AU338MAG,
Twenty years ago typical Remington and Winchester brass was pretty good. I used to sort it for even neck thickness, no more than .001" from one side of the neck to the other, and end up only rejecting 10-15% of the cases. But that changed over the next decade or so, to the point where sometimes I only found 15% of the cases met my standards--so I started using better brass, such as Lapua.
But in recent years quite a few other good brands have appeared--and around 4-5 years ago I also discovered Hornady brass had become much better dimensionally. In fact, I bought some of their .275 Rigby brass, partly to test one of the new Rigby rifles for an article. Didn't buy that rifle (even with the writer's discount it would have been more than I wanted to pay!), but a year or so later did trade into one of Ruger's "African" Hawkeyes in .275, which shot very well using the Hornady brass, as around .7 inch with 140 Partitions. Have also had recent luck with Hornady 7mm Remington Magnum brass, which turned out to basically match quality--and while it cost more than Remington or Winchester, it wasn't nearly as much as Lapua or Nosler.
There are some other good brands that aren't an arm and a leg, which I mentioned in an article for HANDLOADER a couple years ago, and republished in somewhat different form as a chapter in GUN GACK III.
I have bought some of the 275 Rigby brass but have not had a chance to try it out. I changed jobs and moved to another city and my shooting time has been severely limited over the last couple of years. Winchester brass used to be good years ago but the last couple of batches I've bought have not been good. 300 WM and especially the 7x57 brass has been the worst I've ever measured. No technique can make bad brass good.
Nosier brass has been very good in my experience. I bought Nosler 257 Roberts brass about 10 years ago when I bought a Bob and is haven't even had to trim it through 5 or 6 loads. Only compliant I've had with their brass is the primer pockets usually need a good uniforming or I can't seat the primers properly.
I don't want to get into an argument with you about the concentricity issue. I certainly have less experience than you, but after spending years sorting ammo by bullet runout, I never saw any significant difference in accuracy between low run out and those with more than.003 runout. It's just an opinion based on my experience. I don't expect benchrest accuracy from my hunting rifles, but I do expect and can achieve MOA or better from all of my rifles with one or two exceptions. My 35 Whelan AI is a 1-1/2 MOA gun, but that's not bad and it's certainly not a long range gun with 250 gr RN bullets. Guns that I will use for long range hunting I want to get 1/2 MOA accuracy and can with a handful of guns. When I refer to long range I'm thinking out to 600 yards, which is a self imposed limit which I will only try if conditions are right.
