Thread: Small primer vs large primer brass in 308

Anyone had experience of the pros and cons of 308 brass vs 308 Palma brass which has the small primer. Also anyone tried the Palma brass turned into .260 and what is the difference in performance or longevity of brass.

@Cowboy06
Most F/TR shooters at Trentham use 308 Palma brass (Small Rifle primer).
I use standard Large Rifle primer brass myself. @ebf is a good man to talk to re:suitability of Small vs Large primers in 308, as are plenty of other forum members.
Re:260 from 308 cases - someone on the crew here can give you practical advice about the best/most efficient way to do this.
My 2c worth - buy 260 brass in a reputable brand.
Saves you time and frustration making your own 260 brass from 308 cases.

Thanks for that, am using Labuan brass fine at the moment. Just interested as they say 6.5x47 gets a very long case life because of the small primer.

Not sure about "most FTR at Trentham use Palma brass"

I use normal (large primer), as does my club mate who normally finishes at the top end of the field. Both of us use relatively "slow" loads, compared to what is out there.

When the guys start pushing the limits to get extra speed, Palma brass helps as it can handle a bit more pressure, the case head is stronger. Small primers are also supposed to have a lower SD and ES, but again, testing with several different primers when you do load dev is fairly standard way of doing things when you get serious out FTR. You would be surprised by the differences in ES and SD by simply changing primers.

Palma brass is significantly more expensive, I have not found a compelling reason to change away from normal match quality brass yet.

Just my experience on this make of it what you will

To make 260 brass from 308 is pretty easy, anneal it and run it through a sizing die ( 308 first if its been once fired already ) as an easy step next size it down to
7 mm 08, now size it down to 260. and you have ready to run 260 ammo. ( in theory )
Measure your case wall thickness at this stage ( by running 308 down to 260 the case neck walls are now thicker.) Load a dummy round with the projectile you intend to use and see if it chambers in your rifle. If the wall thickness is up around 17 thou you may have to outside neck turn at this stage as they may not chamber in your rifle.

I did this as an excercise using once fired mil surp brass ( there are no caliber designations on it ... just the year of manufacture usually ) ( I thought this was good as there was no chance of someone picking up a bullet and getting it wrong )

I had to neck turn down to 15 thou to get easy bolt closure. I made 200 cases and havent gotten through to a second loading yet, I didnt get brilliant concentricity from this But I hope that from fire forming a couple of times they will conform to my chamber. I can hand pick the low runouts for special occasions and the other stuff is good for when you dont want to spend time looking for brass.

Would I do it again .... yep, would I use mil surp again .... probably not. ( I suspect that a few loose chambered M 60's may have fired the brass first)

Mil surp brass is pretty heavy duty so longevity should be good, but the down side is the case capacity is down a bit

308 LC reformed ...... case capacity 52.3 grains
7mm 08 hornady / win reformed ....53.3 grains
260 Rem brass........55.7

So from rem brass to mil surp you loose nearly 3.5 grains of capacity, i dont know what the capacity of Lapua 260 or Lapua 308 reformed would be.
I WOULD BE INTERESTED TO KNOW THOUGH

Nearly all my brass is resized from 7mm08. one of the guys from the last gunslinger was using lapua 308 in his 260, he just necked down straight to 260 and they looked ok.