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I would like everyone what would be so kind to rate there in there opinion rifle brass. You don't need to give a speech if you don't want to. But you may. Just a number system would work. See I m looking at replacing my brass soon. I fire 4 different rifle calibers. I want a case that is consistent, and will last me quite some time. I m not the type who max's out my charges every load. Only time for that is working up. After that I know what works for that bullet powder primer combo. So just looking at brass for, 30-06, 6.5X55, 303 Brit, and 30 Carbine. Will be trying my hand at 9mm Luger soon.   (ps sorry if I have seemed to ramble. I tend to do that more then normal when tired) Disabled Vet(non-combat) - US Army NRA LIFE MEMBER Hunter, trapper, machinest, gamer, angler, and all around do it your selfer. Build my own CNC router from scratch. I installed the hight wrong. My hight moves but the rails blocks 3/4 of the hight..... | ||
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The .303 British in the typical Lee-Enfield is a problem child. The chamber and ammunition do not resemble each other that much in the shoulder area. The chamber is longer than factory brass and ammo. The chamber is larger in diameter than factory brass and ammo. Loading dies do not produce shoulders like your chamber. The Lee-Enfield geeks say that the Greek military HXP brass is the best. There are also some that say current Prvi Partisan is the best fit for the chambers. You would probably be money ahead to get rid of the .303 and buy something that will not separate the case heads in only 3 to 5 reloads. The 6.5X55 needs European spec case heads about .480 dia. That means Norma, Prvi Partisan and Lapua. Check the prices and take your pick. I am sure other will tell you which they would use. The .30-06 and .30 Carbine will work with any reasonable brand of brass. | |||
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I have been working with Lapua brass this week. It is easy to forget how good it is. If I am shooting thousands of rounds at rodents, I take any brass. If I am shooting 3 rounds at ruminants, any brass is accurate enough. But Lapua brass cost allot, and pays dividends in fast prep time and great accuracy. | |||
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Dear Mr. Kain: I am experimenting with Lapua brass in 243 Winchester at the moment. My initial results after three reloadings are very favorable. For the past 32 years of reloading, I have found Federal, Winchester and Remington brass to be more than adequate for my shooting and hunting needs. On the other hand, I am not a benchrest or serious target shooter, so my requirements for brass are limited to longevity. My problem with the mass produced brass in the past few years, and the reason I "stepped up" to using Lapua is that the mass produced brass is shrinking in size at the head. Obviously, as the price of copper shot up, the manufacturers cut down the amount of copper used by reducing the outside diameter and therefore the size of their brass. I conclude that I will probably stick with Lapua, since the case head dimensions are what my old WW, R-P and Federal brass used to be 25-30 years ago. Sincerely, Chris Bemis | |||
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Hey James, I typically use Fed, Rem, and Win with no preference between any of them. I do a full Case Prep and Weight Sort to get the Cases in a Lot as much alike as possible. It is debateable if some of the things I do to my Cases are worth the effort, but since it is "my" time to use, I do what I want. I do not buy expensive Cases from anyone. I've quit buying Plated Rifle Cases, because they occasionally have their own problems. I do like Plated Cases for my Revolvers and Pistols though. ----- If I had your combination of Cartridges, I'd buy non-plated Fed, Rem, or Win for the 30-06, 6.5x55 and 303Brit in a 300-500 quantity from the same Lot for each. Then do the entire Case Prep and Weight Sort. For the 30Carbine and 9mm, I'd try to find Plated Cases if possible, do a Case Trim, Deburr, Champfer and forget the rest of the Case Prep. I'd also not waste my time on the Weight Sorting, but that is because I'd need a lot of practice with either to notice a difference with them. | |||
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I shoot three days a week, weather permitting, therefore resize many pieces of brass yearly. My preference follows. 1-Lapua, 2-Norma, 3-Winchester, 4-5 tie between Remington and Nosler. I also use Bell brass for a couple of .358 STA's and find it very close to Lapua. Good shooting. phurley | |||
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Thanks Guys! Gave me something info to mill over for a bit. Anyone else or any extra info please feel free. Disabled Vet(non-combat) - US Army NRA LIFE MEMBER Hunter, trapper, machinest, gamer, angler, and all around do it your selfer. Build my own CNC router from scratch. I installed the hight wrong. My hight moves but the rails blocks 3/4 of the hight..... | |||
