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Billy Shears · July 21, 2011, 11:17 AM

Hmm, that's interesting. I actually tend to prefer Federal brass for my handgun loads.

The only major name brand I don't particularly care for in handgun brass is the Remington "R-P" stuff, at least in .45 ACP. I have found it too thin to hold a crimp well, at least when loaded with 230 grain jacketed bullets. I save all the R-P brass and load it only with cast lead bullets or give it away to friends who reload.

Other than that, I've had no problems with any of the name brand stuff. Some of the other headstamps like "Amerc" get automatically thrown out, but for the most part I'll load anything...at least once. I even reloaded a handful of the Russian steel cased stuff once just to see if I could. It shot fine, but was a pain to resize.

Edit: A lot of range brass nowadays is the cheap "Blazer Brass" stuff in the brown and gold boxes. I picked up about 1,500 empties from my local range a while back [one of the perks of being an RSO] and loaded them up. For being so inexpensive I thought they were actually very good quality. So, if you are buying new factory ammo to shoot and save the brass this might be the cheapest way to go.

July 21, 2011, 11:17 AM	#2
Billy Shears Senior Member Join Date: January 17, 2011 Posts: 606	Hmm, that's interesting. I actually tend to prefer Federal brass for my handgun loads. The only major name brand I don't particularly care for in handgun brass is the Remington "R-P" stuff, at least in .45 ACP. I have found it too thin to hold a crimp well, at least when loaded with 230 grain jacketed bullets. I save all the R-P brass and load it only with cast lead bullets or give it away to friends who reload. Other than that, I've had no problems with any of the name brand stuff. Some of the other headstamps like "Amerc" get automatically thrown out, but for the most part I'll load anything...at least once. I even reloaded a handful of the Russian steel cased stuff once just to see if I could. It shot fine, but was a pain to resize. Edit: A lot of range brass nowadays is the cheap "Blazer Brass" stuff in the brown and gold boxes. I picked up about 1,500 empties from my local range a while back [one of the perks of being an RSO] and loaded them up. For being so inexpensive I thought they were actually very good quality. So, if you are buying new factory ammo to shoot and save the brass this might be the cheapest way to go.