708 Hornady brass was ok for me while doing some preliminary testing but I think I'm going to give it all away. I have Peterson and Alpha brass now in 708. Got the Peterson on sale from Grafs. I also have quite a bit of factory Norma ammo which I will use that brass as well. I've had quite a bit of experience with what you are talking about having bullets vary with seating in brass. I go by feel and sort them accordingly into 3 groups: "hard seat, medium/moderate seat, soft seat." Also noticed the same thing with 2 different lot numbers of Norma 280 Remington brass but at least each lot number had continuity. Love the Norma Whitetail 150s in 708.
Thanks for sharing. I have some Peterson now, and via some factory ammo I am shooting up I now have 40 pieces of Norma too. Looking forward to working with it.
@@Accuracy1st Peterson has been good to me! Got several lots in 280 AI and 260 Rem. Another “hack” for excellent 7-08 brass is to watch for sales on the Lapua 308 Win brass on EuroOptic and Graf’s. For some reason it sells for quite a bit less than 260 or 7-08. Then it’s a quick neck down and rock and roll.
@@rubenrodriguez7266 I noticed on the Vihtavuouri website load data page they used neck down lapua 308 brass. When I looked into it earlier this year, Lapua 708 brass has been discontinued. If I recall correctly, 708 has a slightly longer body than 308 also, so fireforming should be no issue.
Love the 7-08’s. If I could make a suggestion to clean up your neck tension issues? Anneal, then FL resize without the expander ball in your die. Then set neck tension with a mandrel die, like the one from 21st Century, or Wilson. Bullet diameter minus 0.002 on the expander mandrel gives you about 0.0025” under bullet diameter after brass spring back. Also could be worth just grabbing a box of Lapua 308 Winchester brass and necking it down to 7-08. No neck turning should be required after that small step down and the 308 head stamp brass is quite a bit cheaper than 7-08 or 260 Lapua brand brass. (I’ve used a few hundred .308 Lapua brass about 8-10 times as 7-08, then stepped it down to .260 Rem with great results as well. And yes; brass can give you 100 FPS deviation since the internal volume is so different from brand to brand.
I have struck the same issue that you've had with Hornady brass in 7mm08. I work in a Gunshop in New Zealand and had a couple customers return 7mm08 Hornady factory ammo in the Precision Hunter & Superformance that wouldn't chamber in their rifles a Tikka T3X & Remington 700. On contacting the NZ importer they were aware of the problem so there had been others. I've since discovered a few other issues with Hornady factory ammo in other calibers pretty shocking quality control.
Back again! Inconsistent neck tension will mess your accuracy for sure. I've used Starline in my 7-08 and never had that problem. Maybe you got a bad batch. Not sure what your brass prep procedure is or your tooling but here is a idea, and it's what I do after years of alot of problems with standard dies. Standard resizing dies wreck your brass. Let's start with that. Everytime you pull that case out of your full length die across that expander ball it tweaks the neck bad. I use a Redding body die that does not touch the neck at all. After that operation I come back with the lee mandrel die to set neck tension. It squeezes the neck around a perfect mandrel instead of pulling it out of concentricity. This method has improved all aspects of building great ammo. Which ever brass you choose to work with, stick with it. Too many variables in components will send you to your grave early. Consistency is the key. Don't change powder, bullets, primers, nothing until you've determined nothing good is coming from your efforts. Staball 6.5 will give you the velocities you'd like to have and it's a good powder in that case. However, it is also a little quirky and can go from nice to naughty real fast. Three other excellent powders in that case are Varget, H-4350, and Big Game. When you finally decide you are not having so much fun anymore with those 160 class bullets go down in weight. 120-150 class will give you more of what you are looking for in that little case. 7mm-08 is absolutely one of my favorites and I've run the gammot with it and can tell you the lighter bullets will cleanly take all the big game you hunt. If you run the numbers you'll see the 140 class projectiles will deliver just as much thump as those too heavy bullets at ethical hunting distances. They will run faster, recoil less, hit just as hard, and more than likely be easier to get them to shoot to your expectation.
