Have good connections in Germany for brass in my Euro calibers. They are suggesting Hirtenberger at some very attractive prices. What's the scoop on Hirtenberger brass? how do they compare to RWS or Norma?

Thanks

I have quite a bit of Hirtenberger brass in .270 Winchester, .308 Winchester, and 6.5x55 designations.

I don't like it. Seems to me to be excessively hard. That may not be fair, because none of it has failed me yet, but I just don't like the feel of it going into the resizing dies.

The one thing which is a temporary but real pain none-the-less, is having to replace the decapping pins in my sizer dies. To be able to use the Hirtenberger stuff I had to put smaller diameter decapping pins in my sizer dies. The Hirtenberger flash holes in my brass were markedly smaller diameter than the .080" standard holes in U.S. brass.

So, with standard U.S. decapping pins in my dies at first, I could push out the Hirtenberger primers (with a lot of extra effort), but when I pulled the decapped and resized case out of the sizing die, the flash hole in the brass would hold onto the pin tightly enough to yank the decapping pin out of the die at the same time the brass came out.

So, then I had to make a special pin punch to drive the decapping pin out of the brass, in order to reinstall the pin in the die and in order to reprime and use the brass.

No sweatsky once I replaced the decapping pins of those dies with .068" diameter pins, but a PITA prior to that.

Gotten cheaply enough to make it worth the short amount of time used to get smaller decapping pins and install them, it, seems to work as well as any other similarly priced brass. But why go to the trouble if one doesn't have to?

The only reason I have any Hirtenberger brass at all is that I bought numerous cases of their loaded ammo at a "smoking deal" price back in the early 1990s. And I'm sorry I did that. It is the most erratic pressure, lousy accuracy, factory ammo I have ever owned. I still have a lot of it simply because it performs too poorly from my rifles to be worth wasting my shooting time on.

I LOVE RWS brass, and Norma is mainly okay, but I don't think Hirtenberger is even in the same league.

I've shot their .308. I liked it, haven't tried to load it yet. Thanks for the heads up on the flash hole.

Never used it myself but a friend referred to it as junk for reloading purposes.

As AC says too hard

But I found the factory loaded ammo to give excellent accuracy in my 6.5x55

I've had the same flash-hole trouble with RWS brass that AC reports having with the Hirtenberger, so apparently it's a Euro thing in at least some cartridges. Many folks report no trouble with RWS but I found that my RWS 6.5x57 brass had shallow primer pockets and too-small flash holes.
Regards, Joe

quote:

Originally posted by JonP:
Have good connections in Germany for brass in my Euro calibers. They are suggesting Hirtenberger at some very attractive prices. What's the scoop on Hirtenberger brass? how do they compare to RWS or Norma?

Thanks

JonP I have used Hirtenberg Brass in my 270 with great success. It is true that they might have thicker walls, but they are durable. I have reloaded some of the cases already 12 times and they are still good for another 10. They have less runout than any other cases and should you unify the flash holes and primer pockets it would serve you well. If you find sizing difficult try to switch to a Sizing Die Wax.

Appreciate the feedback...think I'll try them...at the price they're being offered, can't see why not. Now I know what to prepare for.

I would stay away from anything made by Hirtenberger, including their ammo.