Brand Preference for brass? Specifically 7mm Rem Mag & 300 Win Mag

[K-Swift]

How would yall rate various brands for brass?

I've searched and found a little bit here and there, but there's no definite ranking for manufactures except the top couple brands are always up top, but how about the rest of the spectrum? My experience with 7mm is moderate, 300 WM time is just beginning.

My opinions, best to worst:


7mm Rem Mag:

Lapua (real hard to find now...)
Remington
Federal (surprisingly consistent)
PMC
RWS (thins out quickly)
Prvi (thins out quickly)
Winchester (thins out quickly)

(no experience with Hornady or Nosler, but I expect they'd be right behind Lapua)


300 Win Mag:

Winchester
Federal

(not a lot of exp with this caliber obviously, but interested in others experiences with various brands)

[HiBC]

I can't give you an answer on the best brand of 7mm mag brass.I will address brass thinning a bit.
The belt headspace thing is an issue.Typically,they allow plenty of clearance so when M'bogo the cape buff is about to give you a kiss,the round will chamber easily.
As the belt is the designated headspace feature,officially,sizing dies will push the shoulder back enough so the belt is still in charge of headspace.
You can make your brass last longer if you set up your dies to only set the shoulder back .002 or so after it is fired in your rifle.
There are a number of methods to measure this,from the Hornady caliper attachments,to an RCBS precision mic.I have not tried the bushing type case gages such as a Wilson,but if they will stop the case at the shoulder,you could measure over the bushing and case.What you want is a before and after sizing measurement to tell you how far the shoulder is bumped back after fireform.

[Brian Pfleuger]

No opinions for those particular cartridges but I buy only Norma brass for my rifles. .204 Ruger, 7mm-08 and .22-250.

[Sevens]

Lapua is likely the best brass on earth with Norma close behind.

Everyone else is a step down.

Federal has gotten quite the reputation lately of being relatively thin and not at all long lasting in rifle brass. For my buck, R-P brass in pistol is amongst the absolute thinnest in the industry, so while I don't have much experience with R-P in rifle, I would choose something else just because of what I've seen in handgun.

Winchester is one of the better "all around" brands that's not over priced and is plentiful.

Older PMC has shown me to be very good brass... new PMC seems to be just this side of crap. Again, I'm talking about the brass that I have experience with-- handgun brass. I don't even know if PMC offers much in rifle.

[Poodleshooter]

My 7mmRM brass typically fails due to the head swelling beyond the point I can resize it. Seldom do they have "normal" bottleneck case failures, like neck splitting, shoulder splits or detectable case wall thinning. I've mostly used Winchester,Federal and Remington. Brand doesn't seem to matter between the 3. Individual cases do seem to fail before others in the same lot,but not in any orderly fashion that I can detect.
I neck size as long as I can.
I end up having to FL resize them eventually, and then at some point the unsizeable area above the belt just gets too large for the sizer to handle and the case is done for.

[Doodlebugger45]

I'm not sure there is a constant answer when it comes to the cheaper stuff like Winchester, Federal, Remington brass for rifles. It seems like over a period of time, any one of those makers will have runs of brass that are very good and then some that are very poor.

When I first started loading for rifles, I chose Winchcester brass because it was a lot better in my pistol cartridges. The first couple bags of Winchester in 7 MM Mag and .325 WSM seemed to work well. But then I bought a bag of .243 brass that wasn't so great. A friend told me that he had much better luck with Remington, so my next few bags of brass were Remington and they also seemed to work well. Eventually, a few non-reloader friends gave me quite a bit of once-fired brass in various makes, including a lot of Federal. Now that I have wuite an assortment of different makers in about 7 different calibers, I think it's quite a crap shoot.

I have never tried LApua or Nosler because I'm too cheap. The generalizations I can make might simply be random, or they might be valid I'm not sure. But in general I have found:

Between Remington, Winchester, and Federal in various rifle cartridges, there is no clear-cut winner in terms of durability. I have had slightly more Federals split than the other two though. But I have one batch of about 30 Federal nickle-plated .308s that are extremely good.

The Hornadys that I have reloaded (from factory loads that I purchased new) are definitely higher quality than the other 3 makers. I might be money ahead to buy Hornady brass brand new if these results are consistent.

[700cdl]

I've been loading for the 7mm rem. mag. for a long time and have had my experiences with brass. I have arrived at Federal and Winchester for both of my 700s. I tried some Federal nickel, but quickly decided it was not the way to go. For some reason it won't group well in one of my 700s. And since I neck my brass with an occasional FL sizing when it gets tight, I have found the nickel far more problematic in this way. Don't know anything about 300 win. mag.

[rsnell]

If anyone is having trouble chambering belted magnums, check this web address: www.larrywillis.com. This solved my problem with 7mm Remington magnum and 300 Weatherby magnum brass.

Bob Snell

[Rifleman1776]

For 30-06 I have always preferred Winchester. Everything about it seems to work better than other brands.
However, I have also reloaded thousands of rounds of military brass. It was my 'fun' brass. It, seemingly, had an infinite life and could be reloaded many-many times.
Military is thicker than others, particularly Winchester. It's max loads are several grains less than the Win.