My friends who have been reloading since early 80’s say never use Hornady brass. They say Hornady soft and thin. They told me to buy Starline or Winchester. They love Hornady Interlocks thou for bullets.
That's all very interesting stuff Mike! I too would be very interested in a load of imr4350 behind a heavier bullet...haven't tried that yet. As I mentioned before imr4350 was my best powder behind 140s which I determined 30 years ago and have used almost exclusively since. I have used only winchester factory nickel coated brass and brand new winchester brass to avoid that variable and have never felt I've had a brass issue. I have always had my best results with a powder that comes closest to filling the case so I'm curious what % you're getting with your load of staball 6.5? It's all good stuff so don't give up! Thanks for sharing and peaking my interest! More to come
Thank you! I will have to go back and look at my load densities on the 6.5 Staball. I have also had great luck with Winchester brass for years, sadly I cannot find it anywhere!
I'd give some varget a try. If it was me I'd also abandon the 160 class and move to the 150s. Different brass, chrony inconsistency, powder that could fluctuate with temps AND the never over looked day to day shooting of the trigger puller are always factors on my mind when working loads. As you know, alot of those loads are perfectly acceptable hunting groups, but chasing down those micrometer marks gets time consuming and tedious for surely. Change things up! New bullet brands, new powder and new weights!
You could anneal the starline brass to create more consistency. I’ve used Starline in a bunch of cartridges over many different loads and have had a lot of success, but I anneal between firings. As far as powder, I have consistently great results with H4350 in a handful of different rifles chambered in 7mm-08. You should order some 140 Sierra TGK(gamechanger) bullets. They have been exceptionally accurate in my 708 and 280ai.
708 Hornady brass was ok for me while doing some preliminary testing but I think I'm going to give it all away. I have Peterson and Alpha brass now in 708. Got the Peterson on sale from Grafs. I also have quite a bit of factory Norma ammo which I will use that brass as well. I've had quite a bit of experience with what you are talking about having bullets vary with seating in brass. I go by feel and sort them accordingly into 3 groups: "hard seat, medium/moderate seat, soft seat." Also noticed the same thing with 2 different lot numbers of Norma 280 Remington brass but at least each lot number had continuity.
Love the Norma Whitetail 150s in 708.
Thanks for sharing. I have some Peterson now, and via some factory ammo I am shooting up I now have 40 pieces of Norma too. Looking forward to working with it.
@@Accuracy1st Peterson has been good to me! Got several lots in 280 AI and 260 Rem.
Another “hack” for excellent 7-08 brass is to watch for sales on the Lapua 308 Win brass on EuroOptic and Graf’s. For some reason it sells for quite a bit less than 260 or 7-08. Then it’s a quick neck down and rock and roll.
@@rubenrodriguez7266 I noticed on the Vihtavuouri website load data page they used neck down lapua 308 brass. When I looked into it earlier this year, Lapua 708 brass has been discontinued. If I recall correctly, 708 has a slightly longer body than 308 also, so fireforming should be no issue.
Love the 7-08’s.
If I could make a suggestion to clean up your neck tension issues?
Anneal, then FL resize without the expander ball in your die. Then set neck tension with a mandrel die, like the one from 21st Century, or Wilson. Bullet diameter minus 0.002 on the expander mandrel gives you about 0.0025” under bullet diameter after brass spring back.
Also could be worth just grabbing a box of Lapua 308 Winchester brass and necking it down to 7-08. No neck turning should be required after that small step down and the 308 head stamp brass is quite a bit cheaper than 7-08 or 260 Lapua brand brass. (I’ve used a few hundred .308 Lapua brass about 8-10 times as 7-08, then stepped it down to .260 Rem with great results as well.
And yes; brass can give you 100 FPS deviation since the internal volume is so different from brand to brand.
Thank you for the suggestions, appreciated.
I have struck the same issue that you've had with Hornady brass in 7mm08. I work in a Gunshop in New Zealand and had a couple customers return 7mm08 Hornady factory ammo in the Precision Hunter & Superformance that wouldn't chamber in their rifles a Tikka T3X & Remington 700. On contacting the NZ importer they were aware of the problem so there had been others. I've since discovered a few other issues with Hornady factory ammo in other calibers pretty shocking quality control.
