Alpha Munitions 6mm ARC Brass

[Old Bob]

My saga with Alpha Munitions 6mm ARC brass ...  Good lookin' cases! Checked all 100 & found no blemishes, chads, scrapes or burrs. All the flash holes looked great! One of the things I normally do with new brass is hit 'em with a flash hole de-burring tool. Didn't need to do that with these.

Measured & weighed a sample of 20 cases. The lowest weight was 111.04gr, the heaviest was 111.66gr. The 20 cases averaged 111.312gr. The longest case was 1.4805", the shortest was 1.4785". Incidentally, these two cases were also the heaviest & lightest. I'm not gonna trim any of the longer ones. I won't do that until after they've been fire-formed & resized. Although it didn't appear any of the case necks were out-of-round, I ran all the cases over a .241" mandrel just in case. Then I did a light chamfer on both inside & outside of the case mouths.

Next I measured the depth of the primer pockets. All of them were .124" deep. I took both some Hornady & Starline brass & measured their pockets. These cases had all been hit with a primer pocket uniforming tool. The tool is marked .122" True to the tool, they all measured .122" deep. Decided to forgo that job with the Alpha brass.

Priming them was more work than I'd normally need to do to get them fully seated. With my old RCBS bench seater (the one that uses CCI/RCBS primer strips) I couldn't get the primers to seat below flush with the case rim. There was a slight dome sticking out of the primer pocket. No matter what I tried - even with both my Lee & RCBS hand seaters - I couldn't get the primers below flush. Wasn't looking for much. A .001" below flush would be fine. Then I remembered I had a tool I'd never used before. Don't remember why I got it but I'm glad I did. It's called the RCBS Ram Priming Unit. Here's a link to Midway USA that has them. https://www.midwayusa.com/product/1012930411?pid=416519   After adjusting the unit for the depth I was looking for, I re-ran all the cases I primed with the bench seater. Perfecto! All the primers were just below flush.

I have some Nosler 70gr 6mm Varmageddon bullets I'll load up for fire-forming later on. Will probably use this Alpha brass for match loads in my Uintah bolt gun only. Perhaps with the new Hornady 80gr ELD-VT bullets.

I wonder where I can get some of the 100 round boxes the Alpha brass comes in? I have 50 round boxes for my Hornady & Starline brass but 100 round boxes would be better.

My alpha brass came came in the 100 round boxes from Alpha.  But maybe it doesn't come in the boxes if you buy it from another vendor?

I meant empty 100 round boxes. I got my Alpha brass from Midway USA. It comes with the Alpha supplied box as well. Got a birthday discount from Midway so the cost ended up being the same as buying them from Alpha + shipping.