View previous topic :: View next topic |
Author |
Message |
hunterjoe21 Super Member
Joined: Mar 30, 2007 Posts: 1486 Location: Miles City, Montana
|
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2017 9:29 pm Post subject: New Brass |
|
Thoughts on new brass...
I've usually purchased Winchester brass in the past. It seems to me that their QC has been in the dumper as of late. From my experience, somewhere around 5% of new cases are unusable, due to various reasons including extremely loose primer pockets all the way up to an actual dent in in a shoulder so deep that I was amazed that the case in question was not rejected at some point in the manufacturing process.
In this part of the world, new Winchester brass seems to be in short supply,perhaps due to their poor QC measures. Hornady and Nosler are readily available however. Hornady brass is priced roughly 1.5 times the price of Winchester and Nosler is around double.
Does anyone have any experience with Hornady or Nosler?
Should I just deal with Winchester's poor quality and accept that 5% may be rejects?
_________________ My 1911 is more effective than your 911. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Gil Martin Super Member
Joined: Jan 28, 2005 Posts: 1837 Location: Schnecksville, PA
|
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2017 5:40 am Post subject: Re: New Brass |
|
It depends. I have been using Winchester brass for years without any significant issues. If I encountered 5 percent defects in new brass, I would contact Winchester customer service and address those concerns.
Not sure who makes Hornady brass, but again I have used it with no problems. Nosler brass is OK, but I only use it when I pick up once-fired brass at the range. So it depends. All the best...
Gil
_________________ Gil |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Dawgdad Super Member
Joined: Feb 08, 2006 Posts: 1065 Location: On the Prairie
|
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2017 7:55 am Post subject: Re: New Brass |
|
IN .223 brass - Winchester quality has recently improved from what the other shooters are telling me but it is not the stellar product form 8-10 years ago.
Nosler and Hornady .223 brass I have used were top quality stuff.
What calibers are you looking for?
_________________ Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be a convenience store, not a government agency... |
|
Back to top |
|
|
slimjim Super Member
Joined: May 16, 2009 Posts: 8314 Location: Fort Worth TX
|
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2017 3:48 pm Post subject: Re: New Brass |
|
Nosler makes some quality brass. The Winchester I have is about 8 years old so maybe I have some of the good stuff.
_________________ "To anger a conservative, lie to him. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth." - Theodore Roosevelt
"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein |
|
Back to top |
|
|
hunterjoe21 Super Member
Joined: Mar 30, 2007 Posts: 1486 Location: Miles City, Montana
|
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2017 4:16 pm Post subject: Re: New Brass |
|
Dawgdad wrote: |
IN .223 brass - Winchester quality has recently improved from what the other shooters are telling me but it is not the stellar product form 8-10 years ago.
Nosler and Hornady .223 brass I have used were top quality stuff.
What calibers are you looking for? |
I was looking to pick up some more .243 Win brass and start working up a new load. I have some Barnes 80 gr TTSX, 85 gr TSX, and 95 gr Nosler Partitions.
_________________ My 1911 is more effective than your 911. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Vince Site Admin
Joined: May 25, 2005 Posts: 15701 Location: Brisbane AUSTRALIA
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
hunterjoe21 Super Member
Joined: Mar 30, 2007 Posts: 1486 Location: Miles City, Montana
|
Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2017 4:27 pm Post subject: Re: New Brass |
|
I picked up a box of Nosler .300 Win Mag brass sometime last year and was impressed with it out of the box, but haven't used any yet. My original thought was to use it for my hunting loads, but at $75.00 per 50, I would hate to accidentally leave some behind in the field.
The only Hornady brass I have is once fired, mostly by me, but some that were picked-up at the range.
Then there's the subject of Federal brass, but that may have already been discussed in a different thread (I have a LOT of it).
_________________ My 1911 is more effective than your 911. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
dhc4ever Super Member
Joined: May 26, 2011 Posts: 2944 Location: Ipswich, Queensland Australia
|
Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 9:39 am Post subject: Re: New Brass |
|
Interesting.
I have had zero problems with Winchester brass, or now I think of it Federal brass and I have a fair number of both in various calibers.
I haven't used new hornady or nozler.
I do however have 100 Lapua .308 ready to use once the 200 or so Federal I have in use vapourizes or whatever it is that Federal does.
Cheers
_________________ Pete
Dont do anything you wont like explaining to the paramedics.............. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Dawgdad Super Member
Joined: Feb 08, 2006 Posts: 1065 Location: On the Prairie
|
Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 11:43 am Post subject: Re: New Brass |
|
I have loaded a bunch of older Winchester, Remington (RP), Hornady and Frontier .243. no issues with any of it. Not much difference in case weight or capacity either.
