Is it any good???Thanks ahead Huntz

The only issue I've ever had with it was in .243

It didn't like to eject from my son's Ruger. The extractor simply wouldn't hold it to the breechface. It would ride along and then just kind of stop/drop off over the other rounds in the rifle.

Pulling the bolt and snapping the brass into the extractor, holding it tight to the breech face there was considerable clearance between the extractor and the brass.

Did not have this problem with Federal or Winchester brass as it filled out that area nicely with no issues at all.

I'm sure I'm not describing it well.

Hornady brass is excellent.

kd

I use it in my .308 range gun with excellent results.

Hornady brass marked "frontier" is made by Winchester

The rest is made in Grand Island by the Hornady company and IMO it's as good as anyone's including the higher priced Nosler stuff.

I've got some horn 300wby from years ago when it was $24/50. Its got a little less case capacity than Norma but its wonderfully consistant and makes extremely accurate ammo even on the first loading.

I'm fixing to try some this summer in a 6 Creedmoor. Will spill my guts after I try them.

I've already tried the Hornady Creedmoor brass. It's about as good as it gets.

Hornady brass quality is excellent.

Their 6.5 Grendel brass sucks compared to the AA and Lapua brass.

But I'm reforming to 6 Rat...It's way too soft

I've used their 308 match brass, and it's quite good.

Huntz,

Guess I'm the oddball but the 375 Ruger brass I got from Hornady was all dinged, dented, and ugly. Wish I took pics of it but I cursed this brass and lack of other sources. Some case mouths and necks looked like they had been stepped on. IIRC, this was 2 boxes of 50 so its not the best sample size.

PS - not a writer.

Jason

The Creedmoor brass is excellent.

I had 400 rounds of .300 win mag brass though that was a different story. Some head stamped "Frontier" and some "Hornady"

It was all once fired brass. MANY of the primer pockets were so loose that they would not hold a new primer.

Ditched all of it.

Maybe more of a problem of the rifle it was shot in?

Sure it was only once fired?

13 responses re quality but no answer as to how makes it..

This wasn't good enough for you?

My apologies, I missed that.

One oughtta 13 ain't bad around here..........

I love the resultant thread titles on the home page when the site decides to cut them off because they are too long.

Someone on Saubier.com bought a bag of Remington .22 Hornet brass, and it was marked Hornady in the bag.......... Some stuff Hornady gets from Remington, which is one of the reasons you can't get any .17 Hornet ammo right now, Remington can't make it to the quality Hornady demands.

My current batch of Hornady 6.5 Creedmoor brass is excellent. I put it on par with Lapua and Norma. Something tells me Hornady isn't making this brass in house.

I've seen other Hornady brass in the past that didn't compare to this batch for the 6.5.....doesn't even look the same.

I just watched a video made by the outdoor channel giving a tour of the hornady plant. They were producing brass from raw materials. Don't know if the make all their brass, but they do indeed make some.
http://www.downrange.tv/blog/see-how-hornady-bullets-and-ammunition-are-made/28791/

Frontier Brass was made by another US company, Most of the remaining brass is made by Horndy and is generally of good quality as far as I can tell.

JB has said that the Creedmoor brass is made by a Scandinavian company. It looks it too, with its obvious annealing. If its norma, its a bargain as its cheaper and more available than most norma brass around here.

I've had issues with Hornady brass in both .220 Swift and .257 Roberts having rims that're too thick. I want to like it, but I've started avoiding it.

The only stuff I've used from them is 9.3x62 but it's been outstanding.

I've only used their .450/400 N.E. 3" brass. Its great stuff. Of course I can only compare it to the Kynoch factory loads as that is the only other stuff I have used for that rifle.

Three or four years ago I was finding 5 to 6 primed Hornady 45-70 cartridges in 100 count bags of unprimed Winchester 45-70 cases. Only issue was the Hornady's were about 1/10 inch shorter than Winchesters.

I suspect it's the lowest bidder at any given time.

noknees,

No, I did NOT say Hornady 6.5 Creedmoor brass is made in a Scandinavian country.

I've done two articles on the 6.5 Creedmoor, and in one I said "I wouldn't be surprised if the Hornady brass was made in Scandinavia," since it had many of the characteristics of Norma and Lapua brass. In the other I said it was made by Hornady, because that's what I'd found out.

Well,I bought 100 hornady in 270 so I guess I will find out when they get delivered.

