I was shopping at midwayusa.com after reading some posts about favorite brass to see how much lapua and norma were. I found a 2 star rating on some Lapua 30.06 brass:

Steven Shaw of Bozeman, MT
Rating:
Date Posted: 4/9/2003

Review:
I purchased 200 rounds of Lapua 30-06 brass. After deburring the flash holes, I noticed that the flash holes were off-center with respect to the primer pockets. This is visually obvious when a primer is seated, because the anvil is not centered in the flash hole. I determined that the flash holes for my cases are off-center by about .004" using multiple readings from a Starrett caliper. I could not detect a problem with Norma 30-06 brass using the same technique. I weigh every case. The extreme difference in case weight for 40 randomly selected pieces was about twice that for 40 pieces of Norma brass, based on readings from a digital scale. The Lapua brass is also a bit heavier than Norma. I used a different bushing in my neck-size die. It is hard to guess what effect these inconsistencies might have. On the other hand, premium brass is supposed to reduce the number of things you need to worry about.

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I thought Lapua made Norma brass. Not true? Norma brass seems to have much better ratings.

Lemme see if I got this straight. Looking into the mouth of a primed case he can see that the anvil is off center, so he takes multiple measurements with a caliper and finds out the holes are off center by 0.004", the thickness of a sheet of paper!! Damn good eyes.

You picked that up too?

I have always heard how flawless Lapua is and I was rather taken back by the review.

Anyone else ever hear of such?

I have been using Lapua brass in game guns, as I understood Lapua produces Norma/Weatherby brass. It has weighted in very consistant, but I confess I never looked for .004 tolerances, I will tonight, as a point of interest!

Thanks for the information. I use a lot of Lapua brass and have found it to be very good in the past. Possibly they are going the same route as the others, and their quality is deteriorating. I hope not as I have much respect for them based on their brass and Scenar bullets. I'll check some of their more recent products this evening. Best wishes.

Cal - Montreal

http://www.vihtavuori-lapua.com/components.asp

Click three quarters of the way down the page until you can read the red lettered sentence:


Lapua cases can be reloaded a minimum of 10 times.

What other brass manufacturer can make that claim?

Well I don't know what other manufacturers would make that claim.

But, WW brass can be loaded a minimum of 10 times but it is probably not recommended.

I never get as good a load with spent brass anyway. I typically go with no more than 1 reload. (Then I buy new brass for me and load the spent stuff for my brother since he rarely pays me for components anyway).

Doc,
I have some Federal Gold Medal brass, NIB, in 30-06. I will be happy to trade it to you for your Lapua brass.
lawndart

quote:

Originally posted by B Edwards:
I have been using Lapua brass in game guns, as I understood Lapua produces Norma/Weatherby brass. It has weighted in very consistant, but I confess I never looked for .004 tolerances, I will tonight, as a point of interest!

Lapua produces their own brass at their factory in Finland. They also make 6.5x55 brass with RA (Raufoss) headstamp. Possibly others.

Norma brass is made by Norma in Sweden, NOT by Lapua. Norma also makes Weatherby brass.

quote:

Originally posted by beefeater2:

quote:

Originally posted by B Edwards:
I have been using Lapua brass in game guns, as I understood Lapua produces Norma/Weatherby brass. It has weighted in very consistant, but I confess I never looked for .004 tolerances, I will tonight, as a point of interest!

Lapua produces their own brass at their factory in Finland. They also make 6.5x55 brass with RA (Raufoss) headstamp. Possibly others.

Norma brass is made by Norma in Sweden, NOT by Lapua. Norma also makes Weatherby brass.

Norma makes brass for a lot of other companies including Lapua. But as these cases seems to be not up to Lapua or Norma standard, they could have been made by another...

Chevrolet is a "good ol" American car made in Korea by Daewoo Motor Company -Amazing!

Husky

I don’t have much experience with Lapua brass (as I favour RWS’s) but I have reloaded Lapua Mega bullets for a 9,3x62 rifle and have found that about 3 percent of the bullets show manufacturing defects such as “lead protruding to much†or “lead missing – hollow point likeâ€.

B.Martins

quote:

Originally posted by onefunzr2:
Lapua cases can be reloaded a minimum of 10 times.

What other brass manufacturer can make that claim?

