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416 Barrett - Situation with brass

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amymorgan20

Sergeant of the Hide
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Feb 27, 2020
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I recently heard about a problem with the 416 Barrett brass, something about its terrible inconsistency and sometimes inability to resize. Can anyone inform me of the entire situation as it is currently known?

This information comes new to me and is interesting as I ran across issues in resizing 416 Barrett brass when I was reloading it for a friend. I thought it was somehow a problem with the dies, but if there is a known issue out there about the brass....also explains why 416 Barrett wasn't really adopted much in ELR.
 
The guy I know that have shot the 416B said the issue stems from the chamber is to large and the brass swells after being fired 1 time making very hard to resize. Robert Vestel made what he called a 416 match and that chamber was based off the brass so you didn't have near the issues with the brass. Barrett's 416 was developed for the military and they don't reload so they don't have an issue. Oh and yes there has been issues with the brass.
The other issues with 50BMG based cartridges is primers. CCI need to be sorted bye weight if you want to get any consist sd numbers. The RWS primers are better but still need sorting. This is why Vestal has his 375/408 bolt face cartridge's out now. They are 416 and 458 Vestel and they use a large magnum primer.
 
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Barrett has way to many variables in reamer spects and dies are generic. So your best bet is start over with somthing else more modern. That does not have all the issues that the barrett has this is the very reason that lots of people are going away from the barrett. The barrett can be made to work well but not with out lots of effort
 
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Asgard1 said:
Barrett has way to many variables in reamer spects and dies are generic. So your best bet is start over with somthing else more modern. That does not have all the issues that the barrett has this is the very reason that lots of people are going away from the barrett. The barrett can be made to work well but not with out lots of effort
Click to expand...
I think you misread my post. I was only asking for an explanation of the problems with 416 Barrett. I do not own a 416 Barrett rifle nor was I looking for advice if I should switch to another cartridge. I already shoot a different cartridge for ELR.
 
Amy the Barrett brass is soft and when pushed hard it grows to the point you need to hammer open the bolt.
If you go to YouTube look for Thomas Manner shooting his 416 Barrett at the king of 2 miles match.
You will see him and Mark Avakian pounding the bolt open and Tom isn't a small guy.
You can use TZZ 1990 israel military 50BMG brass rws brass or Lapua brass and cut it short and run it through your 416 die.
I sort all my primers into like weights and if you weigh your friends brass it might shock you as to the variation.
If you and Aaron get a chance we are holding monthly matches above Upperlake every 3rd sunday of the month still.
Edit: all the primers are good we just shoot them in like batches.
 

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I found the Barrett-branded PPU brass to be very inconsistent. In a bag of 25 I would usually discard 2-3 cases for being wildly over or under weight, and it hardened very rapidly leading to case-neck cracks. <chuckle> A second-firing case neck crack at an inopportune time is what got me started annealing cases!

However I found the Barrett-branded Ruag brass to be quite good, consistent and robust. So it will depend on what you have.
 
cameljockey230 said:
Amy the Barrett brass is soft and when pushed hard it grows to the point you need to hammer open the bolt.
If you go to YouTube look for Thomas Manner shooting his 416 Barrett at the king of 2 miles match.
You will see him and Mark Avakian pounding the bolt open and Tom isn't a small guy.
You can use TZZ 1990 israel military 50BMG brass rws brass or Lapua brass and cut it short and run it through your 416 die.
I sort all my primers into like weights and if you weigh your friends brass it might shock you as to the variation.
If you and Aaron get a chance we are holding monthly matches above Upperlake every 3rd sunday of the month still.
Edit: all the primers are good we just shoot them in like batches.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info. I suppose the collective ELR community moved on from 416 Barrett without me noticing which is why I am asking the questions now. When I was at the crossroads of choosing between 416 Barrett and 375 CheyTac, I chose the latter for the simple fact of what primers they took. Had no idea 50 cal primers were that bad in inconsistency.

I actually moved to Las Vegas in March 2022, so I really don't know if you'll be seeing me at another Upper Lake shoot, but not saying never. I've kept up my shooting and have learned a lot since the last Upper Lake shoot I attended, would be kinda cool to go back and show you guys what I can do now.
 
