Most of the brass production is used in loaded rounds that will only be fired once. The larger companies (Olin, Remington) are willing to cede the precision reloading market in favor of an increased profit margin on their loaded ammo.

JCN

I have to beg the question, What is the cause of all this bad brass out there? It would seem manufacturers of brass would be very sensitve to the quality of unprimed brass, especially when you consider it's use and safety issues surrounding brass quality.

Is it possable that the manufacturers feel they are beyond reproach because of discaimers associated with reloading? In other words, they just don't give a damn because we cannot sue them for a lousy product? Has Brass manufacturing been the victim of outsourcing to plants outside the U.S. that further distances them legally from liability? Are the ammo companies hoping to discourage reloading so we buy their factory ammo? What in the devil is going on here?

All I know for sure is that I have been having substantially more trouble with unprimed brass. And I see I am not alone.

IMO, the Lapua is worth it; not so the Norma. I only have an example of one but I bought 100 Norma cases in 22-250 at the beginning of summer. I found I needed to do to them everything I needed to do to prep Rem brass. They have now been reloaded 6 times and I have 47 of the original 100 left. The rest died due to neck splits (seemed too common) and cases that were too far out of spec to be of use. That seems to be a rather high rate of attrition. I kinda think the only reason I have any left is because I dropped my load down to 35.5gr of H380 behind a 53gr SMK. A load of 38.6gr, that didn't phase a Rem case, was splitting necks right and left.

i just discovered a 1/8" divit on the mouth on 100 new remington 257 brass that i processed through redding dies with a carbide button.. winchester brass run through the same set up worked fine so i'm sure it is the remington brass.. i'm sending the brass directly back to remington..if you are processing current production remington brass watch out early rather than finishing 100 rounds..

I have noticed consistancy problems with Remington Brass, so much so, that I shall not buy anymore for any reason. I will use up my current supplies, but my experience with Winchester brass has been much more satisfying. I am glad to know I am not the only one.

It seems that any number of brass manufacturers are having quality control problems as of late.

I have a buddy who has a new 270 WSM and with the first batch of Winchester brass he bought he had a terrible time with stiff extraction. A new batch of Winchester brass and some Norma brass show no such problems.

Not long ago I opened a brand new batch of Remington brand 7BR brass. Out of the 100 cases four of them had primer pockets so large that they would not retain a primer. Brand new brass! The primers just fell back out!

Recently I bought a bag of Winchester .338 Win Mag brass.
When I opened it I found one of the cases was not a .338 WM but a 7mm Rem Mag. Not only that, but it had no flash hole!
It had a primer pocket, but no flash hole had ever been punched through the pocket. I saved it just for fun.

Seems maybe Norma or Lapua might be worth the extra cost after all.

Too bad Federal quit selling brass as a reloading component, they always seemed to provide a good quality product.

R F

I bought a 300 Win Mag last year just because Lapua makes brass in that caliber. The stuff is incredibly consistent. I just run the necks over a mandrel, load, and go. Some of the new Hornady (not Frontier) brass is very nice also. I bought some boxes of 376 Steyr brass that is DNO (Dead Nuts On).
If you can't get Lapua, Norma, or new Hornady for a caliber it is a good idea to try a small bag of both Remington and Winchester. It is just impossible to predict who has the least nasty stuff at any given time. I have some Remington in 6.5 x 55 SM that is also DNO, but their 7 Rem Mag stuff was pathetic the last time I tried some.
JCN

Lapua or Norma brass is always worth the extra expense.

I had trouble with Remington brass for my 300 win, 416 Rem,
but my 338 Ultra uses Rem brass cause there was no other manufacture of 338 ultra brass and I'm geting 10 loadings out of it. In my 416 Rem I used new rem brass and the mouth of the shell broke of in my gun so I wrote Remington about this and They said they could not help cause I reload every thing I shoot and I go by the book. It has to be there loaded shell. So I told them that all there brass was having problems not strong enought. That was a couple years ago. So now I try not to use there brass.

I have to agree with the rash of brass quality problems lately. However, I also have to include Lapua and Norma on the culprit list. I've had some of each lately that have had overly deep primer pockets, resulting in misfires (the primer pushed in considerably below the rim face). A post mordem revealed that it was not the primer, but the case itself. Calibers were 9.3x62 and 338-06, respectively. Even the best aren't perfect I guess ...

I've generally had good Win brass, but a recent lot of 8x57 brass had huge variations in OAL. I've actually had quite good luck with Federal brass...

I have run into occaisonal deep pockets (unfortunately just in brass, not friends) with different brands of brass, although not in Lapua or Norma so far. What is also interesting is to measure depths of different brands and lots of primers. I recently did a run of .223 for plinking out of AR-15's and used CCI #41 military primers. They all seated deep, regardless of which brand of brass I was using. Still went bang thankfully.
I have had good luck with Winchester .223 and .308 brass over the years. Maybe because they make that stuff for the military and have to meet some sort of spec. I wouldn't run Lapua or Norma through an AR-15 or M1A. Too rich for my pocket book.