Anyone shoot a lot with this round?

How would it do out of a 18" barrel?

Barrel Life?

it's a good round, gaining more popularity since Alpha has released brass for it.  When Norma was the only thing available it was used but it is definitely having a boom right now.  18'' you'll be able to get to 1000, but you're going to sacrifice a lot of velocity.

Barrel like is about 1500 rounds for a match rifle more, if you're using it for just general shooting.  It is still a fast 6mm

Moly/HBN coat should get it above 2000rds. TMS might let it perform to 3000.

I’ve shot everything from 28” to 23”.  23” shoots @ ~3000fps. Barrel life is 1500-1800 rds. Really easy to tune with 115 dtacs.

I’ve got a blank here but leaning towards 6x47

I'd got XC over x47

I shoot the 6XC often but out of a 26” barrel. I am getting about 1800 rds and my velocity is about 3090 fps with a 105 gr bullets. I like the caliber and even more so now that Alpha released 6XC brass. I’ve had zero issues with donuts forming unlike the Norma brass.

Alpha is definitely breathing new life into the round.

My coach has been using one for a year and change in competition. I was using a .243AI. My Ackley was way harder on the barrel and so I'm looking at a new barrel in 6XC. I was originally going to get a 6XC but wanted to try the bigger .243AI. No real benefit in the bigger case.

Short barrel length eats velocity. Powders that are great for fast 6mm's are pretty darned slow burning and benefit greatly from increased barrel length. The only reason to use a 6mm is to get the velocity. If you're going to do a short barrel and give up the velocity I'd go with a 6.5mm. You'll still get very high BC's.

I recently acquired a few 6XC barrels for my AI and I'm trying to decide on brass. Someone on SH forms it from Lapua, but the Alpha is almost as good at a much lower price ($1.05/ea vs $2.20/ea after you count in his forming and prep steps). Anyone here know how many times you can load the Alpha before the primer pocket loosens up? If the Lapua gets me that many more it may be worth it, but I'm new to reloading and I anticipate trashing a few cases making mistakes.

Clownbuster’s brass is top notch, Pricey though.  I bought 250 pcs last year.  Haven’t heard much on the alpha brass

The Alpha SRP brass is pretty new but the guys that I know, who have been testing, were up to 16 times fired without any issues. No donuts forming and no loose primer pockets. The primer pockets are very tight with virgin brass but will end up at .173 in the end.

I was sent 20 pieces to test out but I am only at 6 times fired with them. My primer pockets are still very tight. I did lots of measurements prior to loading them as I was waiting on my custom reamer to arrive. The brass is very consistent throughout and I am getting 5 or under standard deviation constantly. I am moving away from Norma as I am able to pick up 300 pieces.

I want to add that you will need a reamer with a .470 web area and .274 neck at a minimum. Otherwise, you will have heavy bolt lifts.

I've been running alpha brass since it first came out and would put it up against lapua any day. Currently I'm running 6mm creed my next barrel will be XC.   I tested a few cases for case life to 10 just to see how the primers did and they were great. Formed lapua definitely isn't worth over 2x the price.

Thanks for the replies, everyone!

I just heard back from the guy I bought the barrels from. One is a Gradous sold through OTM that was chambered by Tooley, and he isn't sure which reamer was used. The other is a brand new Krieger chambered with what he called a 6XC "Rev. D" reamer. I can find very little on this, other than it was obviously a revision of the original 6XC chamber specs. I'm not sure if that falls between the original 6XC and the 6XC II, or what. Anyone know anything about this? I suppose I could contact Krieger directly to get the dimensions, if needed. If I HAVE to, I'll get the chambers cast, but I'm assuming that isn't cheap. I got the barrels for a song, so spending a little to find this info out before I go buying brass I can't use (on these barrels, anyway) isn't out of the question, but it would be nice to put the casting funds towards brass and projectiles!

At this point, I'm hoping to run Alpha brass with 115gr DTACS. I'll run Berger 105gr Hybrids, Nosler 105g RDFs, or something from Hornady if the DTACs don't work.

I would call and find out the reamer specs before dropping money on brass. Unless you have fired cases from the chamber that you can measure?