If your Chamber and Dies match up well, and if you adjust your Dies for Zero Headspace, any brand of Case will easily exceed 10 reloads at full power. The limiting factor will then be the need for Case-neck Annealing.

quote:

Originally posted by lawndart:
Doc,
I have some Federal Gold Medal brass, NIB, in 30-06. I will be happy to trade it to you for your Lapua brass.
lawndart

I don't have any Lapua brass. I was just pricing it because I've heard so many good things about it. I have a ton of virgin WW for my 30.06 though.

quote:

Originally posted by Hot Core:
If your Chamber and Dies match up well, and if you adjust your Dies for Zero Headspace, any brand of Case will easily exceed 10 reloads at full power.

I wouldn't try that with Sellier and Bellot brass (in fact I wouldn't fire it let alone reload and refire it!)

Lapua is great brass..As to those measurements well

RWS is also fantastic brass, and their ain't no flys on Norma, Rem, WW, Horn, and Federal btw...

Doc ----- Lapua brass is no good and spent brass is not as good, just want to make sure that this is what I am hearing here. Good shooting.

quote:

I wouldn't try that with Sellier and Bellot brass (in fact I wouldn't fire it let alone reload and refire it!)

Have you had problems with S&B brass? I've got some 22 hornet brass that I've had to drill out the flash hole. I've got it prepped but haven't reloaded it yet. It looks fine.

quote:

Originally posted by phurley5:
Doc ----- Lapua brass is no good and spent brass is not as good, just want to make sure that this is what I am hearing here. Good shooting.

I certainly cannot explain the thoughts of Steven Shaw about Lapua brass. I found it odd for someone to put a rating like that on a brand of brass that is supposed to be second to none. As to my spent brass being not as good, I didn't say that. It is NOT as accurate for me as virgin brass, though, that is for sure. (WW brass). It is good enough for my brother, however.

Doc,

I too got a little better accuracy with 85 Barnes X in my 25-06 using virgin WW brass vs. once fired. Go figure.

Well, when I started reloading, I had the good fortune to be around dozens of guys in Arizona that did it a lot and spent tons of time at the range. This is night and day different that my shooting experiences in Alabama. This is in part, due to average shot distances. Plus, I worked at Jensens Custom Ammunition so exposure was just about daily.

Reloading used to be very cost friendly and part of the "perk" was the reusable brass over and over. In Alabama this was great, as shots were usually under 125 yards, but as time went on and I realized there were tighter groups to be had, I kept noticing over the years that, in general, my best groups were ALWAYS with virgin brass.

Back then, I'd never even heard of Norma, Lapua, Winchester Palma, RWS, etc. Brass was either WW, FED, Remmy, or Hornady. PMC was something I had only heard of. The rumor was that when they were polished, they looked real shiny so PMC stood for Pretty Metal Case.

So, as time goes on, I hear of "custom" barrels that are "hand lapped" and they are "damned accurate," bla bla bla, so that was my next step into shooting and reloading for increased accuracy. Result? It was all true.

I would never discount that lapua is awsome brass but I have no experience with it. It must be awsome d/t all the feedback. But when I can go to the range with a 270 Win with well prepped WW brass, a Lilja barrel, Remmy Action, and the works and group less than 3/4" at 200 yards (and I'm always moving to some degree b/c of my heart beat/breathing), I have no desire to attempt to improve that. I honestly don't think I can be any more "still" while trying to shoot and I also don't think that a more uniform brass is going to shrink my group. If it did, it might only be by a very small margin.

I have no problem buying virgin brass for myself and using all the spent brass for good ol bro. He doesn't care, he just says, "keep the loads coming."

Doc ----- My only point is you are talking to several thousand reloaders whose waking hours are used to get pin point accuracy and tailored rounds from their hobby of using "spent" cases. Yes, we all use new umprimed brass of occasion, but at lease 95% of my reloading is done with "spent" cases. My experience is best performance is with once or second fired cases that have comformed to my chambers and are more consistent after that first firing. I have one rifle out of 20 I am presently shooting that likes the new unprimed brass equally as well as "spent" cases. Just my .02 worth.

I understand that there are thousands of reloaders.

But, when you load for yourself and 4-5 other relatives and close friends and we all shoot 270's (and 3 are mine), for me it got to be a pain in the a$$ to continue trying to keep brass separate, so I would full length. For years I I would neck size only my 270 cases and still got decent groups with once fired brass, some just as good as virgin brass.