Federal brass, thoughts???

Kelly Timoffee said:
I did try to go further down with the die but started to make impressions on the shoulder, so I backed it off to where it was, now that I think about it, it didn't cycle very nice in the Remington .270 I also loaded for.
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Kelly,
The dents on the shoulder of the case was from excess lube. If you get too much lube on the case neck it has nowhere to go. Something has to give and, in this case, it's the brass.
Try using less lube (keep it off the shoulder if you can) and tighten the die down again.
The dents, by the way, won't have any noticeable affect on your loads.
Jerry
 
I like Federal brass. Never had a problem with it.
As far as I am concerned, none of the major manufacturers make poor brass. Quite a difference in weights between some brands, and some may be harder than others, so you can get what suits you, but I have never had a problem with any brass made by a major manufacturer.
 
H4831 said:
I like Federal brass. Never had a problem with it.
As far as I am concerned, none of the major manufacturers make poor brass. Quite a difference in weights between some brands, and some may be harder than others, so you can get what suits you, but I have never had a problem with any brass made by a major manufacturer.
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Right you are Bruce. With Federal, I still use it in a couple of calibers. However, as I mentioned previously, although I've never had any problems with it, with the batches I checked I did notice a slightly greater case to case weight variation compared to some other brands. Works fine though and I didn't notice that weight variation having any significant effect on accuracy of the loads.

And, I agree, the brass products put out by the major manufacturers, overall, are pretty good. A quick check,;) and it may be by virtue of some of the calibers I have, quite a good percentage of the rifle brass I have is Norma:).
 
I have a bunch of once fired FC .308 brass that i've been loading for a spanish mauser (see: 110gr bullets, 40-42kpsi loads). I get MAYBE 2 reloads out of a case before the primer pocket is done for, as in, i can push a primer in with my fingers.

Anyone know of a company that makes primers a couple thou larger in diameter? might get one more load out of em before they go for scrap :)
 
On the other hand, I load Federal 308 brass to factory levels, 180 gr partitions at 2600 with no problem at all.

Have some formed to 358 Win that has been going strong for years, 250 Speers at 2300+, one of which did in a nice moose a few weeks ago. :)

Ted
 
Johnn Peterson said:
Right you are Bruce. With Federal, I still use it in a couple of calibers. However, as I mentioned previously, although I've never had any problems with it, with the batches I checked I did notice a slightly greater case to case weight variation compared to some other brands. Works fine though and I didn't notice that weight variation having any significant effect on accuracy of the loads.

And, I agree, the brass products put out by the major manufacturers, overall, are pretty good. A quick check,;) and it may be by virtue of some of the calibers I have, quite a good percentage of the rifle brass I have is Norma:).
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Yes Johnn, you probably know that I started out reloading using all Norma components, except primers, pretty well exclusivly. All of my early primers were the German RWS. Later, I started using CIL, Dominion brand components, including primers, also.
One time Norma stated in a pamphlet they put out, that they received complaints about Norma brass being soft, and that the primer pockets swelled in use. They stated that it took 90,000 (I don't know if it was psi or CUP) to swell the primer pockets and if anybody experienced this, their loads were dangerously heavy.
 
H4831 said:
Yes Johnn, you probably know that I started out reloading using all Norma components, except primers, pretty well exclusivly. All of my early primers were the German RWS. Later, I started using CIL, Dominion brand components, including primers, also.
One time Norma stated in a pamphlet they put out, that they received complaints about Norma brass being soft, and that the primer pockets swelled in use. They stated that it took 90,000 (I don't know if it was psi or CUP) to swell the primer pockets and if anybody experienced this, their loads were dangerously heavy.
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That's something I haven't used for quite some time. When I was taking part in a lot of serious Bullseye shooting, RWS was my 'go to' primers for the 45ACP centre fire shooting.

With Norma brass, did you ever find any quality or reloading differences between their earlier production 7x61 S&H brass compared to the later production Super 7x61 S&H brass??
 
Well, did some more sizing, what is appears to be to me is the brass has expanded to a point where it either springs back to the stretched size or the die is not sizing properly.

The area is in the so called pressure ring area about 1/2" up from the head of the case where you can see the notable difference in the brass color/finish.

It is this area that seems to be causing the tight fit into the chamber, you can see the marks on it clearly from trying to chamber the brass.

Maybe will try a new die, if that doesn't fix things then to the garbage for the brass.
 
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