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Anyone using Starline Large Primer 6.5 Creedmoor brass?

How's that working out?

The reviews on the Starline site look promising, and at $126.50 delivered for 250, it's better than 1/2 of the price of Lapua.

https://www.starlinebrass.com/brass-cases/65-Creedmoor/

Can't speak to the large primer version but I have 50 of their 6.5 CM small rifle primer cases coming Saturday. I should have them measured by Saturday night/Sunday morning to at least report back on their concentricity.

Thanks

Their 6CM brass is a good bit heavier than Hornady, at least whai they sent me was.

Yes, I’ve been loading that brass for my 6.5 CM. Very nice brass and shoots well.

The Starline 6.5 CM small primer pocket brass was delivered yesterday and I started prepping it this morning.

Before going into details I can summarize by saying this is really good brass, at least by my criteria. I've never weight sorted before so don't know if the variance shown here is good or mediocre, but I can say unequivocally that this batch of 50 cases is some of the most concentric stuff I've seen in 20 years of checking.

Cases were run in a Lee collet neck die to straighten the mouths but not chamfered or deburred yet. It does need those two steps but the outside mouth is already very smooth, even Lapua brass has a ridge around the outside of the mouth. That ridge on this brass was either very minimal or non-existent, they all felt very smooth to my fingernail.

Whatever mechanical means they use to create the flash holes leaves a nice squared off countersink inside the case. I almost never deburr inside the flash hole but if someone likes to do that there is no need for that step at all.

I weighed and measured a sample of 10, weight from lightest to heaviest was 160.2 grains to 161.8, a difference of 1.6 grains. Trim length on the 6.5 CM is 1.910, the longest of the sample of 10 was 1.911", shortest was 1.907". Raw data is below.

The really good news is the concentricity, or variance in neck wall thickness. I measured all 50 in this batch and not a single case went over .001". 16 of them were right at .001" but the rest were all between about .0003" to .0008", that's eyeballing the needle as it moved between individual tick marks on the dial indicator. That is concentric brass.

Raw data:
Weight of brass in grains: 161.2, 160.2, 161.8, 160.9, 161.5, 160.1, 161.7, 160.6, 161.8, 161.7.
Length in inches: 1.910, 1.908, 1.908, 1.911, 1.909, 1.907, 1.909, 1.907, 1.911, 1.907


I had previously bought 100 Hornady 6.5 CM cases and they are usable since only 6 out of 100 failed the concentricity standard of .001". I'll shoot those up but when they are done I'm getting more of this Starline brass. Maybe I just got an exceptional batch, sample of one here so I can't say for certain, but based on this test it's as good as Lapua for half the price.

Thanks Jim. I’ll order some.

Old news

What’s old news?

I've got 100 of the large primer 6.5 brass that I've been using in my RPR. For the price I've been quite happy. I'll echo whoever said that it is heavier than Hornady brass, I had to adjust my loads down a bit to keep the same velocity.

I watched a guy have 15-16 failure to fires this weekend running VIRGIN Starline brass. One string of 9 and the rest scattered throughout the day. He grabbed a couple boxes of factory Hornady off a buddy and never had another issue.

Sign me up......

Cartridge? Small or large primer? Rifle?

Details matter.

6.5 CM...
LRP...
PRS rig built on a BAT VR...

It would seem the head to datum distance would have to be well short for the brass to be the culprit. Did the handloader check this before assembling the cartridges, or was it assumed they were OK? Did you see what the primer strikes looked like? Were the primers used in the handloads from a known good lot?

Sounds like it wasn't sized correctly for his chamber. I always size and process new brass just like any other brass. I've only ever had an issue like that with Hornady 35 Whelen brass.... which I caused by knocking the shoulder back too much.

I think if Starline had a systemic problem along those lines, it would have shown up in the first firings in my RPR's "generous" chamber.

here are some H2O volume numbers.

New unfired Hornady, 51.4 H2O
NK (Lee Collet) sized Hornady, 52.3 H2O (fired in my CTR)
New unfired LRP Starline, 50.8 H2O
New unfired SRP Starline, 50.9 H2O

These from some other folks.
Alpha measures 49.88 gr H2O
Peterson: 50.4g
Alpha: 49.6g
Norma: 51.6g

He assumed they were OK. Ran them through a neck die to just uniform mouths up and loaded. Primers were from a known good lot. The primer strikes on the rounds that didn't fire were all light craters and consistent. Bullets were seated .010" off....

The bolt was stripped down after the second one and there was nothing amiss there. That chamber has close to 800 rounds on it with nar a hiccup, doubt it's a headspace issue.

It would be interesting to know the head to datum distance and how it compares to other brass.

Now I'm gonna have to go to the reloading room.

That prompted me to go measure some brass since I have three brands of unfired cases around. Measured a sample of five each using a Hornady headspace gauge with the B insert. Note these are the raw numbers on my dial caliper and represent the measurement with the insert and holder in place so they aren't absolute but can be used as a viable comparison between brands.

Lapua 6.5 CM with small rifle primers: 3.576", 3.576", 3.576", 3.576", 3.576"

Hornady 6.5 CM: 3.575", 3.575", 3.576", 3.575", 3.575"

Starline 6.5 CM with small primer pocket: 3.5765", 3.577", 3.577", 3.576", 3.5765" - I eyeballed the last ten thousandth here since the needle was fairly between two .001" tick marks.

So, Lapua wins with 100% consistent headspace measurements, Hornady and Starline are about even with .001" between longest and shortest with the Hornady .001" shorter in general, although I'm not seeing anything that would cause misfires with one brand that wouldn't cause misfires with all of them.