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Time to junk a bunch of LC, RA and DAG brass. Finally got up the guts to bring out a few boxes of new Lapua .308 brass out of the stash. Annealed it this afternoon and sized all 400 cases. First half has been sized, wet tumbled in the SS pins and is now in the dryer. Once dried it gets trimmed and them primed and ready to load. Whatta Hobby!
You clean & size your brand new Lapua? Wonder how many do vs do not. I’m not planning on it with the new batch of virgin Lapua I have in the new barrel. However I switched to 260AI. Still, even with standard 260Rem, I am inclined to just load & shoot. Worry about the brass prep after initial fire forming. But that’s me.
Had a bad experience with one batch of .308 lapua some time ago. Had neck splits of 10% on my first loading. Now I anneal and go through the full process. No more splits. Whatta Hobby!
You have a system that works for you- and that's what matters. But if 10% failed then something else was going on- because they had just been annealed by Lapua and hadn't had a chance to be work hardened yet-- so they probably would have failed regardless. Unless the brass has been roughed up bad I just load it- because it is going to be under sized for my chamber anyway. Lapua is good brass- but probably not as good as its reputation.Quote:
Originally Posted by NF1E
Interesting to here of split necks on virgin Lapua brass, I typically just use an expander mandrel on virgin brass as the necks are quite undersized and yes they are annealed prior to leaving the plant.
I normally run my new brass thru a sizer die to round the necks. The last batch of Lapua I got had 9-10 dented necks that needed it anyway.
I shoot allot of 308 for past 30 years. Learned to resize all new brass after issues trying without. With resizing, you know it’s good to go.
With Lapua I do like Jim, expand and load. Have recently tried the Peterson brass and do it the same way. FWIW, I found I needed to use a tapered expander for this. When I tried just the 'button' the necks would 'buckle'. To me that means they are fully annealed.
After 18 reloads I had my fist Lapua 6BR neck split. The other cases are still doing well after 4 more reloads. I do not anneal and they are FL sized every time.
I do try to be gentle with brass. I have a feeling that I was lucky and just got a bad batch. Whatta Hobby!
I just FL size and clean up the case mouths for fire forming Lapua brass.
Never had to clean, size or anneal new Lapua brass.
I've been reloading with Lapua for all my bolt rifles, primarily in 3 calibers - .223, 6.5mm CM and .308 - since 2010.
Just for grins, I used to measure the length of the brass when I opened a new box.
Rarely ever got even one out of 100 that was not right on spec so I stopped bothering to measure them.
The annealing discoloration has always been very visible on each piece, but the discoloration mostly disappears when I clean them using steel pins after the first load.
Lapua brass loads and shoots great the first load and each reload.
I never anneal Lapua brass and rarely ever have a neck split before the 100 have been reloaded about 20 times.
I don't load near PMax so I usually get 23 to 26 reloads out of a set of 100, even with the .308s.
Generally, the primer pockets get loose before the necks split and that tells me it is time to open a new box.
Have never had dented necks in a new box. I wonder if Lapua Quality Control has begun to slip.