Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Winchester or Remington 30/06 brass?

I don't usually buy new brass, but I've got three 30/06's I'm loading for now, and I really need to stock up on some new brass. I like the Nosler and the Lapua stuff, but I can't afford it right now. I'm looking at Winchester brass at Midway for $25 for 50. Then Cabelas has Remington brass for the same price. I know the Winchester brass has terrible reviews on Midway. Remington reviews on Cabelas are mixed. I actually would prefer Winchester since that's mainly what I have now and what I've been loading for years. But if it's total crap maybe I should try something else. Is Remington better quality brass? The other option I see that Midway has is the Hornady, and it's only $10 more per 50, and as pretty good reviews. Maybe I should switch to Hornady? The other option I've found is online sales of once fired brass. I found once fired Remington brass for $38 and it's been tumble/polished. Maybe once fired brass is better than buying new? How do I know it's only been fired once? Any advice would help. I've just been using the same Winchester brass for probably 15 years. But in all those years I didn't shoot the 30/06 that much so haven't needed to replenish my brass. I'm beginning to do more reloading now and testing loads at long range so I'll be going through a lot more brass than I have in the past.

I use pull-down F-C military brass I got in boxes of 1k. Originally I got them to reload for Garands and Highpower matches. I set aside 300 of the same lot for my Husqvarna hunting rifle and I'm set for life on 30-06 hunting cases.
No, there's no 2 grain penalty for using mil 30-06 cases, they fall withing the variances of commercial brass of different brands as to internal volume.
Advantage: hundreds of cases all of one lot, match prepped, tumbled to look like new commercial.

I have. Quite a few Remington brass. I see no problems with them. With Hornady at $10/50, I go with them. That price seems to be the "blue light special".

I'm sending you a pm.

Winchester

Winchester brass is better than Remington? In what way? Go to Midway and look at the reviews of Winchester brass. Not good.

I've never had a problem with either Rem or Win in multiple calibers. Win usually has a touch more capacity. In a hunting rifle you are unlikely to determine a difference in performance from either. I don't know what the reviews say but I wouldn't hesitate to go with either. I also use Hornady, Nosler, Norma, and Lapua brass and except for my competition rifles I can't see a need for the premium stuff.

I've run into a lot of crap WW brass in the last few years.

I've been using mostly Winchester brass for the last thirty years and never had a problem with it either. But I also haven't bought any new Winchester brass for probably about 10 years. So that's why I'm questioning the quality of the brass they're selling now. I did buy a bag of Remington 30/06 brass at Cabela's the other day. It was $24.99 for 50. They also had Winchester brass for $23.99 but I went with the Remington due to all the negative reviews of Winchester brass that I've read lately. I haven't had a chance to inspect the new brass yet but I'll post an update to this thread when I do.

what are they saying is wrong with the Win brass?

Some first hand experience:

Cracks and/or sharp folds, not dents but folds, in the shoulder of new cases.

Improper annealing, leading to neck cracks after one or two reloadings.

Slag in the brass material itself, like a bullet cast from dirty metal not fluxed and skimmed.

Primer pockets well out of spec for depth and/or excessive radius between the bottom and side walls of the pocket.

Flash holes well off center and/or punched through at odd angles with excessive burrs inside the case.

New case mouths far out of square.

90% of my brass is Winchester, but I have not purchased any recent made brass by them. Previous brass that I purchased usually had 2-5 pieces that needed to be tossed due to deformed mouths that could not be sized properly. There would be a "U" shape that was cut out.

Between their sloppy QC on brass and producing batches and batches of primers that pierce too easily and have to be returned, Winchester (Olin) is really shooting themselves in both feet.

I wonder if they're using a BACO Model 70 for that?

I use Federal, Winchester ,and Remington brass. With each I use different bullets, Federal 180 gr Speer, Winchester , 180 gr Partitions and with the Remington 220 gr Round Nose. Can't say I have seen any appreciative difference.
I have not bought any brass in 20,may 30 years. All of this was given to me by shooters that don't reload. All have been reloaded/annealed several times.

My memory isn't all that good,but I can't remember throwing any brass away because of failure, except way back when I was shooting a7 mag.
I am still shooting some LC 69 bras got back in 69 time frame in my .308

bdan68,

If I were looking for new .30-06 brass and not wanting to spend the bucks for Nosler/Norma/Lapua, the brand to try would be Hornady.

Thanks for your advice.

I'd agree with MD;
Hornady then maybe Federal. Might also try PRVI if you can find any.

Olin ain't using anything my friend, they sold their cartridge manufacturing business about a decade ago, and powder manufacturing prior to that.

They buy on a least-cost bidding process.
Last fall at least some was coming out of Israel.

Thanks for that correction but the serious undertone of my facetious remark still stands.

Someone is soiling the Winchester components brand reputation via poor quality control. A company can produce quality goods for decades but if the word gets out that a particular brand name is associated with poor quality the reputation of that brand name is tarnished immediately and for a very long time. And that is what I see happening with the Winchester components.

I didn't realize they were farming out their component production. Explains a lot of the issues that are showing up recently. It's been at least ten years since I bought Win brass so I hadn't been exposed to the lowest bidder.

In the past few years I have seen more defects in Win brass than Remington.

I still buy it, as Win and Hornady is all that is available up here. Have not seen Rem brass for a long time.

I did not want to like Hornady brass at first, but it has been a good product for me so far.