08-31-2024, 07:56 PM
I finished firing the first 100 Alpha bras on Thursday and today I checked the "overflow capacity in water" . It is 35 grains, same as the average of 10 of the Starline cases trimmed to the same OAL. The difference being that all ten Alpha cases held 35 grains on the button, while the Starline varied from 33.5 to 36.
I was also able to uniform the primer pockets using a drill with a small drop of oil applied to the cutter periodically. Compared to the second hundred, (which I was able to easily uniform right out of the box turning the cutter by hand), the first 100 were kind of all over the place. Typically when uniforming pockets I'm just squaring up the radius of the corner at the bottom of the pocket. With some of these that was the case, but others it flattened the entire bottom of the pocket and about 20 of them I had to pull out, clear the chips and go back in before the tool would reach the full depth. Luckily it seems like alpha has addressed this as the second hundred had much more uniform pockets.
I was also able to uniform the primer pockets using a drill with a small drop of oil applied to the cutter periodically. Compared to the second hundred, (which I was able to easily uniform right out of the box turning the cutter by hand), the first 100 were kind of all over the place. Typically when uniforming pockets I'm just squaring up the radius of the corner at the bottom of the pocket. With some of these that was the case, but others it flattened the entire bottom of the pocket and about 20 of them I had to pull out, clear the chips and go back in before the tool would reach the full depth. Luckily it seems like alpha has addressed this as the second hundred had much more uniform pockets.