View Single Post
Old July 10, 2006, 02:38 PM   #4
azredhawk44
Junior member
 
Join Date: September 28, 2005
Location: Mesa, AZ
Posts: 6,465
I've tried 4 brands of commercial brass brand-new, and some mil-surp stuff randomly.

Not impressed with the reloadability of the milsurp stuff. Too many crimped primer pockets, cases require extra force when resizing. This won't be a problem for you though, because you can't get milsurp 7mmMagnum or 22-250 cases anyways.

If money isn't an object, Nosler is very nice brass. But, it's about $30 for 50 pieces. I randomly checked half a dozen in my box, and none needed the primer pocket uniformed, none needed the flash hole deburred, all were trimmed to appropriate length and none provided any resistance to full size resizing. These can be used without any brass prep at all.

If you're like the rest of us (you don't spend > $50/100 pieces of brass), I think Remington is a better value over Winchester or Federal brass. All three will require trimming to length and primer pocket uniforming along with deburring the case mouth after trimming, but the Remington flash holes are drilled very neatly, whereas the Winchester and Federal cases are punched. One less step in brass prep, IMO. The remmies also removed less material when uniforming the primer pocket. Federal also has soft primer pockets that expand and are too loose to hold the primer after 3-4 hot firings.

As far as value is concerned in inexpensive brass, I'd rank in the following order:
1. Remington
2. Winchester
3. Nosler (not exactly inexpensive, but still tight after 3 firings / 4 loadings so far)
4. Federal
5. Mil-Surp stuff

Have yet to get my hands on any Lapua or Hornady brass. Again, that money thing. An hour of elbow grease and some judicious sorting can take 200 pieces of Remington bulk brass and turn them into 100+ pieces of uniform, dependable brass along with several dozen pieces of plinker brass. I'd rather pay $40 and put in an hour or two than pay $150 for 200 pieces of Lapua brass. Your priorities may be different.
azredhawk44 is offline  
 
Page generated in 0.03671 seconds with 8 queries