Brass wall thickness?

[earthquake]

Where can I find info on how thick my brass walls are? I am getting ready to start reloading, and I have Remington Premier brass and Lake City match brass. My forum search skills Suck, so I couldn't find anything if it's already public knowledge.

I'm starting here, no idea if its the right place, but I gave up trying to figure it out and am just going with it:

168 SMK's hpbt
Varget (min load from the book, work up by 0.5 gr @ a time)
CCI large rifle primers
Lake City Match brass
COAL 2.800

Stick: Rem 700 SA in .308, with a 26" 1:12 bbl.

Is it going to blow up in my face?!

Thanks and wish me luck!

 

[clmayfield]

Re: Brass wall thickness?

It is not going to blow up in your face if you work from the min load and look for pressure signs the whole way.

Why do you need to know? Are you concerned about neck tension? How are you sizing the neck? If you are using the Lee Collet Die, you can manage to do the whole thing without knowing or caring about neck thickness. I sort on neck thickness, so I bought a ball micrometer from Sinclair's designed to measure neck thickness.

And BTW neck thickness is going to be proportional to case wall thickness, but they are not exactly the same thing as the case wall gets thicker around the head. I know Lapua is around .015" at the neck. Lake City is thicker, but I haven't measured any, so I don't know how much thicker it is.

Really, the disadvantage with thick walls like Lake City is that you start seeing pressure signs earlier and you can't cram as much powder in there. The advantage is that is is tougher and should last longer.

 

[Fuzzball]

Re: Brass wall thickness?

Goodness. Presume you don't have a neck thickness mike? Few of us do. Okay, first mike a bullet, seat it and mike the loaded neck. Divide the change by two and that's your actual neck thickness. But, all we/you really care about is the cartridge neck diameter and you can measure that directly on the loaded ammo.

Normal cases will not be too thick to chamber safely in any standard chamber. The hazards/fears of GI brass being thicker than commercial are greatly over stated, it can actually be thinner. There are no great differences in the neck thickness.

 

[Short Round]

Re: Brass wall thickness?

I'm guessing you'll find you're in the 0.0120 to 0.0140" range with Rem brass.

I can't tell you on LC match. I never measured any match just regular LC.

If you have a Rem factory chamber you will have LOTS of clearance in the neck.

 

[k2peaker]

Re: Brass wall thickness?

Like the others have said, in a factory chamber you shouldn't have anything to worry about.

But, if you are trying to control all the variables from an accuracy perspective, buy a ball mic (MidwayUSA has a cheap, decent one) and turn your necks. Do a google search or SN search; there's even a good YouTube video series on it. It's relatively easy to do, just takes some time and you end up controlling the neck thickness & uniformity.

Completely necessary? No, a time/reward step if you're into controlling the variables, neck tension, concentricity, etc. Your approach described sounds fine to me.

 

[mdesign]

Re: Brass wall thickness?

Your approach is fine but I would recommend just getting comfortable with the reloading process before reaching out into the other details. Practice with what you have and develop your skills behind the rifle and the reloading press.

As you do those two things, the understanding you gain will prepare you for the secondary phases like brass sorting, wall thickness, neck tension, seating depth, bullet/powder/primer selection, etc, and all the fun but expensive toys that go with the process.

Good Luck!