Alpha Munitions 6.5 Grendel Brass

[LRRPF52]

Alpha munitions just started making 6.5 Grendel brass. I had a chance to tour their facility a few weeks ago and was very impressed with how they manufacture and run robotic QC check stations.

Every piece of brass is run through an optical comparator, and every neck is mapped with a Laser tomography station. It was pretty crazy.

They use high-strength brass that exceeds the capacity of most brass cup manufacturers in the world. Each cup is made specific to each cartridge, rather than common cups re-purposed for multiple cartridges.

Their primer pockets are extremely tight as well.

They pushed the shoulder datum more forward so there should be minimum cold-working, and virgin brass loads won’t be that different from fire-formed.

Alpha Munitions 6.5 Grendel OCD Brass

[Old Bob]

I already have some Alpha Munitions 6mm ARC Brass. I was impressed with its conformity. All 100 cases were as peas-in-a-pod. Yes, their primer pockets are tight. It did seem to take a little more effort to seat primers (CCI 450s).

[Zeneffect]

Was waiting for this as a replacement to lapua. 200 now on the way. Will direct compare against new starline and lapua in all dimensions, volume, and hardness.

+1 on alpha brass (or products in general) as being top tier.

On their website, it says "coming soon." selecting the link, they show in stock 100 and 500 options. Its clearly off to a better start than the 22arc brass which I'm still waiting for to become available.

[Old Bob]

I didn't ask for them but Alpha Munitions sent me an email with the key dimensions for their 6.5 Grendel brass ...

I.D. .262"; O.D. .290"; Trim Length 1.515"; Loaded Diameter. .293"; Diameter Tolerance +/- .0005"; Flash Hole .08"/2.03mm

[StoneHendge]

Alpha brass absolutely rocks. I've been using it in 6.5 CM gas gun - started with 300 pieces with LR pockets and am down to 200 running it up to 13x. I tossed about 40 due to primer pockets loosening around 9-10x but it seems that those that were going to loosen loosened and the others have held their ground. I tossed 1 due to a cracked neck and the rest were lost.

I'm going to be completely honest and admit that I'm trolling annealers, but I never annealed mine. My SDs started widening around 8x so I started crimping 1/3 turn with a Lee crimp die and my SDs got back into single digits and have stayed there. The brass was good enough to win Heavy Metal in a pretty competitive LR AR match last month. This is what they looked like coming out of the tumbler afterwards (again 13x). The necks are smooth as a baby's bottom on the inside:

13x Alpha reduced.jpg

I'd run it more, but my barrel is over 2500 rounds and I have a 6CM barrel waiting in the wings. I loaded up some of the 13x with the remaining powder I had from my lot but winter has gotten in the way of using them up. I'm not considering anything other than Alpha SRP 6CM brass for the new barrel.

I'll also note that we all pickup each other's brass at PRS matches to help keep things moving along. Well over half the guys are using Alpha these days.

[LRRPF52]

You could polish the edges of your barrel extension teeth in the ejection clock position to mitigate those vampire neck marks. At least one of the lugs is never in engagement anyway due to the extractor being in that position.

I took several pieces of their reject brass home. It looks better than most brass, if not all I’ve ever seen.

Ultimate Reloader and some other channel ran Alpha brass at way above SAAMI pressures to see how long it would last.

One of them went 47 loads and the other way more than that. I’ll have to find the other video, but it was unbelievable.

In my .260 Rem gasser, I lose primer pockets after about 3 firings.

I’ll switch to Alpha brass for that too.

[Zeneffect]

Time to take some measurements and load some ammo. Thankfully there is no gay tiger on the box.

Edit

Right out of the box, the neck tension is .002" vs starline and lapua which are so tight interface can't gauge them. Already off to a good start.

Neck hardness is reading an even 15 all the way around. Starline varied from 15-16 when testing 3 spots, lapua 15

[Zeneffect]

Referencing alpha as "zero"

Shoulders are bumped back a hair over .006" for starline and .010 for lapua. There will definately be less cold working of the brass when using alpha. Compared to my fire formed, ready to reload brass, it's a .001" difference which makes my expected shoulder push .004" after firing if my math is correct.

[Zeneffect]

Lapua


Starline


Alpha

[Zeneffect]

Alpha


Lapua


Starline

[Zeneffect]

Alpha


Lapua


Starline

[Zeneffect]

Alpha


Lapua


Starline

[Zeneffect]

Alpha


Lapua


Starline

[BluntForceTrauma]

This is so cool. And thanks for all the detailed reporting.

[olde sarge]

Thanks for the details. I was thinking of getting 100rds and using to load the bolt action only data supplied by Sierra thinking it may give me a little insurance pressure wise with my new bolt action. Keep the Starline for the gas guns. What made me think this is I watched the same video that LRRPF52 mentioned, and they did this without any heat treating between loadings. Couldn't believe they said that.