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What can I expect from Lapua brass?

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alamo5000

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I've never bought any Lapua brass but I am tempted to try some out. Before I do though I am wondering what kind of expectations I can get in the way of performance?

If I get any (right now) it will be for 223. Assuming I have all of my reloading ducks in a row and I am getting reasonable results already what would Lapua bring to the table?

I know the term 'reasonable results' is subjective but let's define that by say getting SD's in the low teens already on a very repeatable basis over long strings of fire (say 20+ rounds). I also am very aware that if a person has crappy reloading habits that Lapua brass isn't a magic wand. Hence I am laying the foundation of 'all other things considered'....

I don't particularly NEED Lapua brass but I am considering it for a variety of reasons. Right now I use primarily same headstamp LC brass for everything, but for a particular gun I am thinking about getting some new brass from a different manufacturer and keeping that segregated better.

Any personal experiences will be appreciated.
 
For me, it lasts forever. I have no problem getting 20 or more firings without annealing and still get single digit SD's. It is also very consistent in weight and uniformity.
 
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You can expect if your shooting like shit, it’s probably not the brass, because you are using Lapua brass.

Seriously, that’s it. The end.






Every post after this will be an echo
 
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Lapua brass is the standard in consistency/longevity

That said, if you suck at reloading or shooting you won’t notice a difference

Or if your a poor, poors don’t shoot Lapua either....
 
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I use lapua brass exclusively in my match rifle but just because there’s no prep and it’s really not that more expensive. I’ve shot it side by side with prepped lc and had the same result.
 
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The Lapua 223 match is good for bolt action rifles. The regular Lapua 223 is garbage.

If you’re shooting a semi-auto don’t waste the money. Lake city or Winchester /WCC nato brass and be done with it.

I use Lapua in everything else except 300wm and 6XC. I have 308win cases with 30+ firings.
 
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FatBoy said:
The Lapua 223 match is good for bolt action rifles. The regular Lapua 223 is garbage.

If you’re shooting a semi-auto don’t waste the money. Lake city or Winchester /WCC nato brass and be done with it.
Click to expand...
Lapua doesn't have two part numbers for 223 brass. What are you talking about?
 
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Supersubes said:
Lapua doesn't have two part numbers for 223 brass. What are you talking about?
Click to expand...

Lapua used to sell two kinds of 223. 223 REM Match that had match in the case head and 5.56x45 that did not. The 5.56x45 was not the same quality. Same part number, different brass.
 
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It’s some old shit. I have never owned the 5.56x45 brass. By the time I started buying/loading 223 Lapua it was already in the blue box. This was gold paper box days but I have read it was also available in bulk. Regardless, for a semi IMO it’s a waste. Same year lake city shoots just as well at what USED to be less than 1/4 the price. Now, who knows...

For a Bolt rifle, Ild shoot the Lapua if I could find it.


Edit: look up 4PH5009. The new shit is 4PH5003.
 
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I am still kind of tempted to try it out. I just don't want to go into the deal like some people... expecting that Lapua will solve all of their problems.

Basically my view is that with almost anything 'premium' it will show you basically how bad you suck at what you are trying to do.

That said I have long wanted to segregate brass for a particular rifle, and surprisingly I have done so. That said having all same stamp brass and trying to segregate it is a royal pain in the ass. Something like Starline would probably suit my purposes just fine... that being something decent but also with a different head stamp. Finding pretty much anything these days though sucks and shooting Lapua brass will satisfy my curiosity if nothing else.

Anyway there is more than one reason so I just bought two boxes a few minutes ago. I got it to the door, including shipping for .66 cents each. A quick search shows me that other brands of brass (new) are way more expensive than that right now.

What the hell. It's worth the experience to experiment with it.
 
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Also thanks everyone for the replies. It helps to bounce around ideas about spending my money off of all you guys. ;)
 
A couple years ago I bought some of the blue box 55 grain Lapua loaded ammo on sale somewhere for a ridiculously cheap price.

I shot it out of my precision bolt gun then reloaded it with Federal 205s, 8208XBR, and 77 TMKs. When I shot them, SD was 8 over 5 shots.
 
Lapua is my go to brass for both my precision and F/O rifles. Also use their their 5.56 brass in a gas gun and works great.
 
I buy Lapua brass just so I can put it on a shelf and look at it :)
 
My 6.5CM Lapua Brass out of the box had a neck total indicated runout of 0.0005" or lower from the factory. Case neck thickness was measured with a ball micrometer to be +/- 0.00025" on average. Case weight was within +/- 0.2gr after 4 firings so no need to weight sort, primer pockets already uniform, cases trimmed to within +/- 0.0005".

TL;DR: Trying to make it better will make it worse.
 
As noted above I bought a few hundred same lot Lapua brass in .223. Today I started to plink around with it. Nothing crazy just a few rounds. Being able to shoot in the yard has perks.

My normal go-to load using LC brass was 24.3 grains of Varget with a 69gr SMK. This is definitely a middle of the road load according to Hodgon but I guess my chamber is pretty tight. With that load I was getting a bit more velocity and signs of flattened primers in the Lapua brass.

I bumped my load down to 24.1 grains and I was back at the velocity I was getting with the LC brass.

I measured a few rounds that I loaded straight up virgin brass and my SD was pretty high. On my next five rounds I decided to run a .222 mandrel down the necks. Just that alone with zero load development got me an SD of 15.

I still have 190 pieces of unfired virgin brass to play with but so far I have figured out that I need to do some minor recalibration of my load. I will try varying the neck tension a little bit with different size mandrels and see what happens. Again, with .2 grains less powder I am still in the same velocity range as with the LC brass.

Anyway I will keep you in the loop as I gradually get things tuned in with this brass.
 
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