Thank you for sharing this with me. Good to know I am not losing my mind on this!
Dam get on hornady podcast cast and get into them.
Back again! Inconsistent neck tension will mess your accuracy for sure. I've used Starline in my 7-08 and never had that problem. Maybe you got a bad batch. Not sure what your brass prep procedure is or your tooling but here is a idea, and it's what I do after years of alot of problems with standard dies. Standard resizing dies wreck your brass. Let's start with that. Everytime you pull that case out of your full length die across that expander ball it tweaks the neck bad. I use a Redding body die that does not touch the neck at all. After that operation I come back with the lee mandrel die to set neck tension. It squeezes the neck around a perfect mandrel instead of pulling it out of concentricity. This method has improved all aspects of building great ammo. Which ever brass you choose to work with, stick with it. Too many variables in components will send you to your grave early. Consistency is the key. Don't change powder, bullets, primers, nothing until you've determined nothing good is coming from your efforts. Staball 6.5 will give you the velocities you'd like to have and it's a good powder in that case. However, it is also a little quirky and can go from nice to naughty real fast. Three other excellent powders in that case are Varget, H-4350, and Big Game. When you finally decide you are not having so much fun anymore with those 160 class bullets go down in weight. 120-150 class will give you more of what you are looking for in that little case. 7mm-08 is absolutely one of my favorites and I've run the gammot with it and can tell you the lighter bullets will cleanly take all the big game you hunt. If you run the numbers you'll see the 140 class projectiles will deliver just as much thump as those too heavy bullets at ethical hunting distances. They will run faster, recoil less, hit just as hard, and more than likely be easier to get them to shoot to your expectation.
Sounds like a good plan to me.
Bummer on the cracked necks on certain Hornady brass.
They are not cracked, but something is fishy with those certain brass for sure.
I've had very good luck with Nosler brass in my 7-08.
Thanks for sharing this.
My friends who have been reloading since early 80’s say never use Hornady brass. They say Hornady soft and thin. They told me to buy Starline or Winchester. They love Hornady Interlocks thou for bullets.
Thank you. I have had good outcomes with Hornady brass over the years, maybe this particular factory load was a one off?
That's all very interesting stuff Mike! I too would be very interested in a load of imr4350 behind a heavier bullet...haven't tried that yet. As I mentioned before imr4350 was my best powder behind 140s which I determined 30 years ago and have used almost exclusively since. I have used only winchester factory nickel coated brass and brand new winchester brass to avoid that variable and have never felt I've had a brass issue. I have always had my best results with a powder that comes closest to filling the case so I'm curious what % you're getting with your load of staball 6.5? It's all good stuff so don't give up! Thanks for sharing and peaking my interest! More to come
Thank you! I will have to go back and look at my load densities on the 6.5 Staball. I have also had great luck with Winchester brass for years, sadly I cannot find it anywhere!
I'd give some varget a try. If it was me I'd also abandon the 160 class and move to the 150s. Different brass, chrony inconsistency, powder that could fluctuate with temps AND the never over looked day to day shooting of the trigger puller are always factors on my mind when working loads. As you know, alot of those loads are perfectly acceptable hunting groups, but chasing down those micrometer marks gets time consuming and tedious for surely. Change things up! New bullet brands, new powder and new weights!
You could anneal the starline brass to create more consistency.
I’ve used Starline in a bunch of cartridges over many different loads and have had a lot of success, but I anneal between firings.
As far as powder, I have consistently great results with H4350 in a handful of different rifles chambered in 7mm-08.
You should order some 140 Sierra TGK(gamechanger) bullets. They have been exceptionally accurate in my 708 and 280ai.
Scheels has Peterson brass.
I have some Peterson brass on the way! Sadly, I don't live anywhere near a Scheels, wish I did.
@ they will ship it pretty reasonable.
Good stuff man
I have had success with h380 and 139 sst in 7/08
Thank you.