Brass Quality
- Thread starter Lionhill
- Start date
Lionhill
I think it depends on the end use. If your hunting most brass found in the shops will do. Win/rem brass will load and shoot as good as you can hold the rifle in a hunting situation. Lets face it, guys rag on about acuracy this and that but if you can put two shots in a pie plate at 100-150yds offhand or leaning on a fence post your good to go.
Now if your talking bench rest/varmint type shooting its a different story. Stacking bullets one on top of the other in bench rest or hitting a prairie dog at 400yds requires alot of factors to all work right. I guess case consistancy would be a big factor but there is a pile of other things also. Primer pockets, neck thickness, case weight,man the list goes on and on.
I have taken ordinary rem/win brass---worked up a accurate load in a 22-250 that shot .550 at 100 yds. Now I'm not saying that others havn't done better but for what I wanted at the time it was ok for me.----Cowboy
I think it depends on the end use. If your hunting most brass found in the shops will do. Win/rem brass will load and shoot as good as you can hold the rifle in a hunting situation. Lets face it, guys rag on about acuracy this and that but if you can put two shots in a pie plate at 100-150yds offhand or leaning on a fence post your good to go.
Now if your talking bench rest/varmint type shooting its a different story. Stacking bullets one on top of the other in bench rest or hitting a prairie dog at 400yds requires alot of factors to all work right. I guess case consistancy would be a big factor but there is a pile of other things also. Primer pockets, neck thickness, case weight,man the list goes on and on.
I have taken ordinary rem/win brass---worked up a accurate load in a 22-250 that shot .550 at 100 yds. Now I'm not saying that others havn't done better but for what I wanted at the time it was ok for me.----Cowboy
Brass quality measuremnts are, relative hardness throughout cartridge case, concentricity and uniformity, but dependent on calibre(availabilty). Tops are Lapua and RWS, probably DWM, then Norma, with Winchester the top N.American product, which is not equal to the foregoing in any quailty consideration.
I'll agree with Lapua and the Euro brass, but I haven't found Win particularly better then Rem, Fed, or Hornady. In some calibers I load for, one brass brand will prove better, in another caliber a different brand. And when the lot changes, quite often so does the quality. For North American stuff, it can really be a crap shoot. - dan
Dan makes a good point about lot-to-lot variation, but overall, I'll still put rate as 1.Winchester, 2. Federal, 3. Remington.
This from using the stuff for 30 years and from all reloading and target rifle sites.
Regards,
Peter
This from using the stuff for 30 years and from all reloading and target rifle sites.
Regards,
Peter
I think P&D has some Fed Gold Medal brass available, and there are a few other stores beginning to carry Nosler stuff, which is also pretty good (I've been told norma is making it for them, but have no proof of that). I picked up a couple of crates of GM brass once fired from the Edm Tac team a few years back. Oddly enough, while the Fed brass is good, my best precision 308 loads have been with IMI brass, go figure. Some weighing, culling and measuring and more culling will get consistancy in pretty much any brass you use, it just takes a lot of time, which a lot of us guard as a precious commodity. The most spectacular brass failure I've ever had was with fed brass, in 25-06, factory ammo that split at the neck shoulder junction when fired. Improper annealing I was told. FWIW - dan
dan belisle said:
While on that topic, the worst one I had was several complete head separations with factory Sellier&Belliot 243 ammo. I was very new to the shooting scene way back then and didn't persue it with the manufacterer.
Keep in mind this was factory loaded ammo, not component brass like you are looking for. For me, I will never use that brass again!
I really like the Norma brass, and the Hornady/Frontier. After that it is a toss up with WW and RP.
I've never liked the FC brass at all.
well i use winchester in my 308 for target shooting, and get under 1/2 moa performace, most of the time more like 0.3moa, but to do that i took about 350 cases, fired them all in my rifle, neck sized them all, debured all the flashholes, trimmed them all to the same length, and then sorted them all using a scale accurate to 0.1 mg, i now have batches of 50 that have less then 0.5 grains difference in the extreams, and standard deviations of less then 0.2 grains, i have been very happy with these cases so far, but it was a fair bit of work to get there
J
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Our recommendations go to Lapua first. If not available, then Norma. As of late we are seeing Nosler supply some very reasonable quality brass in calibers we normally wouldn't see.
Consequently we carry all of the Lapua brass, what Lapua doesn't make we carry Norma and then default to Nosler on the balance.
Prices for Lapua brass are lower then ever. I can recall one supplier charging $300 per 100 of Lapua 338
. We have managed to drive the price down to a managable $250 and have seen significant surrounding price drops as a result of this.
Keep in mind for general purpose non competitive work I believe the best bang for the buck still lies in the bulk Win/Rem/Federal brass.
Good times are here
Consequently we carry all of the Lapua brass, what Lapua doesn't make we carry Norma and then default to Nosler on the balance.
Prices for Lapua brass are lower then ever. I can recall one supplier charging $300 per 100 of Lapua 338
. We have managed to drive the price down to a managable $250 and have seen significant surrounding price drops as a result of this.Keep in mind for general purpose non competitive work I believe the best bang for the buck still lies in the bulk Win/Rem/Federal brass.
Good times are here
Lapua is great brass, I find most lots of Norma very consistent, but a bit "soft" Domestically, if I have a choice, It's Winchester, then Frontier, with Remington and Federal well back. In my last batch of Winchester 7-08 brass, with 100 cases of one lot #, I got 55 cases that are within .5 grains for weight. Out of the whole batch, I only culled 4 cases for neck thickness variations. I think that's not bad at all. We'll see what happens next, these are going to end up as 260AI cases. (didn't like the Remington 260 cases) Regards, Eagleye.
In .308, Norma is far and away the best brass I've used. I've got one lot I just keep loading to see when it will fail. I've annealed the necks once when I could feel the neck sizer ball was getting hard to pull thru. I'm sure I've loaded them at least 40 times and they're still going strong. (I'm neck resizing only.)
I usually neck size if I can remember to use the right brass in the right rifle
I have 3 target rifles in .308. I also have a Redding body die, so I can always resize loaded rounds if I am caught short of ammo for the rifle I plan to shoot that day.
I have 3 target rifles in .308. I also have a Redding body die, so I can always resize loaded rounds if I am caught short of ammo for the rifle I plan to shoot that day.
