I just returned from a trip to Namibia, and had an odd experience with some handloads for my 7x57. I had worked up a good hot load with H414 and the 160 Nosler bullet using Norma cases. In the past I've used a lot of Norma brass in the 7x57 and .220 Swift. In the Swift, especially, I'd rather use the Norma brass than anything. Anyway, in the middle of the hunt, I had a blown primer in the 7x57, which really threw me, since I had spent a lot of time testing before I left. I had a couple of boxes of old Norma 150 gr factory loads, which I let my son shoot up for practice before heading to Africa, and one of these was the last box I loaded before leaving. The color on these is even a little different, more of a bronze color. After he blew the primer, I looked, and all of these showed high pressure ( significant marks where the brass flowed into the extractor slot). The old Norma cases I'd been using, some of which I'd loaded seven or eight times were fine, and we finished hunting with them. I also noticed the bad cases had a different headstamp, instead of Norma, the had Norma Re 7x57. I haven't done it yet, but I'm sure I'll find a 1 1/2 grain difference in water capacity between the two Norma cases. Just wondering if anyone has ever seen this before in the same brand of cases. I always work up a load using case head expansion, and this is the first blown primer I've ever had in 33 years of handloading. It's pretty bizarre, I never take anything for granted when changing cases, but wouldn't have expected a huge difference between cases of the same brand.

The Norma Cases with Re stands for Reloadable, the cases may be a little heavier/thicker weigh them and see compared to the others, if so you might just have to adjust your loads a tad to compensate.

The norma Re brass is made especially for reloaders. Knowing that reloaders don't have pressure measuring equipment they made brass very carefully so that it would give pressure indications at the max pressure .It was a good idea. Ther were two problems. First some thought it had been reloaded, not true. Second some some were used to loading well above the limits so they thought the brass was too soft You're in that group. Anyway they dropped the good idea.

The Norma cases that have the RE marking is old stuff! I can�t say exactly how old they are but my guess is that Norma dropped them before 1960......

I scrap the cases marked RE

Stefan

Stefan: would you have any other reason for scrapping them, except for their mere age ? Such as a higher failure or crack rate, e.g. ?

Regards,
Carcano