Greetings all,

Why does everyone seem to favor Lapua brass? I have yet to try Norma brass (price!) but I can't seem to find any data that would make them better than anything else we can buy. Can anyone shed light on the subject?

James

Both Norma and Lapua make excellent brass. Norma is quite a bit more expensive, and often tends to be on the soft side. BR shooters (in particular) like to load up to high pressure, so Norma brass does not last long for those guys.

Other than that, either make is pretty much top of the line.
- mike

Lapua tends to be tougher, and last for more load/shoot/resize/load cycles. I have had great performance with both brands over the years. I try not to put the spurs into the Norma cases as much as I might do with a Lapua case.
Norma makes the Weatherby brand brass, and that is plenty tough.
I'll use Norma if Lapua doesn't make a particular case that Norma does.
JCN

My example of one for what its worth: This spring I bought 100 Lapuas and 100 Normas. I found the Lapuas to pretty much be a "load 'em up and shoot 'em" deal. And (I think) I still have about 96 or 97 of them. Admittedly they were for a .222 so they weren't too stressed. As I said, one of their main attractions for me was their precision and uniformity.
Not so the Normas. They were for a 22-250 and I now have about 32 of them left. I think the only reason I have that many is because I dropped my powder charge down by 5 grains. That's a lot. I also found that I had to do everything to uniform them that I had to do to domestic brass. So to my way of thinking, I'd be as well off buying domestic brass and putting the $50-$60 savings in my pocket.
Would I buy more Lapua? Yes; Norma? No.

I use both, but I like Lapua better than any other brass that I have used...for one thing its annealed to start with and shows in the new brass...

Have not used Norma, but shoot Lapua 223 and it is uniform and long lasting. Initially I started with 100 pieces and have only scrapped one after 8 firings. Good stuff and worth the price. My dad weight sorted 100 pieces of winchester the other day and came out with 35 pieces within reasonable tolerence. yikes.

jb,

I believe that you can see that both brands are very popular. In order of caliber availibility, I go with Lapua, then Norma, then Winchester.

A point of interst is that I have 20 Norma cases in .416 Rigby that I have fired 6 times with full house loads. All they have ever needed was to be trimmed other than initial prep. They are still with-in specs and I will use them again when I make up my next batch of practice loads.

All the best,

Sam