08-04-2024, 07:59 PM
It's finally arrived - this is awesome news!
You'll find a lot of Alpha brass on the PRS circuit and I have been using it in my 6.5 Creedmoor gas gun. It is very thick and the weight variance is on par with Lapua.
I am on the 9th and 10th firings of mine and I DO NOT ANNEAL. The primer pockets are near the end of their life for competition purposes (nothing worse than blowing a primer due to a loose pocket during a match and having it get get stuck somewhere in the carrier) and I have tossed a few (out of an initial lot of 300) due to them fully accepting a Ballistic Tools primer pocket gauge.
I have not had a single cracked neck but my SD did start expanding around firings 6-7. The addition of a simple 1/2 turn crimp with a Lee crimp die got them back into the mid single digits and I won the Gas Gun trophy in a PRS Regional Match in the spring using them on the 8th firing.
My only complaint is that my primer pockets were extremely tight when new. They would accept a BR-2 but not a Fed 210 Match (the Fed LRPs are slightly wider than the BR-2s). Luckily, I had about 1k of the BR-2s and I used them first. After I was done with the BR-2s, they would accept the Feds. I've squadded with several guys who use Alpha and the Feds in their 6.5 CM manual rifles and none of them have run into the problem I had.
Yeah, its twice the price of Starline, but it's much more consistent and the primer pockets will last twice as long if you don't lose it (I get 4-5 firings out of Starline Grendel brass converted to 6 arc before the primer pockets get looser than Kamala Harris).
I will be buying some of the Alpha 6 arc down the road as I'm working on a build with a Lilja AR24 I hope to use for PRS. I'm not in need now, though, since I have 300 pieces of converted "blemished" Nosler Grendel brass which is extremely consistent (but not worth the normal retail price of close to $2/piece).
You'll find a lot of Alpha brass on the PRS circuit and I have been using it in my 6.5 Creedmoor gas gun. It is very thick and the weight variance is on par with Lapua.
I am on the 9th and 10th firings of mine and I DO NOT ANNEAL. The primer pockets are near the end of their life for competition purposes (nothing worse than blowing a primer due to a loose pocket during a match and having it get get stuck somewhere in the carrier) and I have tossed a few (out of an initial lot of 300) due to them fully accepting a Ballistic Tools primer pocket gauge.
I have not had a single cracked neck but my SD did start expanding around firings 6-7. The addition of a simple 1/2 turn crimp with a Lee crimp die got them back into the mid single digits and I won the Gas Gun trophy in a PRS Regional Match in the spring using them on the 8th firing.
My only complaint is that my primer pockets were extremely tight when new. They would accept a BR-2 but not a Fed 210 Match (the Fed LRPs are slightly wider than the BR-2s). Luckily, I had about 1k of the BR-2s and I used them first. After I was done with the BR-2s, they would accept the Feds. I've squadded with several guys who use Alpha and the Feds in their 6.5 CM manual rifles and none of them have run into the problem I had.
Yeah, its twice the price of Starline, but it's much more consistent and the primer pockets will last twice as long if you don't lose it (I get 4-5 firings out of Starline Grendel brass converted to 6 arc before the primer pockets get looser than Kamala Harris).
I will be buying some of the Alpha 6 arc down the road as I'm working on a build with a Lilja AR24 I hope to use for PRS. I'm not in need now, though, since I have 300 pieces of converted "blemished" Nosler Grendel brass which is extremely consistent (but not worth the normal retail price of close to $2/piece).
#FJB