Anyone with experience with this?

Roger,
You bet. I have used Bell brass for years in my .416 Rigby. There is the original BELL brass that was made by Brass Extrusion Laboratories Limited. Later the rights were bought out by MAST Technologies to produce Bell brass. Both manufacturers turn out great brass. This brass is comparable in price to Norma and is, in my opinion, better brass.
Hope this helps.
The Bearman

Guess I have to give you "the rest of the story!"

For a time Bell brass was the only brass available to me for 404 Jeffery. I required it for a wildcat conversion. That brass was the very worst piece of crap I ever bought. The walls of the body had variances in thickness of as much as .018". After shortening the cases, reaming the necks and uniforming them, I could get no more that about 5 reloadings from each one, and many split necks much earlier than that. Annealing at varying stages had no effect on case life. In contrast, when I was able to acquire RWS brass in that caliber, that brass was extremely uniform. I have yet to lose a converted RWS case and some have as many as 18 reloads through them.

I know they make the brass for Lazzeroni and he's very high on them.

My experience was that it is pure junk.

Unfortunately, I'd have to side with Bob338. To my knowledge, they have made Dakota brass until recently - Junk. I and others I've talked to have seen 10-20 grain differences in weight within the same lot of brass. Dakota has finally dumped them which should tell you something (unfortunately only after many gunsmiths already got fed up with the brass and quit recommending the round).

Lazzeroni may use them but I consider that a liability to a Lazzeroni round not a positive. Most of these smaller "proprietary" rounds like Dakota and Lazzeroni can't really afford to order the large quantities that a company like Norma requires, so they have to use some of these secondary suppliers - which often offer a significantly lower quality product. FWIW

Thanks for the replies. Polar opposites to be sure.

If they made the Dakota brass, I must agree that it is crap. Last summer, I tried to work up a load for my buddy's .300 Dakota with little success because the cases were so variable. Even neck thicknesses were not uniform. Some were so thick they would not properly release the bullet upon firing, causing excessive pressures with some rounds, but not all!! We thought there was something wrong with his rifle (chamber neck undersize), but it turned out to be a brass problem. Hope Dakota starts selling some decent cases!!

I have been shooting Bell in my 450-400 and 404 Jefferys for years and I have had not one problem..then I use these guns to shoot big stuff up close and at very moderate velocities...I last as long as the Norma as far as I can tell..I like the RWS brass best in these two calibers..

I do believe that some reloaders ruin the integrity of brass when they start moving it around for wildcats..It will work harden very quickly and annealing in a skillet is not very scientific IMHO...Never cared for the practice, many feel otherwise.

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Ray Atkinson

ray@atkinsonhunting.com
atkinsonhunting.com

I've had similar experiences to Bob338 and Tigar. I've used BeLL (Mast) 404 brass as a base for wildcats and have had nothing but problems. Norma brass for this application has been better, but the best by a mile is RWS. Problem is, my supplies of it are rapidly drying up and its damn hard stuff to find. I look forward to the day RWS begin producing brass in this calibre again.

RWS

Roger,

I have some of the old stuff (BELL). I've only loaded it 3 times and have had no problems with any failing, yet. It's for a 375 H&H Flanged Magnum and had to be formed first. I annealed after forming.

The problem I have with it is the neck walls are so thin (0.009" - but consistent) that after resizing in my RCBS die, they will hardly grip a bullet at all. I definitely don't need the expander ball. I almost need a custom bushing die and use a smaller than standard bushing to be able to have any grip on the bullet. Most non-neckturned brass I use for other calibers measures about .012", so this BELL stuff is way thin.

I am very happy with the brass I bought for my 450/400 3 inch! As far as I am concerned it is the only brass I will use in my double! My dealing with the people at Mast have been pleasant!

Rusty
We band of brothers!

Did BELL make the brass for HDS?

Don

Sometime ago one of our Australian gun magazines did a write up on the 300 Ultra. The author used cases from Rem factory ammo and also reformed Bertram and Bell 404 Jeffrey cases.

He said that the Bertram cases allowed him to come withing about 150 f/s sec of the Remington cases but that the Bell cases were basically useless.

On the other hand, I have from a very reliable source that some Bertram 500 Jeffrey cases showed excessive pressure at just under 2200 f/s with 535 grain bullets and that would amount to very low pressue in that case

From what I can gather there seems to be a lot of variation in both Bertram and Bell cases as to their hardness.

I suspect that both Bell and Bertram have been geared up for the old Nitro rounds and black powder rounds (for Bertram) and as such, hard brass was not an issue.

For example, to get 2100 with 570 grain bullets in a 500 Nitro, very low pressure loads would achieve this velocity. You could probably nearly use cases made from plastic and be OK

Mike