THAT is good info. As stated earlier, my Creedmoor brass is good stuff. Now that I know they make it, I'll look at some of their other offerings!

I just got done testing a .338 Ruger RCM with a couple of factory loads, and the brass is very good quality. Since Hornady is the only company offering ammo, I'd bet they made the brass.

John, what about the 17 hornet brass? Some is great, some have loose,crimped primer pockets, and some have too shallow pockets. Those not-deep-enough ones, had to have been primed with some custom, thinner primers.....

To tell the truth, I don't know.

Have you seen problems with brass all along, or was it mostly early? I didn't get any ammo or brass until more than a year after the cartridge was announced, and my 250 cases have all been fine. I did hear of some problems with early brass, and wonder if they out-sourced the first stuff, before they got their own machinery set up to produce it.

I had 250 rounds of early factory loads that were fine. Some later stuff was garbage and some from last fall were fine. Mix of brass and loaded ammo. I wish I'da saved lot numbers.....

Darrik, Dober swears by HDY 308 Win Brass... however, will say, it's about the same price as Lapua (counter per 50) so I just stick with Lapua.

John

I bought 1000 rds almost exactly a year ago anticipating my order for a CZ-527 17HH rifle was in the US. I hoped to toss a scope and rings on it and go shoot Beldings last April 15th, but the gun never arrived.

Mine is a varmint, DBC'd the bore after cleaning it up and went out back and fired 5 rounds to cure the DBC. I had them marked with a sharpie, and the shooting was rapid fire- compared to squirrel shooting or bench testing, and it was 90+ degree's outside. Shot #5 produced a blackened primer around the line between the primer and brass, and when I knocked out the primers with a base and punch it came out much easier than the rest. Taking a new primer I could set it on my finger and with light pressure it went in half the depth.


Another person and I have concluded that the web expansion on the one (s) that had black edges ( I only had the one, so far) that the head expansion is more than those shot in cooler weather, and we suspect heat plus possibly too high pressure ammo is probably the issue. I shot another 25 rounds in cooler weather, on paper, and no issues with excessive pressure ( measured at the web- or 0.200 datum to be technical) and my groups are sub 1/2" at 100 yards. Another Dog shooter was hot in the battle and never noticed until he got home ( it was his friends gun) that the owner found pitting on the boltface from primer leakage. I have contacted Hornady, and they said they never would sell dangerous ammo, send me some fired cases and we'll look at it. I told them I don't want to ruin my gun, and his reply was sell it to someone else or take it back to the store I bought it from. Problem with that is, it was an internet order, during the time nobody local had any to buy.

From the other guy who did send brass in and had the boltface problem, he got 1 free box of ammo for his troubles. I will try and shoot it when cooler weather and reduce my cadence to keep the gun cool. One guy made a good suggestion, cool the ammo before shooting and see if that helps me shoot up what I believe is a too high pressure -heat sensitive powder so I can reload that once fired brass with a better powder choice. The other option is to reform some old hornet brass labeled as Herters and scandinavia as it has a base diameter the same as new 17hh ammo so case head expansion will be less than undersized ww brass.

Mine was pre- crimping the primers ( staking) . Last a few heard, the next batch of ammo will still be staked, even though they claim the primer pocket issue has been fixed. My only hope is they change powders or charge to have less pressure.

Allen

Allen,

Thanks for the extensive information.

One problem with anything on the Hornet case is going to be constant: There isn't much brass even around a small primer pocket, no matter how "heavy" the brass. Hence it's easy for the brass to expand and the primer leak. It's also one reason for short case life.

Saw this in the .22 Hornet myself years ago when first experimenting with various newer powders, and it's why I switched entirely to Li'l Gun for maximum velocity .22 Hornet loads: Even with a case full of powder and a 40-grain bullet, pressures are far lower than with "traditional" Hornet powders, so brass lasts a lot longer and primer pockets don't leak even on hot days.

The .17 Hornet has had two strikes on it from the beginning: Necking down a case tends to increase pressures, especially when looking for higher velocities, and the SAAMI max pressure is 50,000 psi. The .22 Hornet's is 49,000, but with the larger bore it's easy to get top velocities with much lower pressures when using powders like Li'l Gun and 1680, rather than traditional powders like 2400, H110, etc.

Unfortunately, there aren't many temp-resistant powders suitable to the .17 Hornet case. The only one of Hodgdon's Extremes that works at all is H322, and then only with 25-30 grain bullets instead of the 20's most people want to run because they're so fast.

