Case Prep - I Might be a Dinosaur

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I was at the range yesterday (it was the first nice day in a while). I’m shooting my highly accurate 308Win next to a fellow who was shooting his .308Win. During a break we began to talk about shooting LR (he’s an F-Class competitor) and the topic got around to brass and brass prep.

I told him that a number of years ago I got access to a 3/4 full - 5 galllon pail of Winchester head stamped 308W brass from an RCMP carbine training exercise many years ago. I told him of the painstaking process I went through to culled and accurize this brass. I now have about 2000 pieces of precision, neck turned, annealed, weight sorted (0.5-1.0 gr/100 cases variation), and runout confirmed pieces. I’m on the 9th or 10th reload and still have about 500 in their original prepped conditions.

My reloads (more often than not) have 10 shot variations < 5 SD and ES’s of 12-15 ‘/sec. I’m consistently shooting sub 1/2 MOA 5 shot groups to 330yds (and believe I’m the weak link in accuracy).

I don’t compete anymore but feel that I would put this brass up against any 308 brass, anywhere…end of story. I’m proud of my efforts. I have enjoyed turning this range brass into precision brass.

The guy on the bench next to me looked at me like I was from another planet. He stated that I should have saved myself all that effort and just went out and bought Lapua, or Alpha or Peterson brass and I would have been better off. He stated that nobody competes any more (F-Class or Palma) using carefully prepped “range brass”. He stated that anybody who wants to win uses one of these brands, and basically skips most of the time consuming preparation steps like neck turning, weight sorting, confirming runout, etc.

Is this true? Please let me know if I’m a dinosaur?
 
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If your brass is already done, great!
Spending the money for Lapua brass may be what some consider mandatory for top shelf competing but the fact of the matter is , if you brass is goo, it's good , regardless whether it is cheaper or not .
I don't pay much attention to what somevpeople tell me, because most of the time it's not fact .
Cat
 
Your brass is obviously working well, the results speak for themselves.

If you had some of the original RCMP brass that hadn't been prepped as extensively, it would be an interesting experiment to compare results with your hyper prepped brass, and out of the box Lapua / Peterson / Alpha / ADG too

I have weight sorted, one time I split a batch of brass with a friend. I weighed it all, gave him the worst half and I kept the half that was closest in weight. His brass gave an SD of 9 fps, my good stuff was 14 fps SD.

I no longer weight sort brass. From what I've gathered, a lot of the weight difference is in the extractor cut of the case during manufacturing. I've never dabbled in neck turning, but I do anneal every firing

Earlier this winter I fired two different loads in my 6mm Creedmoor, one load was 109gr ELDm in Alpha brass with RL23, the other load was 110gr SMK in Hornady brass (mix of factory ammo and component brass, so definitely mixed lot #) with Ramshot Grand. A ten round group of each gave .75moa group with the Alpha brass 109 ELDm, and a 1.0moa group with the mixed lot Hornady 110SMK. Mean radius was .25moa for the Alpha , .29moa for the Hornady. "junk" brass can still give good results
 
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When you buy Gucci brass you are paying more for more consistent brass that you don't have to work over. Prepping a bucket of brass like that takes a long time but you are basically transforming it into something more consistent. And Winchester brass of that era was probably really good to begin with anyway.

Obviously your brass works just fine for you. I use a variety of "grades" of brass depending on application and the firearms it is intended for. From Gucci brass for the guns that deserve it to mixed headstamp for range plinking ammo and everything in between. :)


It's nice using the $$$$$ Brass and not doing case prep but it's also not free.
 
you guys just knocking yourselves out for our on end and spending large amount of money on the latest flavours
long before any of this stuff tiny little groups were being shot without brass that cost 3$ ea
i have shot bench rest and full bore in the 70's 80's and 90's and other than prepping the brass properly never weighted any into lots tried to stay with brand name win rem norma that was about it turned necks sometime for bench rest shooting
shot many we tiny little groups that would not have been any smaller with hours of work and more exspensive components but do what works for you
 
People do say a lot of things.

If what you’re doing has been working, and it obviously has, carry on and teach me!!

When I buy brass I will admit that I reach for Lapua… but if I’m going for insano precision I’ll still turn and anneal them.

There is no brand of purchasable brass that excuses one from proper prep.

Cheerio.

SRS
 
How often are you trimming your brass?
I trim brass when it needs it…usually about every 3rd or 4th reload. I will check 10-20 random cases in a 100 round box and if any approach or exceed 2.015”, I will trim the whole box. I full length resize with 0.006” competition shell holder…which might be equivalent to a shoulder bump of a couple thou. Since I have a few 308’s, prepping this way ensures the cases will chamber and can be used in any of my rifles. I usually anneal every second reload and again when I trim cases, so I am annealing probably 3 out of 5 reloads. I am considering annealing after every reload.