_________________ Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be a convenience store, not a government agency... |
|
Back to top |
|
|
slimjim Super Member
Joined: May 16, 2009 Posts: 8314 Location: Fort Worth TX
|
Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 12:01 pm Post subject: Re: New Brass |
|
hunterjoe21 wrote: |
I was looking to pick up some more .243 Win brass and start working up a new load. I have some Barnes 80 gr TTSX, 85 gr TSX, and 95 gr Nosler Partitions. |
I shot all the monolithic bullets through the .243, e.g., TSX, TTSX, GMX, and E-Tip. The E-Tip never worked in any caliber (too long in the .243). The TTSX and GMX were death rays right out of the chocks. The TSX however, in .243, I couldn't get to group under 2 MOA no matter what powder, brass or COAL I tried. If you find a sweet spot for the 85 TSX, please let me know as they have done great in other calibers for me.
_________________ "To anger a conservative, lie to him. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth." - Theodore Roosevelt
"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein |
|
Back to top |
|
|
slimjim Super Member
Joined: May 16, 2009 Posts: 8314 Location: Fort Worth TX
|
Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 12:05 pm Post subject: Re: New Brass |
|
dhc4ever wrote: |
I do however have 100 Lapua .308 ready to use once the 200 or so Federal I have in use vapourizes or whatever it is that Federal does. |
The Federal Brass I used in .270 and .308 gave me problems. It has too much springs back during resizing. When I set-up my dies for Rem and Win brass, the resized Federals won't chamber cleanly 1/2 the time. In the 6.8mm, Federal Brass is the first to get scrapped, often only getting 3 reloads. Because of this, I stopped using it.
_________________ "To anger a conservative, lie to him. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth." - Theodore Roosevelt
"The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don't do anything about it." - Albert Einstein |
|
Back to top |
|
|
hunterjoe21 Super Member
Joined: Mar 30, 2007 Posts: 1486 Location: Miles City, Montana
|
Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 5:56 pm Post subject: Re: New Brass |
|
slimjim wrote: |
hunterjoe21 wrote: |
I was looking to pick up some more .243 Win brass and start working up a new load. I have some Barnes 80 gr TTSX, 85 gr TSX, and 95 gr Nosler Partitions. |
I shot all the monolithic bullets through the .243, e.g., TSX, TTSX, GMX, and E-Tip. The E-Tip never worked in any caliber (too long in the .243). The TTSX and GMX were death rays right out of the chocks. The TSX however, in .243, I couldn't get to group under 2 MOA no matter what powder, brass or COAL I tried. If you find a sweet spot for the 85 TSX, please let me know as they have done great in other calibers for me. |
Load data from Barnes has changed since they published their last book. They used to recommend Ramshot Hunter for use in the .243 with the TSX, so bought a pound of that. I guess I should have checked their website before I went to the store, they now recommend Superformance for both the TTSX and the TSX.
Which powder did you use for your TTSX load?
Also, in another thread, you mentioned using magnum primers for everything. Does that include the .243 or were you limiting that to the .270 and 6.8?
_________________ My 1911 is more effective than your 911. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
hunterjoe21 Super Member
Joined: Mar 30, 2007 Posts: 1486 Location: Miles City, Montana
|
Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2017 8:32 pm Post subject: Re: New Brass |
|
I checked my "brass drawer" again tonight. I have right around 300 pcs of Federal .308. I bought 200 of them from a small shop back in Ohio. The owner claimed they were all Federal Gold Metal Match that he had fired himself. I have no idea if there's a difference in the GMM brass vs. their other stuff, but the price was right. I gave him $25 for the lot. Figured if I got 2-3 loading out of them I couldn't go wrong.Decapped, primer pockets cleaned, tumbled, and there they sit.
70 pcs of RP once fired
38 Hornady
47 Winchester
And I found some PMC brass I forgot about. 60 pcs. I don't know who makes it for PMC, but with all the other stuff I have, if it went in the scrap bucket, I probably would never miss it.
_________________ My 1911 is more effective than your 911. |
|
Back to top |
|
|
Grumulkin Super Member
Joined: Apr 16, 2007 Posts: 365 Location: Central Ohio
|
Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2017 5:01 am Post subject: Re: New Brass |
|
I've also had no problems with Winchester brass.
Nosler brass is quite good but expensive. Ditto on Lapua brass.
A brass test was done for Handloader magazine a few years ago. Guess what, Remington brass was near the top as far as reloads before failure went.
|
|
Back to top |
|
|
SingleShotLover Super Member
Joined: Dec 26, 2007 Posts: 1005 Location: Illinois
|
Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2017 5:53 am Post subject: Re: New Brass |
|
I tend to favor Remington brass over the years for both rifle and handgun loads except for my .223s where I use Lake City "match" brass that I got in a large quantity quite some time ago. I haven't had much luck with Federal or Winchester when it comes to durability. Of course I really have no choice for my .17 Remingtons! I did buy a sampling of Nosler brass for my .22/250 Remington with very good results.
_________________ If you can't hit it with one, you probably can't with two either!
The biggest problem with a closed mind is that it never seems to come with a closed mouth.
SSL |
|
Back to top |
|
|
|