Is there an acceptable amount of stretching that occurs when firing virgin brass. I know there will some differences in rifles but just wondering what is acceptable before it is considered excessive.. When firing the brass for the first time out of my rifle, when measuring before and after with a Hornady headspace gauge, the brass was .007-.008" longer. When resizing I will only bump back .002 now that it has been fired. That seems like a lot but I don't what other guys are seeing when they fire virgin brass. The case lengths were also btw 1.915-1.917 when I measured them prior to firing. Looks like I will have to trim right away as they are now all over 1.920. Is this normal to get this much stretch or am I out lunch. The only caliber I have loaded prior to this was .308 and that was with Lapua brass. Hope this makes sense
Hornady 6.5 cm Virgin Brass. How much case stretch?
- Thread starter RRW
- Start date
You're always going to have some stretching in the beginning. Brass is fairly elastic when new, so it's not a big problem. It's the constant and repeated stretchings that leads to case head separation.
Chris
Chris
Measuring headspace on virgin brass is like pissing in the wind, pointless! After fire forming decap all your fired brass(primer flow does effect the measurement, so measure only your fired decapped brass) and using your HSG use the LONGEST case as the one/ones to setup your FL die to bump the shoulder .001-.0015
Hornady 6.5 brass ALWAYS comes on the longer side of SAMMI as in 1.917" And it stretches A LOT more than .308 brass because its thinner in the neck. (AND I THINK THEY OVER ANNEAL SOMETIMES) my rifle shoots the BEST by just deburring and chamfering new brass and trimming after I resize it. But your question is valid and yes it's some stretchy shit
