Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Weight variance in brass?

Last Spring I ordered 2 boxes of 'fancy' Nosler brass for a new 270 Winchester.

Brass showed up and luckily both boxes had matching lot #'s.


Month passes and I ordered more bullets and decide to get another box of the brass.


Different lot # this time(of course).


Load it up with the same charge as I had been using and fire away.


Now it's summer time, hot outside, and I'm getting pancaked primers and the accuracy isn't as good. Blame the temps, barrel heat, etc., and forget about it until it cools back down.


Re-test my proven load in cooler weather and get random flyers and pancaked primers on certain shots.

WTF?


Took about a minute to remember that I bought a third box.


Hmmm, the ol' light bulb is starting to warm-up...


Weigh the pancaked primer brass, 215 grains.
(edited, actually weighs 207...)

Weigh the original brass(nice round primers), 185 grains.



I'm far from a reloading expert but that seems like a lot of variance?

SWEET JESUS, that is a HUGE difference in weight. How the hell can that be.

I'd be on the horn with Nosler RTF now.

Well I thought it was a big difference as well but honestly haven't weighed enough brass to really know.


Last time I weighed brass was 2-3 years ago when I switched from Remington brass to Lapua(243 Win).

The Lapua was heavier(can't remember how much) so I re-worked up the charge.




I was obviously pissed about the Nosler deal and just tossed the 50 pieces in the garbage can. Of course I had to weigh 150 pieces of brass to be sure I found them all.

Just for the heck of it why not cut one of each in half length wise and compare the thickness difference. That's a lot of weight difference. Nosler should be told about it. Might even get you some free brass.

Sam;
Top of the morning to you sir, hopefully this finds you all well and ready for the upcoming winter as far as hay/feed goes.

Quickly here before I head up the mountain behind the house I'll say that I've noted some very large variance in brass weights too - the .308 being the very worst at over 40gr difference if I'm recalling correctly.

Terry Wieland had a decent article in either Rifle or Handloader recently about trying to duplicate Jack O'Connor loads in a .270 and not being able to stick that much powder in many lots of the cases he had on hand.

It's vexing when the cases have the same headstamp and vary wildly for sure though Sam.

Typically I've been running a "hunting load" pile of brass and then the "range/rock shooting" lot which has me adjusting for the varied weights.

It's for sure a good thing to pay attention too though in my experience as I found out in a similar way that you did.....

All the best to you and yours this fall Sam and good luck on your hunts too.

Dwayne

Earl, that is a good idea. I just dug in the garbage and picked out 11 cases which are currently in the tumbler.

Dwayne, I do remember thinking that the powder did look a little 'full' in the cases but a max load of H4831sc fills 'em up to the neck anyway so I never stopped to really think about it.


Gonna re-weigh the garbage brass and double check my memory here in a minute. They might have been in the 210 grain range, either way it made a somewhat noticable difference in accuracy and pressure.


Hay supply is good and we just chopped up about 1000 tons of silage corn this past week. The cows shouldn't starve...grin

I must have been drinking beer when I weighed the cases...


Memory is slightly off.


Original weigh 185.

Pancakes weigh 207.



Still seems like too much variance especially for $1 apiece.


Does Nosler make their own brass or someone else?

Nosler has used different vendors over time.

In 308 Win. cases from Federal and Lake City have been 178 grains on average, while WW cases have been 155 grains. R-P has been about 165, and Lapua 173. To be clear, I'm not saying these were Nosler suppliers.

These averages have held true over many different lots I've encountered over the last decade.

I can see different manufacturers having different weights but stuff with the same headstamp should at least be within reason.

Especially stuff purchased within a month or two of each other. It's not like I am comparing 5-10 year old brass with new production.




For the first time ever I even made a comment on MidwayUSA's site. It wasn't positive......grin

But that's the thing, even though there's one headstamp there could well be different manufacturers since Nosler doesn't make it.

The difference in production dates could be much larger than the difference in purchase dates. Are the lot numbers decipherable?

And that is likely the problem.


Excellent point.


It had never dawned on me that they might source brass for the same cartridge from different manufacturers. That is actually a pretty stupid move(IMHO).


I have the boxes(lot #'s) from the original 100 pieces but must have tossed the box from the most recent order.

