Should I FL Resize My New Factory Brass

waynewjw

waynewjw

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I now have 100 Winchester and 100 Hornady brass in .243. Should I resize so I can get shoulder setback close to my old brass or should I load and fire form? Don’t really want to fireform 100 brass and then try find the accuracy sweet spots and then go thru another 100 rds. And powder is expensive. And which brand should I use for this. Read good and bad on both brands.

My tired brass is Federal and has been great, over 9 reloads at this point.
 
Most all of the new brass that I buy is in bulk bags - so I expect a number of them to have dinged up/ pressed in case mouths, etc. As a result, I set up my FL die to "partially size" - I do not use lube, and is like 1/8" (6 mm) or so between bottom of die and the shell holder in the press - lets me run the expander ball in and out to make them "round" - may not be an issue if you load boat tail bullets - mostly all left here now are flat base - so bonus, when they come out from press, into a Lee Spinner and into a battery drill - trim all to length - most do not get touched, but some do, and then I use an elderly RCBS chamfer tool to cut a chamfer on inside of the brass, on all of them - whether they got trimmed or not.

I am not and never have been a competitive target shooter - my guns mostly elderly or store bought - so at most, I think having cases all at no more than Lee trimmer case length, case mouths "round" and chamfer about 1/4 of case mouth wall on inside - cases "clean" - good enough for me. It is my suspicion that you will get very best groups after two or three firings - all cases to same length, all "fire formed", etc., but I do not own any rifles that will prove that one way or another. When I go out hunting, is usually with loads into brand new brass, if I think to do so - I have hunted with about any number of reloads on the cases, though. I had read and tried various techniques - measure case neck wall thickness, peel case necks, fuss about measuring case neck and bullet concentricity, etc. but none of my rifles can show that effort will result in anything more than "busy work" for me. I do not doubt that there does exist shooters and rifles that respond to such things and can be demonstrated - not "thought".

The only brass case that I had that will not chamber in the rifle was a 7 mm Weatherby case from Weatherby branded box (probably made by Norma?) - would not chamber into a Weatherby Mark V rifle - WTF!! The rest of the box of 20 cases chambered fine - all were "prepped" for loading the same way.
 
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It is easier to prep cases when the are consistently formed. I FL size all cases, new or fired, the chamfer in and out, inspect for damage or deviation... then load.
 
Test a few in the rifle to see how they chamber, if they are the correct length and fit, confidence in being 'ok' is lifted
Seating bt bullets will also go ok for the most part, one or two dented necks may need work

to be absolutely sure, fl resize

also consider having the old brass annealed to bring it back to life
 
If they fit in the chamber (go into battery), then the only real concern is neck diameter and roundness. If you are satisfied with all three, then you should be good to load them as-is.
 
jethunter said:
I usually size the neck only, not the entire case.
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woodlotowner said:
This ^^
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Nah, the cases have to be checked... trying a few in the chamber isn't always indicative of an entire batch being in spec... the whole neck sizing thing is great for paper, and if you like fussing around and pulling bullets and dumping powder... if you are hunting with these rounds, FL size and be sure they are going to function flawlessly when you absolutely need them to. JMO
 
Any thoughts on which brass would be the better choice? I’ve had great results with both but not in a competitive atmosphere, just shooting paper.

This is in .243 caliber and if I score in the top of the bottom 1/3 or middle of the pack then it’s a good day. Only had 1 event that I shot at last year, hoping to up that count to 2 or 3 for this year. Haven’t been at this long enough to be really good and just having fun.
 
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I can not comment on Hornady brass - have not bought much of that. However, Winchester has really changed - old days was "blue label" bulk bags - I went through many of those - 338 Win Mag, 7x57, 308 Win and 22-250. Latest "on-line" purchase was "red and black" label Winchester that arrived in the mail - on first bag, I would guesstimate 20% to 25% of them had creases or folds visible in necks or shoulders - as if not annealed enough when formed. About same amount had like "pour spouts" - "outie" deformities on the case mouths - too large diameter to even chamber into the rifle - had to run those through sizing die just to get the mouth diameter sized down to be round and to fit into the chamber - like not only label changed, but also maker changed. Was more deformities in that one bag of 100 cases than I had seen in "thousands" (?) of previous new cases before. Is 100 processed now - 22-250 - is two bags of 100 each to go - not looking forward to dealing with them. I have never bought Nosler or Lapua that apparently come in individual slots within a box - but I did get a couple boxes of Weatherby brand 7 mm Weatherby Mag - after processing one box of 20, only 19 fed and fired correctly in a Weatherby Mark V rifle - that last one would not chamber, out of a box of 20. I was not expecting sizing issues, in the price those sell for.
 
A gun writer once asked that question and tried some factory new pistol brass. He found it to give more accuracy as is. Since you shoot for points you could make that test. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't trim or select.
 
Most of the time when you full length size new brass you aren’t really sizing anything but the neck anyway. You can run them through without lube most of the time because the body doesn’t even touch.
 
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Is good advice in Post # 16 - try stuff for yourself to see if it works for you, your skill level, your gear and set-up and your rifle. Works sort of other way, as well - you might discover that specific steps that "everybody says" are important to do, do not in fact make any difference on targets for you and your gear - it becomes just "busy work" for you - is not to say that others with other gear and skills do not respond well. You do not have their lot of powder, their lot of primers, their lot of cases, their lot of bullets, nor their rifle and scope - is a lot of reasons why your results might be different than theirs. Bench rest shooters and others have been looking for the exact, precise, perfect recipe for about 100 years. Some got very close to perfect - most others did not, but all should have had a lot of fun to try to get there. It will be your 5 shot groups on target that tell you whether you gained or not - holes on target do not lie.
 
I run all cases through the sizing die, to get any dings out of the case necks, and to unify the neck tension , to what I intend to use. Then I chamfer the case mouths inside and out.
 
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