Cats ass Brass!

[jayquiver]

In the grand scheme of reloading how important is the Brass, in the equation?

From what I “think” I know (which is limited) Lapua is the best, and not too expensive. Norma is very good but expensive. Not sure how the others fall in the “pecking order”, Nosler Hornady, and others.

Does Brass offerings by certain companies play a role in your cartridge selection, ex: you choose a 7mm-08 or 6.5 Creemore because Lapua makes brass for it. Or do you buy the calibre and make what is offered by any company work ex: 280ai so you use Nosler Brass?

As far as I know Nosler is the only company making 280ai. How much work is involved in resizing 30-06 Lapua brass to 280 or 280ai and is it worth the effort?


Disclaimer: I am a beginner reloader who likes to shoot. This will be out of a accurate hunting rifle.

[duceman]

if it's not too late, forget the 280 ai; not enough gain for trouble.
if you need to form brass, and not in serious competition, run remington 280 fire formed.
very often get a forming load to shoot well enough to pound steel at distance or hunt with while forming.
for the money, rem or win brass will do everything crazy priced hornady or nosler brass will do.
lapua is as cheap or cheaper if it is offered in your chambering.

[50BMG]

It depends on what kind of shooting and what kind of results you want. Also, if you do things correctly, brass life is important.

Yeah, the go-to answer is just use Lapua.

If you want to get into serious long range precision shooting, you should do things correct from the start. If you're just hunting inside 300 yards, not such an issue. Also, it depends on how accurate the results you're after.

Lots of variables. Not enough time.

[jayquiver]

Originally Posted by duceman

if it's not too late, forget the 280 ai; not enough gain for trouble.
if you need to form brass, and not in serious competition, run remington 280 fire formed.
very often get a forming load to shoot well enough to pound steel at distance or hunt with while forming.
for the money, rem or win brass will do everything crazy priced hornady or nosler brass will do.
lapua is as cheap or cheaper if it is offered in your chambering.

Not too late. Couldn't pass up on a deal for a Sako Grey Wolf 30-06, I want to do something with it...just not sure what yet.

[Smokinyotes]

For reloading brass consideration should be a concern when deciding on a cartridge. I generally try to buy Lapua brass. It is the most consistent i have found. I recently bought a 270wsm and a 100 new federal brass. After starting load development i found over 5gr variation in the brass and the primer pockets come "pre loosened". I just gave it all away. My 7lrm takes gunwerks brass which i think is made by hornady. I have found that with fairly mild loads, the primer pockets start to get loose after 3 firings. If i cant get Lapua, nosler is my second choice but the price of it is ridiculous.

[jayquiver]

Originally Posted by 50BMG

It depends on what kind of shooting and what kind of results you want. Also, if you do things correctly, brass life is important.

Yeah, the go-to answer is just use Lapua.

If you want to get into serious long range precision shooting, you should do things correct from the start. If you're just hunting inside 300 yards, not such an issue. Also, it depends on how accurate the results you're after.

Lots of variables. Not enough time.

I am a hunter, not a precision shooter. But I put in a fair bit of range time and I like one hole groups, not that I need it for hunting, but more for the pursuit of finding a load thats perfect I enjoy shooting.

[Digger1]

I've loaded Winchester and Federal brass in .243 for a few years with reasonable success. A few primer pockets loosening in the Federals after 6 or 7 loadings.
Got into loading reloading brass from Nosler Trophy ammo for the 6.5X55 this year. Very impressed! First batch is now loaded 12 times, neck sized only until 10 or 11 firings then bumped shoulder back in full length die, brass is looking great and pockets are still very tight. Still gives .2 to .4 MOA. I'm running 143g bullets about 2710 fps so the cases only stretch about 1 thou per firing.
The Nosler Trophy ammo is expensive but seems to pay off. I've read the brass is made by Norma.

[wolf308]

Norma sucks. And overpriced

Too soft.

Lapua is Swedish. Swedish !!! Lol. Nuff said

[wolf308]

Funny you wrote cats ass .... find cat ..... he's in your neighbourhood and a helluva man .... he'll get you on the path to shooting 1/64 th groups at 1000 yards , just like me.

Hehe

[kujoseto]

Originally Posted by wolf308

Norma sucks. And overpriced

Too soft.

Lapua is Swedish. Swedish !!! Lol. Nuff said

Isn't norma Swedish and lapua Finnish?

[catnthehat]

Originally Posted by kujoseto

Isn't norma Swedish and lapua Finnish?

Yup
As far as the 280AI goes it is not a big deal to fire form the brass .
Brass consistency is the key regardless of the brand , but the brand may dictate just how much brass one has to cull to get a batch that is within " acceptable" tolerances .
We can sit down one evening with s coffee and talk about it .
Cat

[jayquiver]

Originally Posted by catnthehat

Yup
As far as the 280AI goes it is not a big deal to fire form the brass .
Brass consistency is the key regardless of the brand , but the brand may dictate just how much brass one has to cull to get a batch that is within " acceptable" tolerances .
We can sit down one evening with s coffee and talk about it .
Cat

sounds great, Cat!