Pressures are considerably lower with the 25's, however, around 36,000 psi, and velocities are around 3100-3200, depending on barrel length. But with 30's pressures are close to 50,000 again, though they wouldn't rise as much in hot weather with H322 as with other powders.

All the loading data shows the top-velocity 20-grain pressures are right up to the max, and none of the powders producing the top velocities is very temp-resistant, whether Li'l Gun or Accurate 1680 or whatever. Aside from simply reducing loads with those powders for hot-weather shooting, the best solution would probably be to use H322 with 25's.

I'm going to be doing some more experimenting this summer and will see what happens. My own .17 Hornet is one of the heavier barreled CZ's that puts every bullet weight into the same group at 100 yards, so the experimenting will be relatively easy.

Short case life and primer leakage on brass were why I sold my 22 Hornet and bought a 221 Fireball.That was with Win.brass I believe.Also those thin necks were easy to fold or collapse.

I haven't had short case life or leaky primer pockets with any .22 Hornet since switching to Li'l Gun. Mostly load 40-grain Ballistic Tips so the necks don't fold up either.

Do have a .221 Fireball as well, though....

My Bad... Must have mis-read or remembered

I was using H110 in The Hornet.

Yeah, that'll shorten case life. Li'l Gun pressures are considerably lower, even when pushing 40's at maximum velocities, running around 25-30,000 CUP. H110 pressures average around 42K.

With 40 grain ballistic tips I was getting 3,100 and some change out of a Ruger varmint with a 24" Tube.Sucker put the smack down on prairie rats.

The 6 Creedmoor brass from GAP is good looking stuff. I just need a rifle to shoot it...

Waiting on my 6 Creedmoor as well. Should be any time now...

MD--Do you have an article on the 17 Hornet in the works? If not , maybe consider doing one.

I got the Hornady 270 brass today from Grafs.I decided to check it out a little more than I usually do.First it comes in a cool shiny Red box.I weighed fifty of them and weight varied by much as 5 grains.Length wise they were more uniform varying around 5 thousands.I was using a New RCBS Universal hand primer.At first I thought that there was some thing wrong with the hand primer as I had a hard time seating the primers.It turned out that the pockets are super tight.I started taking a close look at the cases and noticed quiet a few were starting to corrode.This should not be on new unfired brass.So far,not a happy camper.I will shoot and see this weekend.

what primers? Some primers are harder than others and harder to seat. I know 210m's in Lapua brass is really hard to seat.

Well, I was going to skip this thread, but I have to admit that I had a very similar experience with Hornady 9.3x62 brass. The extreme spread in weights was actually half again more than you found in your .270 brass, and the necks were very uneven. I didn't bother to compare case lengths, but overall I was disappointed in the quality of the brass.

Winchester LR

smike308,

I have a handloading column on the .17 Hornet coming out in GUNS pretty soon. Also have an assignment on handloading the three factory .17 centerfires for HANDLOADER, which I'll do in the next month or two.

Huntz,

One trick I've used on tight primer pockets is chamfering them, using a standard case-mouth chamfering tool. I end up doing that a lot on Lapua and Norma brass, and seem to remember doing it on my last batch of Hornady 6.5 Creedmoor brass as well.

Thanks for the tip MD

Win brass has been a bear lately for me. Primer pockets are tough to seat and shallow. Only primer that works ez is the old win copper colored primers. Go figure LOL!

Hey Hunt...how much does the hornady brass weigh? Curious if it trends towards win or rem?

One of the factors here is that many if not most ammo companies sometimes make brass for each other. This happens for various reasons, but it's usually because one company gets a big order for a certain cartridge and spends so much time making it they don't have time to make other cases.

Handloaders like to generalize about the definitive characteristics of brass from certain companies, but in reality it's hard to be certain that any particular batch was made by the company stamped on the case heads.

And...that's a bit of the reason I was hoping for a wt figure from Huntz.
If primer pockets act like win and wt is a twin...I would have my suspicians.......but still no proof...lol!

Next time I go into , as my wife puts it(That hell hole)I will grab my notes and post it.

172.1 to 177,8 grains

JB--Thanks for the "heads-up". I'm looking forward to both of them.

Huntz, Usually Winchester primers seat easily in my WW and RP brass. Remington are easier yet in my experiences. Of course most of my primers are older stock but the Winchester are now all in the blue box.

If you have some Remington, try them if not let me know I have a good supply, both standard and magnum.

