Hornady 9.3x62 brass ... no more, thanx

I

icedog

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After much waffling, I finally purchased an FN 98 commercial Mauser in 9.3x62 (TRADEX) a few months ago. Gave it a thorough spit and polish, added a Burris 2-7X, read what I could find on reloading for it, and put together several different loads using new Hornady brass, 250gr Nosler Accubonds, and Varget ... then headed to the range a couple days ago.

Yikes!
Every round fired had a bulge of about .011" just above the case head. Long story short ... after a bunch of measuring at home, and a bit of research in reloading manuals and on the internet, I discover that Hornady's 9.3x62 brass has been known to be undersized for years. The base of the brass is .011" smaller than the size than the standard .476" generally given for the cartridge. I guess these will be a "neck size only" proposition, and my next brass purchase will be one of the European brands.

Suspicions are that Hornady's 9.3x62 is simply a reworking of their 30'06 brass.

By the way, the rifle itself is excellent ... thanx TRADEX!
 
I found that even with neck sizing, some won't chamber, which is weird. I had to play around with a couple of FL dies to get the majority to chamber, some dies seem to work better than others. Agree with the calibre, I bought a used CZ550 from Tradeex and it's a great rifle/calibre to shoot.
 
No need to neck size only! Your brass is now fire formed and unless your FL resizing die is also mis-sized, it will resize to the proper dimension.
 
Prvi works well but the necks are a bit thinner than I'd like. Lapua is best but I have a few pieces of range pickup Sako, Norma, and S&B that appear to be good quality and correct dimensions, too. (From a range in Finland; it's as common as 30-06 over there.) Euro brass is definitely the way to go for European cartridges. I run Norma in the wife's Mauser 96 6.5x55. Just seems appropriate :).
 
9.3mauser said:
Bite the bullet and buy Lapua.
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I don't think there's any bullet biting required, Lapua is probably cheaper or close to at least it was when I bought all mine. You get 100 per box instead of 50.

Edit: Seems Lapua has gone up almost 60% since I've purchased it. I paid between $100 and $120 per 100 for my 9.3x62, .30-06, and 8x57 Lapua brass.
 
On another note, I've never been a fan of any Hornady brass, prefer Lapua and Winchester over it, maybe even Rem brass. I've had lots more issues with Hornady brass and ammo over the years vs all other brands combined.
 
I did not heard good things about Hornady brass when I was after 7mm rem mag brass. Lots of people called it garbage, a few said its ok, everyone said Norma, lapua, PRVI were better - and 7rm isn't even a euro cartridge!

Rather than find out for myself, I'm just going to trust the cgn masses and not buy Hornady brass.
 
Hornady doesn't make their own brass, they farm it out to a number of manufactuers, on a bid basis so your 9.3x62 Hornady brass might be made by any of several manufacturers from Europe or NA. You might buy more 9.3x62 brass next year and it could be made by a completely different manufacturer. That's the part of I don't care for with Hornady brass.
 
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Have Lapua and RWS brass on hand to try loading the 9.3x62 for the first time.
Have some Hornady brass for a couple of other cartridges, but have never loaded them yet.
Have always had good performance with Lapua, Norma and Winchester brass, and even once fired Federal brass.
 
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