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As tnek says, Lapua and Norma brass save me a lot of time. At £80 per hundred in the 30.06, they bloody well better had as well! | |||
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Federal, Remington, Winchester. Since I don't shoot rifle competition, I never saw the need for paying twice as much for the others. Heck, I even neck size the Winchester 284 brass to make my 6.5-284 instead of paying the high prices. I don't recall what publication it was in, but someone did a comparison of components and the surprise, to me, was that I believe it was the Lapua that had the worst longevity. Larry "Peace is that brief glorious moment in history, when everybody stands around reloading" -- Thomas Jefferson | |||
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Perhaps it would be good to ask just how you would define your own rating of what brass might be "best". If your standards are different from mine no suggestions I make will be of any valid help to you! Best for what? Value? Case life? Consistancy? Strongest? Accuracy? etc... Personally, on average, I rate Rem-Win-Fed as very good equals. Lapua-Norma are somewhat "better" in some respects but not by enough at the target to justify the prices. Others are quite good as well. | |||
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If Remington makes it, I shoot it. (except if I'm target shooting, then I may sneak in a little Lapua  ) | |||
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I'm with tnekkcc on this one . I shoot reload what ever boxer primed brass I can get reasonably . However if I'm buying it LAUPA , RWS , NORMA in that order . The longevity of the above has proven it's worth too ME !. I have purchased some Hornady Brass , I'll let you know in a couple of years what I think of it . | |||
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First of all, Thanks for the ton of help! My brass is aging and I m losing a case or 2 each trip due to "end of case life stress". Glad I dont max them out much! I get 20+ firings. Using Rem cases and a few win and fed. Win are not as old as rem but almost gone now. Feds started going first and rem are holding strong until recently. Now for what I m looking for Jim, is case life, accuracy and consistency. I need something that can hold up for multipul firings and I mean a ton of shooting. This brass will see range time and hunting time. I try to spend one (FULL) day every few weeks at the range. I d be there more if I didnt live 10 miles from it. Most of my shooting is to see what works best in my rifles and after I get a combo I like I start shooting other positions. Sitting-standing, from tree & ladder stand(coyote hunting). About 90% of kills in any hunting season here in Maine is all under 50yds. But when I m hunting coyote I try to get high to peg them from across the plots that have been clear cut. After a few years the cuts over grow with "2nd growth" and if I can get over that I can tag them 2 or 300 yds away(if I m lucky to see them that early). So I m rather demanding of my equipment and need brass that can keep up. Under the hunting part of the forum I will be posting photos of my scout cam then my trip later on. Disabled Vet(non-combat) - US Army NRA LIFE MEMBER Hunter, trapper, machinest, gamer, angler, and all around do it your selfer. Build my own CNC router from scratch. I installed the hight wrong. My hight moves but the rails blocks 3/4 of the hight..... | |||
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james use remington and learn to anneal. neck size only, especially the 303 and keep it separate for each rifle. when it needs to be full length resized [or every 5th load] anneal it. | |||
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Lamar, Rem dose seem to be rather desent brass. I just wanted to see what everyone else thought on brass. I have only used Rem, Win, and Fed brass. If I was to pick my top of those 3. From my use it would be 1Rem 2Fed 3Win. But I hear norma makes wicked good brass, lapua makes accruite brass but low life, and rest seem to have better life span. How true would this be? Sense I have a custom Swedish Mauser 6.5X55 I am ordering some stuff to learn to anneal so I dont under/over do it. MidwayUSA-Hornady Annealing System Any advice on any of these topics PM me, I dont want to side track the Main topic. Thanks  Disabled Vet(non-combat) - US Army NRA LIFE MEMBER Hunter, trapper, machinest, gamer, angler, and all around do it your selfer. Build my own CNC router from scratch. I installed the hight wrong. My hight moves but the rails blocks 3/4 of the hight..... | |||
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In my Sako 6.5X55 I find Lapua the best brass, next would be Norma. In general I prefer RWS but it is getting very very hard to come by. Federal has been the worst in domestics, Remington the best. I have had better case life with Lapua and Norma than anything else in 6.5X55. In 9.3X62 and 6.5X57 RWS has been best. | |||