Are you sure? I recently asked a Hornady tech about frontier bass and he didn't mention this. He told me all Hornady brass was the same..

S&B makes Hornady brass for 9.3 X 62.

That's from the manager of one of Canada's largest gun shops. The reason he knows is because before ANYTHING can be imported into Canada, the exported must declare who made it and where it was made. He told me when I purchased Hornady 9.3 X 62 brass that it was made by S&B. I've used only that brand for the past three years.

Edit to add: for those who may not know who S&B are, it's a Czech company dating to the 19th Century. S&B stands for Sellier & Bellot. They make munitions and guns in addition to components and other products.

Bob

www.bigbores.ca

Newbie here. Was looking for info on who makes Hornady brass. Reason for wondering: At least some of the current cartridge cases that they use appear to be of European origin. In my own experience, .308 Win. There are details that give their origin away. Headstamp font slightly different. Extractor cut on rim different. Primer pocket very tight. So, it makes some sense to me when a previous poster says S&B. Component sources may change over time; older Hornady (and Frontier) brass appears to be of US origin.

Maybe S&B made some in the past, but my recent experience indicates otherwise. My Hornady 9.3X62 brass works just fine with a Lee shell holder, just like the .270, '06, and .308 among others. The S&B required the purchase of a separate RCBS shell holder. I've only used the S&B brass for reduced loads so I cannot say more than the dimensions are for sure different than the Hornady with the stuff I have.

Some of the Hornady .308 Win. brass has a lightly crimped primer, which may account for the very tight primer pocket noted by USARV1970. I suspected it by appearances, but it was so light and consistent compared to other crimped primers that I wasn't sure. An email to Hornady confirmed that a crimp is applied to some of their .308 Win. ammo.

He also asked in the body of his post if it was any good and everyone answered that which is EXCELLENT !

MD, have you tried AA2200 in the 17 Hornet? I only load the .22 Hornet at this time, not the .17, but if I were to make an educated guess, (and I am guessing ), AA2200 would be probably my first choice to try, based on performance of AA1680 in the larger bore of the .22 version. I'd guess it will probably fill the case before peak pressure is reached, but give decent velocity and good accuracy. Could be wrong though?

Yondering,

2200 works well in the .17 Hornet, though velocity is somewhat slower with 20-grain bullets than slightly faster-burning powders. In my rifle's 22-inch barrel, Western's maximum listed charge of around 13 grains gets just under 3500 fps, while Hornady's maximum load for 1680 gets 3600-3700, depending on the bullet. But 2200 is just about ideal for 25-grain bullets.

To tell the truth, I've found 1680 a little too slow-burning in either the .22 Hornet or K-Hornet. Accuracy is fine but velocity lags at least 200 fps behind Li'l Gun or Alliant 300 MP, because not enough 1680 will fit inside their cases. As an example, the widely-published load of 13.0 grains if L'il Gun gets 3000+ fps with 40-grain bullets in my Ruger No. 1B, the velocity varying on the particular bullet. With Western's listed maximum of 14.0 grains of 1680 (about all that will fit in the Hornet case) velocity is around 2700 fps.

I have found the same with 1680, about 2800 fps with the 40gr V-max in my #1, but it's also the most accurate load for my rifle so I use it. I'm using 14.5 gr and the bullet is barely seated in the case, but still a long ways off the lands.

Yeah, the throat in mine is the same way.

I ran an experiment a few years ago with a Lee Loader and Li'l Gun. Did most of the benchrest-shooter type stuff to the cases, though sorted them for consistent neck thickness rather than outside-turning them, then loaded them in the Lee hand tool to keep every thing as straight as possible. Got the 5-shot group average down to under 1/2" at 100 yards, using 40-grain Ballistic Tips. The best single group measured .43" but four were in .18". With ammo cranked out on a press the same load goes around 3/4" for 10-round groups, shot as fast as I can aim them well.

The only problems I've had with Hornady brass was with .480 Ruger. The brass between their factory loads for 325 gr and 400 gr XTP's was different, needed different shell holders. The 400 gr brass also showed over pressure signs, mainly sticky extraction, and expanded to the point it would not go into a chamber after firing. I have to use a Lee Factory Crimp Die to keep from having a "hump" at the bullet entry point that keeps the shell from fully seating in the chamber. Hornady told me all their .480 brass was the same, but it just ain't so. I use Starline now whenever possible.

Mike