I’ve switched over to using the PPU product because both my mate and I are of the opinion that their products are good quality at a reasonable and affordable price. However, just lately I have seen some disparaging comments about the 308 brass produced by PPU. Some guys have found that the brass is “sticking” in the chamber and/or being hard extractions, regardless of the load. I was of two minds about this until I experienced a number of hard extractions myself, most being with reasonably light loads above the starting load and way below the max load.

I’ve only encountered this with 308 loads, and not with 30.30 or 303 loads. I’m beginning to think that PPU (Prvi Partizan) may be involved with supplying loaded 7.62mm NATO rounds to the Ukraine military for the war in that region. Consequently, the civilian product (component brass etc) in 308 calibre is not being produced using quality brass…or the supply of quality brass is becoming harder to get, hence a lesser product being produced. Only time will tell I suppose.

The general consensus of those I know who use PPU brass is that it needs to be full length sized before it's first use.

The base isn't at it's final dimensions for most of their offerings and just using a standard neck sizing die doesn't cut it.

Vince, when using light loads the neck of the brass might not expand properly, sending dirt into the chamber which might give difficult extraction on the next cases...
long sentence for saying "clean your chamber!"

annealing the neck might also give better expansion to the cases when using light loads.

I use PPU .308 brass in both my AR and Browning BLR. I had a different problem with all once fired brass, be it PPU, Remington, Winchester or Federal. After full length resizing they would not chamber all the way (about 1/8" short of chambering). The "fix"...Reduce the thickness of the shell holder so that the die would resize more of the case. This problem was found in both the AR and the BLR.

Interesting comments, and all good value.

“Mitri” wrote:

The general consensus of those I know who use PPU brass is that it needs to be full length sized before it's first use. The base isn't at its final dimensions for most of their offerings and just using a standard neck sizing die doesn't cut it.

That is what I’ve decided to do mate…FLS all cases before use.

“Aloys” wrote:

Vince, when using light loads the neck of the brass might not expand properly, sending dirt into the chamber which might give difficult extraction on the next cases... long sentence for saying "clean your chamber!"

Interesting thought mate. As it is now, the chamber gets as good a clean as the bore, finishing with a final oiling. I haven’t been running a patch through the barrel before firing, so maybe the oil in the chamber is attracting and holding a bit of crud. I’ll now be putting a patch through the barrel before firing. I also annealer after every third loading, so that should be ok.

“Bushy” wrote:

I use PPU .308 brass in both my AR and Browning BLR. I had a different problem with all once fired brass, be it PPU, Remington, Winchester or Federal. After full length resizing they would not chamber all the way (about 1/8" short of chambering). The "fix"...Reduce the thickness of the shell holder so that the die would resize more of the case. This problem was found in both the AR and the BLR.

Now that’s food for thought mate. It’s definitely something I will consider now that I have the tool (sanding machine) to be able to do that properly. I wonder if re-doing the headspace would achieve a similar result, albeit a lot more involved and difficult.

I’ll start out FLS and running a patch through the barrel (which I should do anyway) before I look at reducing the thickness of the shell holder (which can’t be undone), and see how things go, and if it solves my problems, then I’m laughin’.

As an afterthought, I researched the difference between C.I.P. and SAAMI specifications of the .308 round and found the following table…

.308 Winchester and 7.62x51mm NATO
Case Specifications
.308 Winchester C.I.P. max. dimensions, 7.62x51mm NATO, Difference . 308 Win./7.62 NATO

Bullet Dia. 0.308" 0.308" 0.308" 0,
Neck Dia. 0.344" 0.343" 0.338" 0.006",
Shoulder Dia. 0.454" 0.454" 0.447" 0.007",
Base Dia. 0.470" 0.471" 0.466" 0.004",
Rim Dia. 0.470" 0.473" 0.470" 0,
Rim Thck. 0.049" 0.067 NA NA,
Case Length 2.015" 2.015" 2.018" 0.003",
Cartridge Length2.75" 2.80" 2.75"

Apologies for the “blob” of data…I haven’t been able to work out how to put a table into The Nut…yet.