Which brand of brass do you prefer?

Silverado

Silverado

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Over the last few years, I knew I would start reloading at some point, so I saved almost all the brass from factory ammo I fired through my rifle.

The vast majority is Federal, with some Remington, and even 20 Hornady (headstamped Frontier??) thrown in. I turfed all the cheap stuff like Igman that I shot, as the rounds shot so poorly I wanted nothing to do with them.

As these are all fireformed to my chamber, I'll be neck sizing only.

HOWEVER, for the next rifle I buy, I'll simply start loading from the beginning, so...

Which brand of brass do you all recommend, and why?
 
For target shooting Lapua, hands down.
Lapua brass has drilled flash holes, not punched like other brands. I weigh every piece of brass and batch them in lots of 1 grain. Out of 1500 cases I have 3 lots with a 3 grain spread.
Lapua is very consistant.

Norma brass is also good and may even be better, but it should be for the price:eek:

Any brass will work for accurate target loads, it just depends on how much time you want to spend on it to prep it. All the brass prep in the world will not do any good, if the shooter and rifle are not up to the task.
 
It really depends on the caliber and what type of shooting you plan to do.

For hunting and casual target shooting I like Winchester brass best. Renmington is fine also. Federal is OK for my .223 but in .270, .308 and 7 mm Rem Mag I found that it was too soft and that the primer pockets swell after as little as one firing.

For real precision long range shooting you will probably need/want premium components, bench rest primers, match grade bullets and Lapua or Norma brass.
 
Norma, Sako, Lapua, Ruag, Hornady, Federal. Hornady used to outsource some of thier brass, including to Federal.
Some of the old Privi Partisan stuff was pretty good-ish, the Hansen years for example.
If you want top of the line you want Lapua, then Sako etc. I rate Rem and Win (Olin) lower.
 
I like remington brass. Winchester brass hasn't impressed me. I've found many pieces in a winchester bag with split necks, or no flash holes!

For everyday normal shooting, I stick to remington.
 
Most of my loads are used for hunting although I try and get down to the range as often as possible for practice. I generally shoot and reload Norma brass. I have been trying to get some Lapua as I have heard rave reviews on the quality and consistency. I have had great luck sourcing Norma/Herter's (made by Norma) brass on EBay, probably picking up close to 2,000 pieces over the past few years. But, I think the best place to purchase Norma is at gun shows. I am usually able to purchase several boxes for various calibers at about $23 - 25 per box of 20, especially if I am dealing with the same vendor. This saves me from the initial reloading and allows me to fire-form to my particular chamber. The danger with the EBay stuff is it is almost always advertised as "once fired" and there is absolutely no way to substantiate this claim unless the original primers have been left in.

I have also been very impressed with the quality of Remington brass. I note that when uniforming the primer pocket there is very good consistency piece to piece.
 
Of all the options the generic Federal brass leaves me uneasy as I've seen too many with problems with respect to hardness and primer pockets. This was true with .223 and 10mm Auto brass. I even did hardness testing on cases and it was all over the place, not encouraging as far as quality control goes.

The exception is the Federal stuff that came out of Lake City. It seems to be good so far.

Generally WIN is my first brass choice. Remington has been trouble free for me too. And Starline seems decent based on a sample of a 1000 pcs I had for pistol.

That about covers my brass experiences.
 
I have found that winchester brass is easy to work with being a pretty soft brass. I have started using hornady brass now and no complaints either.
For long brass life PMP seems to be the best but it's very hard
 
For pistols calibers I love Winchester brass, I keep about 4K of each caliber I own on hand. For 5.56mm I love Lake City brass. For some reason I thought I should buy 5K of once fired LC cheap at a gunshow in the US in the early 90's (didn't own a 5.56 at the time but the deal was too good to pass up). Fast forward 15 years and that old LC brass is my favorite and now treated like gold, especially now since all reloading stuff requires export permits and the like. I still keep all my WInchester brass for .223.

For .308 I like Federal Gold Medal. Haven't yet tried Lapua, but should get around to it.
 
I had good luck with winchester brass for my 300. I found the remington brass to be a little on the soft side if using high intensity loads. The norma and lapua are excellent choices if you have a little more to spend. I stick to my norma brass because of loading weatherby now. I'll let you know on the federal as I'm loading up some 45 70 for the ruger # 1. Old one was a rollling block and pressures had to be kept way down so remington was fine.
 
I use Norma that I got from Doug (at a very reasonable price) for my 308 and winchester for the 223. Federal works ok but the primer pockets get loose quickly.

Brian
 
I use Lapua in my long range rifles, but for General purpose use, Winchester gets my nod. Norma is too soft [otherwise it's good] Remington is OK, but many chamberings tend to have less internal capacity than Winchester. Federal is not great, as noted, Primer pockets tend to open prematurely, even with relatively mild loads. I rate Frontier brass close to Winchester, so have no problems with it. Regards, Eagleye.
 
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