Amy
You can spec a reamer for the 416 Barrett yourself that will help but the best bet is to get tougher brass. The original Barrett brass was IMI but it was never able to handle the top node without getting tight.
Look for some TZZ brass and just cut it to length.
The CCI primers are alright when weight sorted but the only reason shooters are using them is they cost 1/3 what RWS cost and are available everywhere.
I think dale at Ten-X dave at old western scrounger and bill krazinski are the only guys selling RWS and finding them in stock is sometimes problematic.
The 375 you shoot now would be a dog with Bertram or Jamison brass or you have to shoot it at a lower node with the softer brass.
You Josh and Aaron are always welcome and we have things dialed in so you shoot from one position at 2147 2600 3260 and 3720 yards with ease now.
 
cameljockey230 said:
Amy
You can spec a reamer for the 416 Barrett yourself that will help but the best bet is to get tougher brass. The original Barrett brass was IMI but it was never able to handle the top node without getting tight.
Look for some TZZ brass and just cut it to length.
The CCI primers are alright when weight sorted but the only reason shooters are using them is they cost 1/3 what RWS cost and are available everywhere.
I think dale at Ten-X dave at old western scrounger and bill krazinski are the only guys selling RWS and finding them in stock is sometimes problematic.
The 375 you shoot now would be a dog with Bertram or Jamison brass or you have to shoot it at a lower node with the softer brass.
You Josh and Aaron are always welcome and we have things dialed in so you shoot from one position at 2147 2600 3260 and 3720 yards with ease now.
Click to expand...
Thanks, but I wasn't in need of advice on how to make things work, I only wanted filled in on what was going on. There isn't going to be any efforts to make my friend's 416 Barrett to work as he is trying to sell it.
 
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amymorgan20 said:
I recently heard about a problem with the 416 Barrett brass, something about its terrible inconsistency and sometimes inability to resize. Can anyone inform me of the entire situation as it is currently known?

This information comes new to me and is interesting as I ran across issues in resizing 416 Barrett brass when I was reloading it for a friend. I thought it was somehow a problem with the dies, but if there is a known issue out there about the brass....also explains why 416 Barrett wasn't really adopted much in ELR.
Click to expand...
Amy - please note that the "condition" you have related may be a function of various issues, not the least of which is whether the brass is the older pre-RUAG brass or the relatively-new RUAG (RWS) brass. There were some issues reported, but that was a few years ago, so you may be getting "old" stories, passed on - related from prior threads from who knows where. As best I know, all new Barrett-sourced brass is RUAG. See https://store.barrett.net/c-487-ammunition-reloading.aspx Also see https://shop.thunderammo.com/416-barrett-ammo/
 
Here is an old post from 2019 using RUAG brass.

I was wondering if someone could help this relative noob regarding this particular rifle round understand an issue that has me puzzled. My friend and I each have a 416 Barrett bolt rifle for which we are hand loading. We are both using the same Ruag brass prepped identically (neck turned, sized, neck tension, etc.: factory non-fired brass) with CCI 50 BMG primers to the same seating depth for both primers and bullets with the same bullets being used. The chambers were made by different reamers and are different actions but still firing the same brass and bullets. The thing is, when I reach 185 grains of VV 20N29 I have a devil of a time opening the bolt (primers flattened with very mild ejector marks.) He, however, does not encounter that situation until 190 grains of the same powder. Obviously, I would like to obtain as much velocity as possible to maintain supersonic flight for as long as possible. Why would the same round behave so differently regarding pressure issues at different powder amounts for two different actions yet those actions were cut for the same round, and when essentially the same round is fired from the two guns there is such a large pressure difference. Any insight would be appreciated regarding this issue and I fully admit my ignorance regarding the finer points of pressure spikes relating to different chambers with the same round.
 
The Barrett has gone through many modifications in attempts to get the RUAG brass to work; none have solved that crisis. We have been making 416 Barrett brass from RWS 50bmg brass for some time now that fixes the problem. Our process provides the shooter with benchrest quality cases that are neck turned inside and out. It has been so popular that the current US supply of RWS brass was consumed much faster than we or the importer anticipated. If you would like to revive your 416 Barrett with quality brass that easily extracts and can be reloaded, get on our list for the next production run later this winter.
 
Dan Warner said:
The Barrett has gone through many modifications in attempts to get the RUAG brass to work; none have solved that crisis. We have been making 416 Barrett brass from RWS 50bmg brass for some time now that fixes the problem. Our process provides the shooter with benchrest quality cases that are neck turned inside and out. It has been so popular that the current US supply of RWS brass was consumed much faster than we or the importer anticipated. If you would like to revive your 416 Barrett with quality brass that easily extracts and can be reloaded, get on our list for the next production run later this winter.
Click to expand...
Dan - presumably you mean "modification" of their rifle. I suspect that is actually "application-specific versionizing", not modifying. Barrett now has three rifles with .416 Barrett "conversion kits" - the 82A1, M99, and the brand new, not-yet-formally-released, MRADELR (https://barrett.net/?s=MRADELR). The 82A1 is a semi-auto, the M99 is single shot, and the MRADELR is a repeater. Typically a semi-auto, especially ones which the manufacturer may want to have considered for Mil purchase, will have a substantially looser chamber than for a single shot or repeater for the same Mil customer. In Barrett's case they also sell .416 Barrett ammo, which might complicate the pairing of ammo and rifle. [An aside, the bullets used in Barrett's 2023 Ko2M rifle uses 500 gr. Lazer (https://cuttingedgebullets.com/416-500gr-single-feed-lazer-tipped-hollow-point-50ct), while the ammo they sell uses the 452 gr. MTAC (https://cuttingedgebullets.com/416-452gr-single-feed-mtac-match-tactical), both bullets from Cutting Edge.] It will be interesting to see whether Barrett jumps the gun in releasing the MRADELR prior to SHOT 2024. The Barrett press release said nothing about the ammo used during the K02M being "factory ammo", so one might surmise that the team hand loaded the 500 Lazers, the preferred bullet design for ELR.
 
