Rate these brands of 9mm pistol brass from best to worst...

CanuckShooter

CanuckShooter

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I consider brass quality a major criterion when making a large ammo purchase. For the reloaders here, how would you rate the following brands/lines of 9mm pistol you've reloaded from best to worst? Let's limit it to brass you've purchased in the past five years or so, since ammo quality seems like it's in a constant state of flux these days.


- Remington UMC
- PRVI Partizan (PPU)
- Federal American Eagle
- PMC Bronze
- Blazer Brass
- Winchester white box


Thanks!

edit: I removed Aguila and Sellier & Bellot from the list due to replies indicating that they're crimped.
 
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With the exception of Aguila I would say all the same. Using mixed brass over my Chrony I have found no significant or detectable difference in performance. The Aquila brass I have seen has a very aggressive crimp mid case that has caused problems for me when seating lead bullets. I prefer Winchester brass for no particular reason and notice it is not on your list.

Edited to add: S&B Brass either has very tight primer pockets or crimping. Either way t goes to the brass recycle as does any NT marked brass.

Take Care

Bob
 
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I've reloaded all the above brass with the exception of the Aquila. S&B would be bottom of my list for reloading 'cause they're hard brass to resize and tight or crimped primer pockets. I don't even have to look at the roll markings on the brass when I'm reloading to know it's an S&B piece. Right behind S&B would be Sumo brass.
 
I had issues with anything that was crimped. So I don't worry about brand of the brass so much as I inspect for crimped primer pockets. But on top of crimping S&B also applied a sealant on some of their 9mm I had about 8 years ago. No idea if they still do that or not. Along with S&B being crimped I also found that Federal Non-Tox had crimped pockets.

Outside of that I've never seen any significant differences with any one brand over any other and I use them all.

It's a major PITA to have to inspect each casing for crimping. But it jammed up my reloading setup so badly when the primer would bust out the flat end and leave the collar in the pocket that visually sorting by primer pocket inspection was a lot easier than regularly clearing the press because of a busted primer stoppage. The last time I loaded 9mm I found that about 1 in 20 of the range brass I pick up has a crimped primer. A low enough number that I simply tossed the crimped cases rather than deal with them.
 
For 9mm, I would recycle the S&B brass. I actually give it away to another (cheap) reloader locally.
For 45acp, I would recycle the Blazer Brass - man, that stuff is crap in 45acp. I know it's not the topic at hand, but I really hate that brass, heh.

Winchester, Federal and Remington are my top 3 for 9mm. Blazer is good too in 9mm, but i've tossed a lot due to case cracks over a few reloads. PMC uses reloaded brass if I recall correctly, I remember getting a lot of Federal brass with the last PMC bronze 9mm I purchased.
I haven't run into any Aguila, and like most here, can't comment.
 
I use Federal and Winchester almost exclusively and both have been very good both for consistency and case life. S&B is off the list due to tight primer pockets. Any of the rest that I end up with gets recycled or donated to other shooters.
 
Thanks for the great information so far. This is really helping me narrow down my options. I had no idea that S&B and Aguila were crimped. I've adjusted the list removing them and adding Winchester which as Canuck44 pointed out, I totally forgot to include.

I also didn't know that PMC doesn't use virgin brass. I can't find info on this anywhere. Has anyone else experienced this?
 
PMC is factory new ammo using their own brass. Very good brass, comparable to Winchester, Remington and Federal. Factory PMC Bronze 124gr 9mm is also very accurate if anyone cares, more so than S&B and Federal AE ammo. Compared a few brands through my X5-L1 earlier this week and PMC pretty much outshot the other brands.
 
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