Poor quality Lapua brass

I've had some Lapua brass that seemed hard as hell out of the box, in particular some recent 6.5 creed and 300 PRC brass. Noticeable extra effort running a mandrel through them the first time, followed by seating rings on the bullets. All of which went away after annealing after their first firing.
I've got a few unopened boxes of 300 PRC and 338 Lapua brass on the shelf, I'm thinking of annealing them right out of the box.
 
The first thing I do with brass regardless of who it was made by, new or used is anneal it. It doesn't hurt it in the slightest and it assures you that it isn't likely going to split on the first firing (all other things being right) I have had brand new brass crack on me. Lapua may be a good brand, but manufacturing always has some variables in material and maybe it was made on a monday morning or a friday afternoon, or some new employee skipped a process..
 
Would be nice to see actual pictures of that and measurements of the fired brass...
Sometimes people's dies put deep scratches it brass necks then they think it's a crack, or is starts a weak point for splitting. Then again sometimes it's super sloppy chambers that over stretch even new brass to the point of splitting.
 
If brass last only a few reload..its a die or chamber problem. Overload and oversizing will also shorthen brass life.
Die that resize neck too much followed by the use of the expander ball will do it.
Lapua brass is the best on the market. They have the most consistent specs. If those do not work..none will.
 
bearhunter said:
Not always. Depends on the mixture. I've had brass, including Lapua, that was good for a few reloads and no matter what lengths I went to, the necks split, and the cases were very hard to resize.
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Likely, you have a chamber issue where the size is grossly larger then SAAMI. Seen plenty of these in Milsurp rifles. Even had to open up a sizing die to get things to work.

wrt to annealing and still getting splits, I am sure you know that you can anneal brass enough to turn it into taffy ie be able to squish it with finger pressure (assume we aren't talking about steel cases here). And a case may need a few runs through a severe annealing cycle to tame the metalurgy if grossly hardened.

So if proper steps (at least not to the point of destroying the case) were taken AND still splits, I would want to make a chamber cast and see how wonky that chamber is.

Or maybe start there if the sizing was press bending difficult.... a springy bolt lock up (or overly hot loads) would show similar problems wrt to case sizing.

YMMV

Jerry

PS... since the OP is talking about Lapua cases, the metallurgy is 'good enough' so proper annealing will get it back on track. outside neck turning might not hurt either.
 
New Lapua brass does not require annealing nor does Lapua recommend it. Often the inside neck diameter of new Lapua brass is tight which would require extra effort to seat bullets. This has nothing to do with brass hardness. What top shooters do is expand the inside diameter with a Twenty First Century expander die or similar and mandrel of their choice. Some FTR competitors are using a .0075" mandrel, others .007" and .306". We used this system in our 300 Norma with new brass as well as with .338 Lapua Magnum, 6.5 Creedmoor, .308 Win and .223 Rem, all Lapua.

Regards,

Peter
 
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peterdobson said:
New Lapua brass does not require annealing nor does Lapua recommend it. Often the inside neck diameter of new Lapua brass is tight which would require extra effort to seat bullets. This has nothing to do with brass hardness. What top shooters do is expand the inside diameter with a Twenty First Century expander die or similar and mandrel of their choice. Some FTR competitors are using a .0075" mandrel, others .007" and .306". We used this system in our 300 Norma with new brass as well as with .338 Lapua Magnum, 6.5 Creedmoor, .308 Win and .223 Rem, all Lapua.

Regards,

Peter
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Great Info ! Thxs Peter
 
I've used mandrels since day one on Lapua brass, and it definitely does not cure the hard seating on some boxes of Lapua brass. I've even gone to APW mandrels to get 0.001" under bullet diameter to help and its pretty clear to me that some virgin Lapua brass has way more spring-back than there is after annealing on some boxes of Lapua brass.
I see none of this on my Peterson and Alpha brass in other cartridges, and I don't see it on every cartridge that I run Lapua brass on.
FWIW I run Lapua brass on 223, the creedmoors, 308, 300 PRC and 338 Lapua. The 6.5 creed and PRC are a different beast than the others, hard as hell out of the box.
 
Unholysavage said:
I've used mandrels since day one on Lapua brass, and it definitely does not cure the hard seating on some boxes of Lapua brass. I've even gone to APW mandrels to get 0.001" under bullet diameter to help and its pretty clear to me that some virgin Lapua brass has way more spring-back than there is after annealing on some boxes of Lapua brass.
I see none of this on my Peterson and Alpha brass in other cartridges, and I don't see it on every cartridge that I run Lapua brass on.
FWIW I run Lapua brass on 223, the creedmoors, 308, 300 PRC and 338 Lapua. The 6.5 creed and PRC are a different beast than the others, hard as hell out of the box.
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More Good Info ! Thxs RJ
 
We checked with BJ, who shot his 300 PRC to 2K in Gagatown and he has not found the brass to be "hard". We have not had this feedback from hundreds of customers who reload for 6.5 Crredmoor.

It would be great if you could return a couple of the "hard" Lapua brass if not reloaded so we could send to Finland for analysis.

Regards,

Peterl
 
I'll check my lot #s when I'm back from Xmas holidays. If my unopened boxes are the same lot # as the hard brass I'll gladly send you a couple pieces.
 
"Likely, you have a chamber issue where the size is grossly larger then SAAMI. Seen plenty of these in Milsurp rifles. Even had to open up a sizing die to get things to work."

I'm surprised you think I wouldn't have twigged onto such an issue.

I will seldom keep a firearm with such a chamber unless there's something very special about it.

If it shows promise from the first few shots, that barrel will quickly get spun off, and the shoulder set back so the chamber can be reamed with an acceptable to me reamer, ground to my specs.

I fully expect such issues with milsurps, but not with decent quality sporters. One of the reasons I developed an issue with anything Savage back in the day.
 
A 308Win from a US manf hunting rifle out of spec? That is certainly a new one to me.... seen lots of long throated 308Wins from Rem but nothing out of whack from Savage

That would definitely be a curiosity to have a chamber that overly big to cause quality brass necks to split.... more often, I have had to outside neck turn Lapua brass cause the cases were too thick out of the box vs the chamber BUT....

anything is possible.

Jerry
 
Mystic Precision said:
A 308Win from a US manf hunting rifle out of spec? That is certainly a new one to me.... seen lots of long throated 308Wins from Rem but nothing out of whack from Savage

That would definitely be a curiosity to have a chamber that overly big to cause quality brass necks to split.... more often, I have had to outside neck turn Lapua brass cause the cases were too thick out of the box vs the chamber BUT....

anything is possible.

Jerry
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That's been my experience with Lapua cases as well, other than that bad lot.

I'm not knocking Savage rifles, just had issues with a couple to many, as far as chamber dimensions are concerned and it left a bad impression. That was well over 30 years ago and I know they went through a huge re tooling effort.

The rifles I've personally seen over the past ten years, that were new, have shot like lasers and the cases looked about like they should in a commercial chamber.
 
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