Nosler Brass?
- Thread starter matthewpauls
- Start date
I am using Nosler brass in my 280AI rifles,and it seems to be quite well made.The neck thickness,weight,and other tolerances are much better than any other brass that I have used.It is slightly soft,but I am still able to reach 3140fps with 140gr bullets,which is still respectable for a 24" barrel.I still prefer Lapua in the chamberings that it is available in,but the Nosler 280AI brass really isn't bad.
I tried some in 308 and haven't had any problems with it so I bought another box of it yesterday. I also use Lapua but couldn't get it at the time, both are really good. I'm not a bench shooter, except for load development and spend most of my time sit/kneel/stand/prone. I've had good results using cheaper brass but find it takes a lot of time prepping and I get more fliers than with Nosler/Lapua. I find the extra cost is not bad for the life of the brass, one less thing to be concerned about. I'll have to find out how much Peterdobson charges for the Lapua.
Nosler accesses brass from several makers,and their .308 brass is supposedly made by Federal(not my favorite brass!).Like Stubblejumper I use their .280AI brass and like it.The first box I bought was headstamped Norma. Mur
I'm using it in .204, 22/250, .300 Weatherby, .300 Rum necked up to .338 Edge and tried it in .300 Win.
Results have been mixed, the .204 and 22/250 have been great with the pockets hanging right in there.Maximum book loads in the 22/250 and a tad over in the .204. The .300 Win could lose its primer pockets in a firing or two when loaded up to where it wanted to shoot. Norma solved that problem.
The Edge has been a bit of an adventure. Loads worked up in Remington brass had to be backed off a full 4-5 grains for the Nosler brass. Both cases seem to weigh the same, so I just wrote that off to soft brass. That made sense until I chronographed the Nosler loads and found out that velocities only dropped 40 fps for 5 grains so I didn't feel bad after that.
I had an issue where I loaded up a couple hundred rounds in brand new brass, just to find out that they had changed the neck thickness and those backed off loads were now hottern hell. Pulling down almost 200 loads, resizing the necks, turning the necks down and loading again had me questioning the brass makers predigree.
The .300 Weatherby is a work in progress. I stopped short of pushing it too hard with H1000 in deference to soft, expensive (still cheaper than Weatherby) brass and besides it shot so well. That was OK until I dug out the chrony and found out one of my .300 Wins was kicking its butt to the tune of 150 fps with a 10 grain heavier bullet and 5 grains less of the same powder. It's going to have to go hard to tie the Win Mag, and never is going to top it in the Nosler brass. Back to the drawing board.
Results have been mixed, the .204 and 22/250 have been great with the pockets hanging right in there.Maximum book loads in the 22/250 and a tad over in the .204. The .300 Win could lose its primer pockets in a firing or two when loaded up to where it wanted to shoot. Norma solved that problem.
The Edge has been a bit of an adventure. Loads worked up in Remington brass had to be backed off a full 4-5 grains for the Nosler brass. Both cases seem to weigh the same, so I just wrote that off to soft brass. That made sense until I chronographed the Nosler loads and found out that velocities only dropped 40 fps for 5 grains so I didn't feel bad after that.
I had an issue where I loaded up a couple hundred rounds in brand new brass, just to find out that they had changed the neck thickness and those backed off loads were now hottern hell. Pulling down almost 200 loads, resizing the necks, turning the necks down and loading again had me questioning the brass makers predigree.
The .300 Weatherby is a work in progress. I stopped short of pushing it too hard with H1000 in deference to soft, expensive (still cheaper than Weatherby) brass and besides it shot so well. That was OK until I dug out the chrony and found out one of my .300 Wins was kicking its butt to the tune of 150 fps with a 10 grain heavier bullet and 5 grains less of the same powder. It's going to have to go hard to tie the Win Mag, and never is going to top it in the Nosler brass. Back to the drawing board.
