Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles tell me about brass

Basically I'm a beginner and I realize lapua, nosler, and Norma are probably a lot better than Winchester and Remington. But are they really worth it for the price over Remington and Winchester brand?

The answer depends on what you're shooting it in and what you're trying to accomplish.

For example, a friend's Rem. M7 in 308 won't resolve fine differences in ammunition the way my 40X or 5R Milspec will.

Well I'm reloading for hunting rifles 243,270,280,30-06,25-06,7mm-08

For hunting rifles I say no they are not worth it and properly prepped you can do just fine with Winchester and Remington. You may get more life from the higher priced brass but that's debatable.

For those purposes, Remchester will be fine. For those of us with the same requirements who are just a bit OCD, we use (at least I do) Lapua. And brass can make a difference - I have a pair of .260 Rems that taught me that. Winchester .243 brass necked up didn't shoot worth a darn and it was done on a K&M mandrel in a Coax press. However, .260 Rem. Remington brass and .260 Rem Lapua brass in the same guns with the same loads produced 1/2 MOA groups.

I wish Lapua made 7mm-08 brass.

Agreed!

Some 300 Win Mag brass would be fantastic as well.

Is nosler and Norma a little better than say Remington and Winchester?

Nosler is made by Norma. Having used all 5 brands in various calibers my ranking goes like this
1. Norma
2. Lapua
3. Nosler
4. Remington, quality is inconsistent lately, but better than WW
5. Winchester, used to be good, now it's pretty much junk. Poor Q.C

IMO

Oh yeah. The 308 and 243 I've tried lately has been terrible.

I cannot speak about 300 WM or 7mm08 cases, but Prvi Partizan makes good brass. I have it in 308 Win, 22 Hornet, 7.62x39mm, 223, 303 British and 30-06. Granted, I bought loaded cartridges, but the brass was better than Rem or Win.

Grafs used to sell Prvi brass, as did other companies.

Edited to add: http://www.prvipartizan.com/cases.php

They show 300WMM and 7mm08 cases listed as available as components.

I have not bought new brass for a while now, so I speak from brass acquired 6 to 30 years ago and is still being used.
For hunting rifles, Rem Win and FC brass has worked just fine for me. Some nib to some range brass. My one experience with new Lapua brass was way less than the price warranted.

-Don't mix your head stamps.
-Uniform a batch of brass, then weight sort to set out the lights and heavies.
-Size to just fit your chamber.
-Keep your brass batches separate and identified.
-Work up your loads in a safe manner.
-Remember that each and every rifle, barrel and chamber are different and if you pay attention to the brass, each gun will have an expected life for the brass you run thru it.
-Deer don't read brass head stamps.
jmho
Tim

Terrible how? I'm guessing beat up but maybe great difference in weight case to case? I hope it's not too bad, just bought 3 bags of WW after it was unavailable for so long.

I found some Remington here and was just wondering if anyone had trouble with it

Folds in the shoulders.

Specks of crap in the brass, like the base material was contaminated and put into production anyway.

Necks splitting after one firing.

Primer pockets not formed correctly, in particular being too shallow and having too large a radius at the bottom corner.

Being made with the smallest body diameter that I've measured just ahead of the extraction groove.

I started out using Rem brass 'cause that's what the little reloading shop that I traded at carried. With exceptions, I've pretty much stuck with it. Over the years, it has served me well. Despite post from various experts about loss of QC, etc.
I tried one batch (100) of Norma 22-250 brass. That example of one was absolutely horrible. I could not even approach the load I was using in Rem brass without stretched primer pockets and split necks. By the end of the competitive season, I had 27 of the original 100 left.
Lapua is a different story. If you don't want to spend any time on case prep, Lapua is the brass to buy. You can usually load with little or no case prep. If you are competing where a 1/8th"
smaller group or a couple of X's is the difference between winning or going home empty handed, Lapua will help you.
That being said, however, if you are loading for a hunting rifle, other than bragging rights, the Lapua isn't worth the difference over a domestic brand. And too, Rem brass, with a bit of case prep, can be highly competitive.
I'm not a shill for Remington, it's just that what I've used the most of.

I've used some of the PPU brass with mixed results. On the 7mm-08, everything was fine. Shot just like the hornady and Rem brass I had.
The 243 was a different story. Out of a bag of 100 cases, 61 had primer pockets that were the wrong size. Somewhere between the size of a LR primer and a SR primer. In addition, the flash holes were off center or crooked (aimed towards the side of the case as much as 20 degrees).

Swifty52, have you any thoughts on the Hornady brass?

Bbear, I quit using Hornady brass quite a number of years ago. Probably low to mid 90's.
I found it didn't last quite as long as Rem or WW. Had necks split after 3 to 4 firings. It also seemed to be quite hard right off the bat. I have some once fired that were given to me over the years from people that didn't hand load, some as recently as last fall and my opinion hasn't changed.

As far as R.P lately, its not the case necks out of round or cosmetics per se, its been that case weight and lengths have been such as some bags I have culled up to 30% due to weight variations of +- 10 grains and a length variation of +- 10 thou. whereas I have bags of R.P in various calibers 4-5 years old that are not bad at all. In fact uniformity is very good. With cull rates like that its almost as expensive as the top 3 on my list.

WW used to be very good. But as an example, I bought 4 bags of 220 Swift brass and out of 2 bags 70% were 15-20 thou under trim length and the necks were so thick they wouldn't even chamber in the rifle, plus they took jacket material off the bullet when seating, even ruined a couple trying to seat the bullet.

This is just the opinion of a picky old SOB who remembers what it was like to get a good quality product for my hard earned money.

Some of you are experiencing the ebb and flow of quality control. It will swing back again in the future.

I did use Winchester many years ago, but switched to Euro brass - Lapua, PP and Norma - because it was cheaper up here and better quality.

The quality exception was Igman. I had ongoing problems with primer pockets in various cartridges.

I've used the gambit of manufactures brass. I generally don't have too much problems. I keep my number of reloads / firings to 5x. As a general rule I usually fine two charges in the spectrum that give me a good group and I go with the lower of the two.

I did have one batch of Wolf brass only go 3x on the firings before I chucked it. I sent 10 rounds to Nosler after 5 firings and they said it could have gone another 10 at the pressure I was loading it to.

YMMV

HaYen