Palma 95 reamer. Don't know the name off the top of my head, but it exists.
Mike,
Why, I don't know. Ammo interchangeability, perhaps. If someone winds up short on ammo, it's not uncommon for people to offer extra ammo if they have it. Works okay, assuming everybody has the same reamer, and you know their loading habits. I've never wanted to take the chance and touch off someone else's pipe bomb in my chamber. There is also a pervasive train of thought among some Palma type shooters that they 'need' that much clearance due to being down on the ground in the blowing dirt/sand and in the rain. The idea is that it gives some crud clearance, at the theoretical expense of accuracy. Common chamber neck sizes are .340-.341, where loaded rounds with Lapua brass usually measure .336-.337, and loaded rounds with Winchester brass measure .331-.332. There are 'tight' reamers with .337 neck for use with Lapua brass with a light clean-up neck turn, and .333 for Winchester, .335 that could be used either way. I've seen one or two people use a less-than-.340 neck chamber, and the first time they have *any* trouble everybody was jumping on them about how they 'need more neck clearance'. I know sizing from .341+ fired neck diameter down to .330-.331 in one fell swoop with bushing dies can cause some interesting runout problems - one of those applications where Lee Collet dies work particularly well. Which is good, because when (not 'if') they eat the case (again), you cry less over a ruined Winchester case than a Lapua...
Funny how my 6mm rounds (6mm BR, 6mm Dasher, 6x47L) all get by with .2705-.2710 loaded round diameter in .272 nk no-turn chambers shooting F-Class/Tactical matches down in the same conditions...
I've never heard of a reamer built around Winchester brass *body* dimensions... one, I doubt most F/L and body dies wouldn't work any more, and my guess is that most Palma / F-TR shooters ain't big into custom dies (alinwa has me almost there, but not quite yet ). Second... I wonder how much of the 'extra' volume one gets with fire-formed Winchester cases would be sacrificed... I'm sure there probably *is* one out there somewhere; it seems like there are dozens (at least) of .308 Winchester reamers of various design.
Monte
Why, I don't know. Ammo interchangeability, perhaps. If someone winds up short on ammo, it's not uncommon for people to offer extra ammo if they have it. Works okay, assuming everybody has the same reamer, and you know their loading habits. I've never wanted to take the chance and touch off someone else's pipe bomb in my chamber. There is also a pervasive train of thought among some Palma type shooters that they 'need' that much clearance due to being down on the ground in the blowing dirt/sand and in the rain. The idea is that it gives some crud clearance, at the theoretical expense of accuracy. Common chamber neck sizes are .340-.341, where loaded rounds with Lapua brass usually measure .336-.337, and loaded rounds with Winchester brass measure .331-.332. There are 'tight' reamers with .337 neck for use with Lapua brass with a light clean-up neck turn, and .333 for Winchester, .335 that could be used either way. I've seen one or two people use a less-than-.340 neck chamber, and the first time they have *any* trouble everybody was jumping on them about how they 'need more neck clearance'. I know sizing from .341+ fired neck diameter down to .330-.331 in one fell swoop with bushing dies can cause some interesting runout problems - one of those applications where Lee Collet dies work particularly well. Which is good, because when (not 'if') they eat the case (again), you cry less over a ruined Winchester case than a Lapua...
Funny how my 6mm rounds (6mm BR, 6mm Dasher, 6x47L) all get by with .2705-.2710 loaded round diameter in .272 nk no-turn chambers shooting F-Class/Tactical matches down in the same conditions...
I've never heard of a reamer built around Winchester brass *body* dimensions... one, I doubt most F/L and body dies wouldn't work any more, and my guess is that most Palma / F-TR shooters ain't big into custom dies (alinwa has me almost there, but not quite yet
). Second... I wonder how much of the 'extra' volume one gets with fire-formed Winchester cases would be sacrificed... I'm sure there probably *is* one out there somewhere; it seems like there are dozens (at least) of .308 Winchester reamers of various design.Monte
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rooshooter
New member
I read somewhere that the newer win brass is heavier and less volume than the old stuff. is this right?
Unless there is a very recent change (< 1 yr), no. Not for .308 Win. Win runs in the 156-160gr range, Lapua in the 172-174gr range.
For .223 Rem, yes. Used to be that LC brass was the heavy stuff; last batch of numbers I saw floating around, commercial Winchester was close to the top in weight.
For .223 Rem, yes. Used to be that LC brass was the heavy stuff; last batch of numbers I saw floating around, commercial Winchester was close to the top in weight.
M
mike in co
Guest
as witn many posts...the question is incomplete.
for what use ??
semi, hunting, be, highpower ???
mike in co