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.

The only new brass I have purchased recently was Remington, 300 new factory primed 223. It was all good, except for one, seems this guy managed to get past quality control more than once. I hope the ones that are primed have the flash holes in them, LOL.

I've seen that too. I do, however, like the really old W/W brass marked "W-W super". That particular brass is as old as I am though. When I started reloading in the early 90's, my friends told me to stay away from Winchester brass because it was garbage. Since then, I've mainly bought R-P and have had excellent luck with it. I did however buy a couple bags of new Winchester brass when that's all I could find for a new 270 Winchester and a 348w. That stuff was not real good. They were all over the place on length and most had to be trimmed. However, if buying new now day's I'd probably just spend the extra money on NORMA. I've had stellar results with the newer Norma. Hornady brass seems to be alright from what I've experienced. I don't like Federal brass though. Mainly bad primer pockets... Since the OP is asking for Winchester or Remington, I'd undoubtedly choose Remington (R-P)...

I agree.. They better be careful though, using chitty brass in a Portuguese rifle, they are apt to shoot their balls off while aiming at the feet...

Lapua
Winchester
Nosler
Norma
Hornady
Remington

My favs in that order

I like Win brass


Federal is garbage, i wont buy it.

I've always used Remington brass and it has worked well for me. However as of late it's getting very hard to find. I was running low on 25.06 rem brass and resized rem 30.06 brass and that's what i'm currently using. I also use rem brass in my daughters .260 but recently picked up some Lapua for a great price from a guy who sold his .260. When I run out of rem brass i'll give the lapua a try in her rifle.

I've never used Winchester brass but I have several friends who do and love it. It's my understanding that Black Hills uses Winchester brass in their factory ammo so it must be good brass because they produce some darn good stuff.

Never had an issue with either. All the Remington .30/06 brass at my house becomes .338/06 though.

Any opinions on Silver State Armory (SSA) brass? I just saw some yesterday at Sportsmans Warehouse. Bag of 100 for $50. (30/06)

It's been awhile but the bag of SSA 308 brass I bought had bad neck walls, about .003" thickness variation from one side of the neck to the other.

Hopefully they've improved.

Weight isn't very uniform on the 308 brass that I bought either but that goes hand in hand with the neck issues.

The SSA 6.8 SPC brass I got several years ago was not uniform at all and the primer pockets aren't the toughest I've seen. I've heard the same story repeated several times. Hopefully Nosler is correcting their QC issues and the current brass is better, but I'm going to let others be the guinea pigs.

I haven't been in the market lately but $50/100 doesn't sound like that good of a deal for '06 brass. Prvi Partizan is good brass and can usually be found for a reasonable price.

Both are good