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Well...appears Barrett just pulled the MRADELR link. Ugg! Their Customer Service says site maint is going on as I type. Best guess is that page is not coming back.
 
Last edited:
ELRresearcher
It sounds like they are turning down the outside diameter of the cases to have more clearance?
I would think new reloading dies would be needed?
 
ELR researcher said:
Dan - presumably you mean "modification" of their rifle. I suspect that is actually "application-specific versionizing", not modifying. Barrett now has three rifles with .416 Barrett "conversion kits" - the 82A1, M99, and the brand new, not-yet-formally-released, MRADELR (https://barrett.net/?s=MRADELR). The 82A1 is a semi-auto, the M99 is single shot, and the MRADELR is a repeater. Typically a semi-auto, especially ones which the manufacturer may want to have considered for Mil purchase, will have a substantially looser chamber than for a single shot or repeater for the same Mil customer. In Barrett's case they also sell .416 Barrett ammo, which might complicate the pairing of ammo and rifle. [An aside, the bullets used in Barrett's 2023 Ko2M rifle uses 500 gr. Lazer (https://cuttingedgebullets.com/416-500gr-single-feed-lazer-tipped-hollow-point-50ct), while the ammo they sell uses the 452 gr. MTAC (https://cuttingedgebullets.com/416-452gr-single-feed-mtac-match-tactical), both bullets from Cutting Edge.] It will be interesting to see whether Barrett jumps the gun in releasing the MRADELR prior to SHOT 2024. The Barrett press release said nothing about the ammo used during the K02M being "factory ammo", so one might surmise that the team hand loaded the 500 Lazers, the preferred bullet design for ELR.
Click to expand...
I was referring to the evolution of the Barrett chamber over the past few years in attempts to make the RUAG brass work.
 
Has Barrett been changing the reamer specs in order to shoot the ruag brass?
If someone wanted to build a 416 Barrett today using RWS brass is there a reamer already species out?
 
cameljockey230 said:
Has Barrett been changing the reamer specs in order to shoot the ruag brass?
If someone wanted to build a 416 Barrett today using RWS brass is there a reamer already species out?
Click to expand...
I don't know what the current specs are for the Barrett reamer used in their rifles today, but I do know that the RWS works just fine in them. We have specs of our own for the Barrett that work quite well (I'm sure they are a bit tighter than Barrett's). If you contact us directly, we can be sure that you have what you need.
 
ELR researcher said:
Dan - presumably you mean "modification" of their rifle. I suspect that is actually "application-specific versionizing", not modifying. Barrett now has three rifles with .416 Barrett "conversion kits" - the 82A1, M99, and the brand new, not-yet-formally-released, MRADELR (https://barrett.net/?s=MRADELR). The 82A1 is a semi-auto, the M99 is single shot, and the MRADELR is a repeater. Typically a semi-auto, especially ones which the manufacturer may want to have considered for Mil purchase, will have a substantially looser chamber than for a single shot or repeater for the same Mil customer. In Barrett's case they also sell .416 Barrett ammo, which might complicate the pairing of ammo and rifle. [An aside, the bullets used in Barrett's 2023 Ko2M rifle uses 500 gr. Lazer (https://cuttingedgebullets.com/416-500gr-single-feed-lazer-tipped-hollow-point-50ct), while the ammo they sell uses the 452 gr. MTAC (https://cuttingedgebullets.com/416-452gr-single-feed-mtac-match-tactical), both bullets from Cutting Edge.] It will be interesting to see whether Barrett jumps the gun in releasing the MRADELR prior to SHOT 2024. The Barrett press release said nothing about the ammo used during the K02M being "factory ammo", so one might surmise that the team hand loaded the 500 Lazers, the preferred bullet design for ELR.
Click to expand...
All of us on the Barrett team outside of the employees tailored our loads to our individual rifles and worked hand in hand with the Barrett engineering team to get all of our velocities very close . All of us used the Warner/RWS brass and 500 gr Lazers, some used CCI primers and some used RWS .
 
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