A reputable source has written that Nosler has trimmed their vendor list down. That's why I'm wondering about the heavy stuff being old stock. I had some older Nosler 270 Win. brass and it was thick, heavy and (the bad part) soft. Same with some 308.

More recent Nosler in 308 and 243 has been excellent however.

I had the same problem loading for a 9.3x62, using Hornady brass. I admit that was trying to push the envelope a bit, and I kept finding quite a few flattened primers among those that looked OK. Finally, I weighed all 100 cases that had come in two boxes of 50. The variation in the weight of the individual cases was pretty much in line with what you experienced.

I switched from Varget to RL-15, backed off a little on the desired velocity and things settled down nicely.

Mathman, I'd buy it again if I could get all the same lot # but ordering has always been an issue.

The best is when you order a few boxes of bullets and they all have different lot #'s! Had that happen once or twice.

I always check bullet OAL length and ogive to base length but it's just one more thing to 'worry' about.



Mudhen, I just tossed the new ones. Thought about selling them and that would have made more sense but it felt better to see them in the trash!

When I purchase brass, I try to get at least 100 pcs.
If I am working on range brass, I prefer more than that to start.

I never mix headstamps.

I weight sort into groupings (even with same lot number).

Usually I can find a mid weight within a .002-003 grain range for a majority of the brass.

I also sort the lights and heavies out into separate batchs. There are usually some flyers way out and they do not get used unless there are enough to make a working batch.

I give each batch a unique batch number and work up loads by batch. I keep records of all loadings by component and dimensional specs, and gun loaded for and results.
Four large 3 ring binders worth of records.

I uniform by batch before using. ie: full length size to the chamber brass will be used in, true primer pocket, trim to length, chamfer mouth and tumble.
New brass gets run thru the sizer too to true the mouth.

Sometimes I also outside turn the necks for uniformity if the thickness varies more than a couple thousandths.

Not as much a pain as it sounds, just what I have evolved into doing.

I believe that many brass mfrs will run multiple lines production into one batch. That will cause some extra variation. Were I in charge in this situation, I would make a separate batch off of each line and therefore expect less variation overall by batches and happier customers (for those paying attention).
==Yeah, I would tell the bean counter to keep his nose out of the process as I am sure he would like fewer lot numbers to log into the books.

jmho
Tim

Sam,

I would notify Nosler, since they say their brass is weight-sorted.

Looks like very different manufacturers made your two batches. As somebody already stated, they have changed vendors at least once in certain cartridges since starting to offer brass. (It might also interest some to know Nosler is now making SOME brass, after buying Silver State a couple of years ago and moving it to Oregon.)

Might also note that other companies sometimes buy brass from other companies, or make it for other companies. This can lead to variations in weight, though not usually as extreme as you experienced. And some of the companies making brass for each other might surpise you!

Has anybody compared brass weight to volume? Is there pretty much a straight line correlation with brass fired in the same chamber?

John,

With all this variation and companies making brass for each other, how do the ammunition companies produce safe ammo easily and profitably? Do they test very early (right at the start?) in the production process of each lot, with each specific lot of powder, brass, bullets, primer and adjust accordingly? I'd assume (rightly I would hope) that they are trying to achieve some sort of "maximum average" pressure/velocity in order to satisfy customers' expectations. Relatively easy enough for a reloader to "start low and work up", but that's not really conducive to running a production facility.

I used to work in production bakeries (think bread "factory") and know how dificult it can be when something changes in the "recipe". We once received a train car load of cake flour instead of bread flour. That was a nightmare as it takes a few hours of production to notice it won't work at all, even with adjustments to the recipe.

Thanks for any clarification.

Geno

Geno,

Yep, the ammo factories buy (or make) stuff in huge lots and "work up" a load with those particular components, especially brass and powder.

Usually (but not always) they're using a powder we wouldn't even recognize from the designation, and unlike the powders we buy, theirs aren't blended in some attempt to achieve lot-to-lot similarity in burn rate. It usually comes in barrels about the size of oil drums, shipped on at least one rail car and maybe several.

Sometimes the ammo company makes their own brass and sometimes it doesn't, so that goes into the new lod work-up too. All if this is made a little easier by the fact that SAAMI allows plus-or-minus 90 fps from the velocity standard for each cartridge and bullet weight.

Thanks for the replies, very informative.



I should get ahold of Nosler and let them know that their idea of weight sorted should maybe apply across the board for a given cartridge and not just an individual box.