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I believe that even the best brass may not shoot well in a particular chamber.That is why it is a good idea to choose a cartridge or chambering,with many brass makes available. | |||
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Okay, that's do-able. As I see it, you are concerend about cost per round, plus "accuracy". IMHO, you can't beat our home grown cases, Rem-Win-Fed for value. "Accuracy" comes from selection and prepping from any batch of brass you may get. Cull the very light and very heavy cases, use them for plinking, etc. Use the rest for your more serious work. European cases are more consistant and need less selection/prepping. But are they two or three times better than our own stuff? Not in my opinion. "Soft", thicker cases, Rem and Norma for instance, won't take as much powder for a given pressure so velocity can be somewhat less than with others but they don't split as fast either. "Harder', thinner cases, Win and Lapua, hold more powder, get a little more speed but are more prome to early splits. Make your choice on what's more important to you. Fed seems to split the extremes, to the degree that exists, between the others. Good speed, pretty good case life. Not the best at either end but quite good overall. I LIKE it! But, fact is, all makers do vary a bit from lot to lot and sometimes the hardness/softness thing seems to swithch places. I actually tried a large batch of Norma in '71 when I bought my Browning/Sako in .22-250. It's good stuff, still have some of it, but I couldn't see any statisticaly important difference in accuracy. Never bought any more. Most of what I actually use now is Rem, simply because it is most easily found in my area. Neck sizing doesn't do a lot for my accuracy but it extends case life, mostly because it reduces body fatigue and splitting. But neck sizing still works the necks, so my cases will fail with neck splits UNLESS I anneal them from time to time. I can extend time between annealing if I work the neck the absolute minimum. For me, that means using a Lee Collet neck sizer. I only FL size or use a body bump die when it's needed for chambering. I typically get 12-20 reloads with my .22-250, .243 and .30-06 with full power - hot - loads. But I anneal AND body size after each 5-6 cycles. I use the others too infrequently to have a good idea of how long their cases last. I have never even come close to a head seperation, which I attribute to the rare FL sizing and then only enough to set the shoulders back a couple thosands or less, not jammed as far into a FL sizer as I can make it go. I rarely have to trim cases either. What I'm saying is, my case life depends more on how they are treated than the brand. My accuracy depends more on how I select and prepare the individual cases than the brand. IF I had lots of throw-away money and could get what I need easily, I would probably use Lapua all the time. But, I don't, so the very good, more common domestic stuff makes me quite happy. | |||
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Now that was what I am looking for! Funny about that info you said about norma, because I was looking at buying that brand. Mainly do to the fact of my swedish mauser. But I have never heard anything bad about them either. Thanks for that huge booster! Disabled Vet(non-combat) - US Army NRA LIFE MEMBER Hunter, trapper, machinest, gamer, angler, and all around do it your selfer. Build my own CNC router from scratch. I installed the hight wrong. My hight moves but the rails blocks 3/4 of the hight..... | |||
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For hunting, I'm largely NOT impressed by the differences in brass, and I prefer Remington, which has been quite hard. RWS is also quite hard, whereas Norma has been "softer." Lapua, Win, Fed seem about the same. For bench rest rifle shooting, Lapua has been the most consistent. But, when one weighs and sorts Rem or Win brass, I shoot as well. | |||
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A suggestion for those who are shooting a particular caliber that can have variables in both brass and dies. Pick a make you will use, fire a couple of rounds in your rifle, and send the fired cases to Rdding or RCBS, asking them to make you a die for that specific rifle. I think the price of these special dies is a bit higher than normal, but I think you will recover that cost very quickly by having brass that last longer in your rifle. | |||
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Nice, I ll have to get that done for my 6.5X55 Swedish Mauser, when it comes back from the smith. Disabled Vet(non-combat) - US Army NRA LIFE MEMBER Hunter, trapper, machinest, gamer, angler, and all around do it your selfer. Build my own CNC router from scratch. I installed the hight wrong. My hight moves but the rails blocks 3/4 of the hight..... | |||
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