Lapua Brass Uniformity Confirmed with .260 Rem Measurements
If you have a rifle chambered in .260 Remington, you may be wondering if the Lapua .260 Brass is worth the money compared to domestic-made brass. Well, the answer is “yes” if you demand consistent weight and dimensional uniformity (including neckwall thickness).
Mike Harpster of Dead Center Sports took the time to weigh and measure Lapua .260 Rem brass. His test show this brass to be extremely uniform. Weight variance was less than one (1) grain in a 20-case sample. And case neckwall thickness was very consistent.
Report by Mike Harpster: Lapua .260 Rem Brass Test Results (with Comparisons)
I pulled twenty (20) pieces randomly from one Lapua box to do some measurements. I weighed them on my Mettler-Toledo digital lab scale and here are the individual weights of each case. Remarkably, the Lapua brass had less than one grain total weight variance among all 20 cases!
While checking the Lapua brass I remembered I had just received some Winchester brand .308 brass, so I thought it would be interesting to do a comparison between the two brands. I again pulled 20 cases at random from a bag of 50 and repeated the same measurements. The results are shown in the right half of the table below.
Weight Variance Lapua .260 Rem Brass vs. Winchester-Brand .308 Win Brass
| LAPUA .260 Rem Brass | Winchester .308 Win Brass |
| 
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| Average: 172.20 grains ES: 0.94 grains SD: 0.259 |
Average: 158.49 grains ES: 2.64 grains SD: 0.678 |
Winchester Brass Further Inspection
The flash holes on the majority of the Winchester brass were not round or centered and they had large burrs inside. The neck wall thickness was pretty consistent, varying only .0015″ (.0125″ – .014″). As you can see in the photo (right) many of the Winchester cases were badly dented while the Lapua brass showed very few minor dents. The annealing on the necks of the Lapua brass was clearly evident while the Winchester showed no signs of being annealed. [Editor’s note: Winchester tumble-polishes its brass before shipping — so you would not notice annealing coloration if annealing had been done.]
Lapua Brass Further Inspection
With sample Lapua .260 Rem cases, I also measured the neck wall thickness in four places with calipers, not the most accurate method but I feel confident that the thickness did not vary more than .001″ over the 20 cases (.0145-.0155). The inside diameter of the neck measured .260 which would give .004 of neck tension out of the box. I visually checked the flash holes and I did not find any flakes of brass or burrs inside, the holes were round and centered.
Summary — This Lapua Brass is Impressive
I have never done these measurements on any other brass so I don’t know how they compare, but I am very impressed with the overall quality of the Lapua .260 brass. If they prove to hold up to the repeated firings I get from my Lapua 6BR brass I believe .260 shooters will be very happy.Mike Harpster — Dead Center Sports
105 Sunrise Drive
Spring Mills, PA 16875
phone: 814-571-4655
www.deadcentersports.com
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Tags: .260 Brass, 260 Rem, 6.5 mm, Dead Center Sports, Lapua Brass, Mike Harpster, Rem 260, Winchester Brass
I’m not disagreeing that Lapua brass is more uniform in weight than Winchester. However the 20 case sample size is very small to draw conclusions. I weight sort my brass so I have the exact data on hundreds of rounds, and in 223 Match the Lapua will not hold that same range for a much lighter case. More like 2+ grains.
And while I also find Laupa necks to be more consistent in thickness than Winchester, you have to use the correct tool to measure case necks. And as mentioned in the summary, calipers are not the tool. Use a ball micrometer that reads to 0.0001″ if you are going to do a comparison.
Ive use a lot of lapua and switched to Winchester becuse I found it to just as consistent as long as the brass was all the same lot. But that applies to the lapua as well. The Win is also 15 grains lighter.
Editor: I shot Winchester in a .260 and disagree with your comment. Neck tension on WW all over the map. I had to neck-turn and then anneal to get consistent neck tension, and it still did not shoot as well as Lapua, and did not hold up to repeated firings near as well.
Next time just neck size to .264 some Lapua .308 brass and compare with Lapua .260 brass…
The writer’s results largely mirror those from my own testing.
After doing a lot of statistical work I figured out that while you could get really great results from reformed Win or Lake City brass, it’s probably cheaper to just buy Lapua and be done with it. You wind up throwing out too many pieces that aren’t within some specified weight range. It’s definitely faster since I have other things to do than trim neck walls to get consistent thickness.