Small Primer .308 Winhester Cases?

[MUSTANG]

As I am driven to do, I picked up a piece of Winchester .308 a couple weeks ago at the range, it went into the found brass case bag for cleaning and processing with all the others I had collected. As is my custom; I deprimed all the rifle cases with a lee depriming die and then cleaned it in the Ultra Sonic cleaner. As I started sorting out brass by caliber; one seemed odd, so I inspected it closer.

It has a Small Primer Pocket! See the case on the right and compare to the normal case on the left. Sure enough it's a Small Rifle primer pocket.

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Head Stamp is Lapua Palma. I guess that some may have run across this; but for me it is absolutely UNIQUE. I am used to MilSurp US and NATO 7.62/.308 cases and the traditional Win/Rem/PMC/Nosler/etc.. cases. In almost 50 years of reloading first small primer .308W I have seen. Guess it's another outlier along with the Berdan Primed .308W cases that I'll have to be watching for.

(By the way, been saving those .308W Berdan Primed cases for Swaging 50BMG bullets some day when my supply of pulled 50BMG has been exhausted).

[jakharath]

That's just wrong. Bad enough in 45ACP!

[Charliemac]

The Lapua Palma brass is designed for long range shooting. The primer pockets don't open as fast as large ones do. There is more metal in the head. It's the good stuff. My current Palma load is 46.6 grs of Varget w/ 155 SMK at about 3075 fps. Don't worry you probably won't find much of that on the range, it's almost a buck a piece.

[maxreloader]

Remington has made 308 BR brass for over 20 years that also has a small primer pocket. Those are a love/hate case depending on who you ask.

[BK7saum]

Yep somebody is rather aggravated that that they lost a dollar piece of brass at the range. I'm sure 99% of people buying Lapua brass don't intend to lose a piece.

[Alstep]

About 30+ years ago I bought a bunch of Remington BR small primer brass with the intent of long range shooting. Started to weigh the stuff, and it was all over the scale and very inconsistent. So I got rid of it. LC was a lot more uniform, so I used that instead. Got me a place on the Palma Top 20. This was before Norma & Lapua brass became readily available.

[lightman]

Yep somebody is rather aggravated that that they lost a dollar piece of brass at the range. I'm sure 99% of people buying Lapua brass don't intend to lose a piece.

:-| You beat me to it! Yup, someone has an empty hole in their match ammo box! Its pretty common brass to the competition crowd but it is very very rare to find one laying around.

[NoAngel]

That's just wrong. Bad enough in 45ACP!

I disagree completely.

It would be really nice if they could eliminate large primers altogether and standardize ALL primers the same size. Then you’d only need 4 types. Pistol & rifle/ standard & magnum.
That may not be completely practical with some of the large magnum rifles and super slow powders but ALL the ‘common’ calibers will run on a small primer.

Primers would get a touch cheaper and much more plentiful.

[bstone5]

Special made brass for Palma Match shooting. Expensive and rarely seen except at a Palma match. Saw a lot in England at a Palma match some years back in time.

[bruce drake]

Hey! Don't badmouth small primer 45ACP brass! I use them to make my 400 Corbon brass from ;)

[DHDeal]

Remington has made 308 BR brass for over 20 years that also has a small primer pocket. Those are a love/hate case depending on who you ask.

I have quite a bit of it, and it ain't Lapua Palma that's for sure. It doesn't take the "heat" like Lapua and like you stated, weights are not good enough for me.

I used 100 pieces of the Lapua Palma to make 6.5 Creedmoor brass before Lapua did. Lot or work and I had to neck turn it as it was too thick in the neck after necking it down. It did make extemely uniform cases and I treasure each piece. I hate to think what it costed me per piece with the time involved.

One other thing about the Palma brass is the small flash hole. I wonder if the thing that made you notice the difference was getting it stuck on your decapper. A regular recapping pin will get stuck eventually and it enlarges that wonderful small flash hole Lapua SR brass (6BR, 6.5×47L, 6.5 Creedmoor, 308 Palma).

[BAGTIC]

Primers would not get any cheaper with fewer sizes. First there are so many gun and components that they would need to continue manufacturing both sizes for years anyway. primers are made in such vast quantities that the break even point is already long surpassed. How about just eliminating the 'magnum' primers. They are probably the least used.

[vzerone]

I have quite a bit of it, and it ain't Lapua Palma that's for sure. It doesn't take the "heat" like Lapua and like you stated, weights are not good enough for me.

I used 100 pieces of the Lapua Palma to make 6.5 Creedmoor brass before Lapua did. Lot or work and I had to neck turn it as it was too thick in the neck after necking it down. It did make extemely uniform cases and I treasure each piece. I hate to think what it costed me per piece with the time involved.

One other thing about the Palma brass is the small flash hole. I wonder if the thing that made you notice the difference was getting it stuck on your decapper. A regular recapping pin will get stuck eventually and it enlarges that wonderful small flash hole Lapua SR brass (6BR, 6.5×47L, 6.5 Creedmoor, 308 Palma).

That same thing happened, decapping pin sticking in the flashole, with Lapua 6.5 Grendel brass. When Alexander Arms commissioned LEE to make the first reloading dies they neglected to tell LEE that the pin should be for the small flashole as Alexander Arms was selling the 6.5 Grendel brass.