[SlightlyDistracting]

Ive used both. Lapua and Nosler
I just bought two boxes of Nosler 6.5 creedmoor and it is the most consistent brass I have ever bought. Case length and capacity. It eas godly expensive but worth it

[dogslayer403]

Really depends on the cartridge for me i use lapua when i can especially if im chasing max loads but my federal and win have worked well in my 243 and 22-250 i could not get lapua for my 300win and had bad luck lately with fed and win in that chambering cracked necks and premature case stretching even with neck sizing only so i bit the bullet and tryed nosler in it it is stupid overpriced and definately not lapua but it seems to be good so far and best of all it had a bigger capacity than fed so i started at my original load and got lucky shoots as good if not better with no pressure signs.
Ill add that I have had luck forming 358sta from Remington 8mm mag and 375h&h brass on 3rd loading and they are hot brass seems to be holding up well

[elkhunter11]

I prefer Lapua when available, and I have actually avoided certain cartridges due to a poor selection of cases. Then again, I go through a fair bit of work to form cases for certain cartridges that I really like. I used Nosler cases in both of my 280AI rifles, and they worked just fine, with decent case life.

[Mike_W]

I really like Nosler brass as the brass itself is very good however the cases are fully prepped.... Case mouths are chamfered and deburred, brass is hand-inspected and weight-sorted, flash holes are deburred and checked for proper alignment, each piece of brass is full length sized and trimmed to proper length.

I have also liked what I seen from Hornady when I was reloading for a 300 Weatherby.

Remington brass is garbage, Federal and Winchester are decent. I literally just watched 5 out of 7 Remington shells have signs of case head separation two of which had partial separations with burn through on new brass with a moderate load that has never shown signs with Winchester brass previously.

[elkhunter11]

I have not had issues with Remington cases, and I have used them for over 40 years in some cartridges. The older Winchester cases were good, but i have had issues with recent Winchester cases. I have had some issues with Federal as well. As far as pressure goes, Remington cases are thicker than Winchester, and as a result, they often produce more pressure with identical loads. I have had some soft Norma cases in the past, but not recently. Nosler have been good, but expensive

[lclund1946]

Originally Posted by Mike_W

I really like Nosler brass as the brass itself is very good however the cases are fully prepped.... Case mouths are chamfered and deburred, brass is hand-inspected and weight-sorted, flash holes are deburred and checked for proper alignment, each piece of brass is full length sized and trimmed to proper length.

I have also liked what I seen from Hornady when I was reloading for a 300 Weatherby.

Remington brass is garbage, Federal and Winchester are decent. I literally just watched 5 out of 7 Remington shells have signs of case head separation two of which had partial separations with burn through on new brass with a moderate load that has never shown signs with Winchester brass previously.

I have come to the realization that the best brass is the brass that works best for the application. The trick is that you need to know the differences in brass capacity and learn to load accordingly. Otherwise a new Rem case that likely holds 2.5 grains less than a NS fire formed Winchester Brass will overpressure with a load that was compressed in the Winchester.
If you happened to be loading for a 270 Winchester, trying to get a good load near 2900 fps with a 150 LRAB and IMR 7977 you would be unhappy with FC Premium FL sized brass. Not because it is just decent but because it will only hold enough powder to get 2747 fps as the following chart shows. Even compressing it in a NS brass got only 2768 fps. Once I got the FC brass trimmed I found that it held exactly the same amount of powder as Nosler and though the weights were the same the FC was more consistent. I came to the conclusion that they were the same brass so thankfully that expensive stuff was out.
[IMG][/IMG]

The once fired Remington appeared to be the toughest brass as it was still 0.003" under Saami Maximum Cartridge diameter at the PR, or 0.200" base datum. The RCBS FL dies did not touch the base and the compressed load got 2879 fps. Upon firing the base datum grew to 0.4683" which was the same as the RCBS die sized a 2 x fired case to while only working the brass 0.005". If the pressure had not dropped, reducing the velocity to 2817, o and even more en a compress NS brass I would have went with Remington. In fact I mayby did that and went with a faster powder like 4831 as this is the perfect scenario if one wants FL brass to last.

Winchester FL brass did pretty much what the Hodgdon manual showed with a compressed load at 60.8 but brass was going to be worked by a full 0.001" at the PR on subsequent firings. This was the same as the Hornady FL brass which held the same as Winchester NS brass allowing me to run a less compressed load. My ladder test showed a stable node between 60.8C and 61.3C and subsequent testing found the best load at 61.3 giving 2878 fps. My good friend is very happy as he was able to hold about 3/4 MOA to 500 yards with this load in his Rem 700 CDL with 24" barrel.

It really was no better than the Hornady Superformance SST factory round that did everything it was supposed to although it did shoot to a different POI. As well the Base datum at 0.4691", well Saami Max Cart diameter, and still will not be overworked by the RCBS FL die. I did learn a lit form this excersise and the only regret was purchasing a $150.00 Forster BR FL die set that worked the brass more than the RCBS even after Forster opened up the neck. However the Forster seating die is great though not necessary.