I have read in a few places, including here, that a lot of wssm shooters prefer the Federal brass to the Winny stuff. I can't find Fed 25 brass, but I can find 243wssm Fed brass, hell of a lot cheaper too.

My quesiton is this, is it better to just pony up the money and use the 25wssm brass, or would I be fine using 243 Fed brass necked up? Should it just be a simple pass through a FL sizer die, or do I have to worry about shoulders or angles or anything getting moved?

I use Win 25WSSM brass, as that's what I have and can get more of.....It does not seem to be bad brass to me.

If the Fed 243WSSM brass was available lots cheaper I might be tempted to give a bag a try, neck it up and see if I saw enough difference in performance or price to be worth the trouble.

Cheers,

Dan

quote:

Originally posted by MileHighShooter:
I can't find Fed 25 brass, but I can find 243wssm Fed brass, hell of a lot cheaper too.

My quesiton is this, is it better to just pony up the money and use the 25wssm brass, or would I be fine using 243 Fed brass necked up?

Sounds as if you already know about Graf & Son's great deal on Fed. 243 WSSM brass, but just in case, here are links to both .243 & 25 WSSM brass:

Graf & Sons 25 WSSM

Graf & Sons 243 WSSM

Another thing to take into account is Graf's flat shipping rate; much cheaper than others in the business.

While I'm sure the .243 can be necked up to .25, not sure if it would shorten brass life or present any other problems. The WSSM cases are very thick so doubt the shoulder would be deformed, especially if you lubed the inside of case neck.

As for quality of the Fed. brass, I have used quite a bit of the .243 in an AR and am quite satisfied with it.

Regards,
hm

I have several Winchester/USRA 70s in 25 WSSM and like the Federal 243 WSSM brass reformed to 25 WSSM. Just wax it with Imperial, run it through your 25 WSSM FL die, and trim it to a uniform length. I have 600 piece of Federal 243 WSSM brass that has been reformed to 25 WSSM and some of it has been loaded as many as 8x without any problems. The 200 pieces of brass that I have for my pdog rifle have been loaded x6 and will get cleaned and reloaded again next February.

Early in my WSSM experience, I had necks split on the Winchester/Olin nickel plated 25 WSSM brass after 4 or 5 uses. No so with the Federal.

The bottom line for me is that the Federal 243 WSSM brass has worked perfectly in my 25 WSSMs and I much prefer it to any of the Winchester/Olin WSSM brass. That said, I am a volume user of a couple dozen other varieties of Winchester/Olin brass, so I am not anti-Winchester/Olin, I just like Federal's WSSM brass better.

As with many things, YMMV.

Jeff

I think you would be fine using 243 wssm Federal brass (Can't remember if shoulder angle is the same). On the other hand, I use 25 wssm Winchester brass. I have never had to full length size. I partial neck size and anneal (every third reload). My Winchester cases have reloaded 8x with no problems.

I have no issues with WW brass, I use it in a .243 and 300 Win Mag (both my bro's but I do the loading currently) as well as his 358 Win and will be using it for my 300 and 7mm wsm's.

Its not a quality or prefference issue...its price lol. 100pc of Fed 243 wssm is 25.99, 50pc of Win 25wssm brass is 28.99. This will be a relatively high volume gun, so I'd rather spend 50$ and have 200 pc's then 50$ for 100.

For you 25wssm ownders though, especially 260Remguy, what bullets are you liking on the light side for pdog work? I have heard the M70's, the Coyote especially, seem to favor lighter bullets.

My pdog 25 WSSM has an after-market stainless with a 1 in 14" twist and my favorite pdog bullets are the 75 grain VMax and Sierra HP. I also like the 90 grain Sierra BTHP, but if given the choice, I'll opt for a little more speed from the 75 grain when pdogs are the intended target.

Jeff