Home Forums Reloading Big Game Rifles Remington brass changed since they were acquired?

I would take Remington brass over Win. brass any day. I have been reloading Rem. brass for 35 years with no problems. I am a hunter and not a match shooter. Federal are too soft for me. I love Lapua brass and have had great results with Nosler brass. Lake city brass is all I use in 5.56 AR's

I used to buy Remington 222 Mag brass whenever they would make a run of them 35 Whelen too).

The brass had two different head stamps, so far as the stamping equipment went. One typeset was great, the other was nasty. By and large, and lucky for me, I had a majority of the good stuff with a certain identifiable headstamp which made sorting bulk brass easier after having several thousand pieces.


The 35 Whelen brass needed fired once or twice, but ironed out decently. It think it was crushed or partially ran over by something.

Remington 222 brass that I've come across since 1993 has been trash; even if you skim neck turn the brass, its never as good as stuff with even case necks. Oddly, Winchester 222's have been stellar for me, often rivaling Laupuas and Herters for concentric ammo.

The R-P 308's I've ran across have been pretty good, but for some reason their UMC labelled stuff in factory rounds is usually where I see considerable variance and I keep that stuff in the offhand practice ammo.

I've been a R-P brass slut since the 90's. It's always been great until recently. I bought some once fired stuff for a new to me rifle and that schidt is way out of spec. Neck thickness variances causing poor run out and big TIR numbers. As much as .012" TIR. I bought 2 lots of once fired brass for this rifle, both R-P, but one lot is real bad. I've been sorting out and even throwing away some that is real bad. I've never had to turn my necks, but this brass would qualify for that treatment for sure. I also agree with the poster that said Remington UMC brass was really bad. I have some old UMC 30-06 brass that is paper thin. Kind of like new WW brass. Its so thin that velocities are slower in that brass by 100 fps. compared to other brass. When I first saw that, I couldn't hardly believe it. Anyone here want some UMC 30-06 primed with CCI200's??

I have a res box of 7x57 brass for reloading purposes. The head stamp says RP 7MM. I wonder just how old that stuff is. Looks like good brass too.
PJ

More than 60 years old possibly. More likely made from 1960-1962.. Before 1960, Remington brass was stamped with UMC on it..

I've had pretty poor results with the newer RP brass. I got a new-ish couple of green bags of 308 Win last year with a bunch of the primer pockets so loose the primers were falling out. Not after firing... just falling out with handling during loading.

Some 10-ish year old 250 Savage RP I picked up last year has been all over the place for dimensions, some of it was so overdiameter near the head it wouldn't even fit in the chamber.

I'll be staying away from it once what I have is toast.

There’s a strong possibility that was some pre-bankruptcy stuff. I have a POC at the Remington ammo plant and he said Vista has revamped a few things and have new machines, but he did not specify for what.

Probably some new vending machines in the break room

Ha ha. That is funny. Sad to hear about the new R-P brass being that bad. I have not bought any new R-P brass for a long time!!! Generally just buying once fired stuff, for harder to get brass like my new 300 RSAUM. I've used a lot of R-P brass over the years though. Most of it being 90's stuff and it was excellent.. I have bought new WW and that schidt is garbage. When I buy new brass, I go with Lapua, Horandy, Sig Sauer and Starline. Those are the better companies that get my money when I'm buying new brass.. Remington and Winchester: Hell no..

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I'm a bit skittish about Starline. For many years I'd used their handgun brass to very good effect, so when they started into bottleneck rifle cartridges I was interested. I tried some 243 and 308 Winchester and it was a letdown. The necks were not very uniform.

I may try some again since some time has passed and several people here whose opinions I respect have reported positively on the brass they got.

That's been my experience with Starline as well... excellent handgun/straight wall brass, bottlenecks, not so much. I haven't tried any recently, though.

I've been using it for years in my 6.5 creedmoors. Its worked very well in 6 different rifles. Bought one lot of 500 and am still running it. Everyone I know has had no issues with it as well. Go by what you want or be a man and try it for yourself.. You a leader or a follower? I guess you answered that question already.

I noticed the same thing with a couple of bags of 6.5 Creedmoor brass I bought.

I've been buying premium brass lately as they all start about $1 per case for any.

Having said that I have mostly Remington brass, which many I've had for 50 years or more.

I started measuring the weights on various brass earlier this year.

Here's the SD on weights:

308 LC Match - 2.03
308 Hornady Match - 6.65
308 Lapua 1.294
BHA Match 1.135
280AI Win 1.825
R-P 280 1.831
280AI LC 1.048 (LC 30-06 brass formed to 280 AI - I threw away the heavier and lighter cases though. Maybe as much as 40%)
Peterson 280 AI 0.7475


Judging by this data, the worst by far was the Hornady Match. The best = Peterson


I don't see that Remington brass is awful. In fact, much of my accuracy loads were with Remington. But then there are always haters.

I'd put a tube mic to the case necks before I'd get out a scale.

Maybe so! He did confirm that the new Cor-loct tipped bullets are not made in house by Remington though. Said a few things that used to be made in house are no longer.

That is another option. From what I’ve read the weights of cases are a good indication of quality.

Weight variation is an indicator of capacity variation. Reasonably small variations in capacity, like reasonably small variations in powder charges, won't have much effect on a well developed load until the range gets well out there and you start to see vertical from velocity variations.

Bad case necks, even on cases that weigh exactly the same, generally make for crooked assembled cartridges and uneven bullet release which screw you at all distances.

I watched a video recently of a guy that attempted to determine if brass weight was an indicator of volume. He concluded that brass weight wasn’t much of an indicator of anything but brass weight. Neck thickness seems to be a more useful thing to obsess over. Some may turn them with good resolution.

I am currently working one batch of .270 Win brass from Remington. So far, I’ve lost three of 50 to split necks with a mere five firings. I am annealing every firing and expanding necks with an expander die vs the expander ball.

So far, primer pockets have been tight.

On the other hand, I have a lot of 1,000 pieces of Ram stamp .260. I started with 400 for PRS competition. I sorted and ran in runs of 50. Most have fired 10-12x and are on their second barrel. One lot 50 has been fired 23x amazingly and is still holding up great. That batch shoots really well and I’ve used it for F-Class over and over.