Home Forums Reloading Varmint Rifles 220 Swift brass

I have not had a 220 Swift in over 20 years and I find myself with one again. What brass are you using? I see where I can get Hornady or Norma, do you have a preference? Thanks.

Norma all day long.

Thanks. I was leaning towards Norma.

I have been shooting a 220 Swift since I was a kid and have used Winchester, Hornady and Norma brass.........All my Hornady and most of my Winchester hit the garbage can years ago, so I agree Norma all day long.

I've had good results and good case life with Winchester. I've also been using some once-fired Frontier (Hornady?). It seems to work fine, but it's only been loaded a couple of times.

Barm: I currently have 10 heavy barrel Varmint Rifles in 220 Swift on-line right now. Only ONE uses the Norma brass - I wish I could find more of it!
If you can find the Norma brass I would advise you use it and store some up - if at all possible.
Over the years I have used several different brands of brass in my Swifts including Remington, Federal, Winchester, Hornady, Frontier and the Norma - I have actually been happy with all of these brands. But I am a notorious "non-hotrodder" when it comes to my handloading - so no issues with brass life and I was able to obtain good accuracy with all brands. The Norma brass just happens to be used now in one of my most accurate 220 Swift Rifles (Remington 40 XB-KS single shot) so I can't declare it to be the best accuracy wise - I do know it was consistent in weight when I first started using them.
Best of luck to you with the new Swift.
Long live the 220 Swift.
Hold into the wind
VarmintGuy

Used Winchester cases for a lot of years but the neck thickness was terribly inconsistent. After turning the necks they provided very good accuracy.
Norma cases are great, no need to monkey with them.
Haven't used Hornady but judging by the very consistent neck thickness of their 275 Rigby and .300 H&H brass I would not hesitate to try them.

I have one 220S, a custom R 700 with 26” Shilen barrel. It’s a coyotes nightmare.
I’ve only used Win brass in it for 20 plus years and it’s performed just fine.

I'd like to know just how many people who recommend Norma brass have actually used it, because I have some PPC brass that is straight up junk.

I had always heard it was good, even if it was expensive. I just followed along with the idea since shooters whose opinions I respected always told me so. Have some in .22-250 that was given to me that I need to check, and the aforementioned 6PPC brass. Case wall thickness variation of .006, and that's the majority of it, with none better than .002. My Winchester .223 brass beats the brakes off of Norma at 1/3rd the price.

Well let’s see. 223, 243, 25.06 and 220 Swift are the calibers I use or have used Norma brass. 223 and Swift get the most use. It’s good stuff. As far as the Swift in particular anything other than Norma has been seasonal runs since 05-06 in other words we make it when we want to. Swift being a popular round in Europe Norma was usually in stock.
As far as bad runs, I bought 200 rounds Lapua blue box 223 match that was pure junk. I had a higher cull rate than Remington or Winchester.

Anyone can have a bad run of brass. Hell, I hear all the time about how bad Winchester is, and have never gotten a single batch in any caliber that could be called bad. What about the Lapua was bad? A Swift shooter is kinda stuck with using anything they can get. I really doubt lapua is going to make any. At least they won't be as long as people are neck down 6.5 Creed to .22.