I agree that when you are dealing with brass with a maximum case weight ES in the range of 1.0-1.5 grains, weight sorting likely does not add any value. However my experience with this range brass was somewhat different.

I weight sorted the brass once, after the original prep. There was a large weight variation in the original prepped brass (4 or 5 grains) so I believed weight sorting would improve chamber pressure consistency and maybe accuracy. I culled all weight outliers.

As per the trimodal distribution of the weights, I could tell the cases came from at least 3 different lots of ammo. It was an interesting exercise.

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The way I see it is this. If you have money and not much time, buy good brass like Lapua, Alpha or even Starline brass. If you have time and not much money, just do what you are doing now is perfectly fine. If you have time AND money, just take the shortcut to buy the nice stuff.

Now if you are a classical liberal (I know how much we don't like certain types of liberalism on this forum), you would accept another's idea and try it out to see if that gets you better results. If the results are negligible or not much difference, just continue as you are or accept buying new brass.... I know there are some shooters that would pay in the thousands just for that tiny edge (bleeding edge/unjustifiable gains/sunk cost fallacy/paying too much for marginal gains).

With all that out of the way your paper target does not care about the guy using Lapua shells or you using your method of brass prep. The holes on the target is all that matters. How you deliver that is true marksmanship.
 
I picked up 300ish ivi 556 brass after the RCMP's were done practising at a local range - and some free time - i did the uber prep as above, and they shoot as good as the lapua match stuff i have - had to back off a wee bit of powder in my standard load to match velocity, but groups are identical. It seems like really good brass too. Certainly better than some stuff i have used.
One thing i did find was the CCI primers went in so much easier than the fed205m's, even after a double primer pocket ream! Surprisingly the 450's work really good with the loads i tried with this brass
Wylde chamber
 
After the DND ammo grant was cancelled for DCRA competitions and everyone had to start using handloads, Winchester brass was the go to. Lots of shooters used the IVI brass that was plentiful. IVI required a lot more prep work and sorting, but many of us were just cutting our teeth on the concept of handloading. Boy have we learned a lot since then.
When Bill Wylde built my first target rifle, I went and ordered 500 pieces of RP brass as that was the only brass I could find at the time. I'll bet those piece of brass were fired at least 15 times through a couple barrels on that gun, never annealed once. (what the hell is annealing) I would shoot about 200 rounds at our provincial championships then race home to reload those so I would have enough ammo for the DCRA a week later.

With more expensive brass usually means less prep work, but I will weight sort after sizing and trimming before loading. Once this is done those cases stay in MTM ammo boxes pretty much their whole life. All similar weight boxes go through one process as a batch before moving to the next weighted lot, all through the loading process.
 
QUOTE>>>>>a number of years ago I got access to a 3/4 full - 5 gallon pail of Winchester head stamped 308W brass from an RCMP carbine training exercise many years ago<<<<<ENDQUOTE

A number of / many years ago Alpha & Peterson brass did not exist & LAPUA brass wasn't imported into Canada.

Don't let anyone mess with your head.

Using your bell-curve sorted brass, use the "ends" for sighters & sort the rest into lots for serious work.
 
I'd quit recreational shooting if I had to spend that much time on prep, but, to each his own.

A rich man is a man with time. I'm a poor man who is always burnin' daylight, no time to spare on something that tedious.
 
With many sports these days you need a support team to take care of the equipment so the competitor can dedicate as much of their time as possible to practicing the actual sport to consistently compete at the highest levels.
 
The cheapest 308 brass I found few years ago was Lupua so will have to check it out. It came brand new I think but looks like the cases are annealed no sure if that is factory or not.
 
The cheapest 308 brass I found few years ago was Lupua so will have to check it out. It came brand new I think but looks like the cases are annealed no sure if that is factory or not.
Lapua is definitely no longer cheap in any calibre. I use it for all my hunting ammo.
Yes, it is factory annealed.
If I pick up a Tikka Ace when they hit Canada in Q2 I'll be using Lapua brass for long rang bench rest shooting as well.

OP I see no issue at all with you using range brass especially with you weight sorting it. Your groups/stats certainly tell you there are no issues.
Personally I've never had any issues with Win head stamped brass. I collect it for a couple Military rifles I shoot, plus my Model 94.

Here's the rabbit hole, however....

To maintain a consistent pressure, is case volume consistency more important than weight, and does weight correlate reasonably well to case volume?
If so, it certainly is easier/quicker to measure.
 
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