[ojibweindian]

I've had good results with Remington and Winchester 7mm Mag brass. Federal, to be blunt, sucks. The primer pocket of EVERY piece of Federal brass I've used, so far, gets really "loose" after two reloadings. So much so that I can almost push a primer into the pocket with my thumb. Does the same with my 30-06, too.

And, my loads are not screamingly hot, either.

Anyways, I'll use Federal brass, but I now crush the case after the second reload.

[The Earl o Sammich]

I had the same experience with Federdal brass. Primers would fall right out after about the third load. I use only Remington and Winchester now.

[chiefr]

I find the length consistency of new Norma & Lapua brass to be the best. Also most Norma & Lapua brass is annealed. I agree that Finnish & Swedish brass is hard to find and costs much more.
Most of us use WW & R-P because it not only costs less, but practically every retailer has it.
R-P & WW brass is good brass, however when using new domestic brass, I recommend trimming to the required "Trim to length" before reloading. I notice the case lengths of new brass vary as much as 10 thousands of an inch.
Case length variance is greater with the belted magnums.

[wncchester]

"How would yall rate various brands for brass?"

This isn't a satisfying answer but truth be told, few shooters - or rifles - are good enough to see a consistant average difference.

[700cdl]

I load a lot of 7mm rem. mag., always high velocity upper pressure stuff using slow burning powders. My experience has been with the most common, not custom brass like Lapua, Nosler, Hornady, and such. Having loaded with Federal, Remintgon, Winchester, and PMC has been excellent. So far as the differences in quality among those brands with best to wrost would be Federal, Winchester, PMC, and Remington. Federal is probably my favorite because it has a longer life span and is hard enough to endure 10 plus cycles of my high pressure loads. I've loaded some lower pressure stuff that has yielded 13 or 14 cycles with Federal brass. Winchester and PMC seem about the same and slightly softer than Federal. Remington produces some really accurate loads, I can't ague that. But it is so soft, I'm lucky to get 6 or 8 cycles from it. It is so soft that I can accurately count the number of times it's been loaded just by counting the ejector ring imprints on the head. I recently tried some Federal nickel brass and had mixed results. One of my 7 mags. likes it and produces excellent groups. But my other newer rifle won't produce a consistent group with it at all. All over the paper and such poor accuracy in that rifle, I wouldn't even consider hunting with it.
I don't FL size, neck only, and that has increased my brass life by at least double, and noticably improved accuracy. I don't think I would use the expensive custom brass even ifI could afford it. I suppose if I was shooting professional competitive events I might, but for hunting and punching paper, common every day brass is as good as I'll ever have a need for.

[Brian Pfleuger]

Originally Posted by 700cdl

Federal is probably my favorite because it has a longer life span and is hard enough to endure 10 plus cycles of my high pressure loads. I've loaded some lower pressure stuff that has yielded 13 or 14 cycles with Federal brass.... I don't think I would use the expensive custom brass even ifI could afford it.

But the initial cost per case doesn't tell the whole story.

You indicate as many as 14 "lower pressure" loads from your Federal brass and perhaps 10 full pressure loads. Even if we take 14 as an average, using MidWayUSA's price of $23.99/50 for Federal .308, the cost comes out to 3.427 cents per shot.

At least one test has indicated that Norma brass can handle 23 firings with FULL LENGTH resizing before case head separation. Using MidWayUSA's pricing again, that would come out to 4.31 cents per shot.

Now, if it doesn't shoot any better, there's not much point, but considering that the overall cost is essentially tied since there's very little reason to FL size EVERY TIME...

It's probably at least worth trying for most people, unless other brass is available for free.

I can't speak to the life of Norma brass from a personal perspective as I have not yet had a single case fail. I have as many as 5 or 6 full power loads on my 7-08 Norma brass and it is indistinguishable from the first firing, in every way.

[K-Swift]

Haha, find it interesting and probably shows its a moot point when some peoples most problematic brand is another guys favorite.

[misskimo]

Fed is the worse in my selection of riffles. My 243. 2 shots of a mild to hot load. That's only one reload after a factory round was shot. My. Book. Fed is useless for reloading . 22-250. From factory box ammo 2 reloads out of fed. Useless. Rem. I get my money's worth.
I got to call you out on It being the best 700cdl. That's all I hear. Fed can't and will not hold out .
I just started out this month doing away with rem. And getting nosler and lupua brass. The rem very too much in weight . Just brass weight. I separated the lightest to the heavest in 3 by 3 groups. That 9 shots . Loaded my pet load with 3 targets. You can watch the groups walk.

[Sevens]

Haha, find it interesting and probably shows its a moot point when some peoples most problematic brand is another guys favorite.

If you really believe that it's a moot point, it most likely is a moot point at your bench. Definitely not for others. Everyone has their own goals. It doesn't take a lot of effort to make ammo that goes "bang" and if that's all that someone needs, that's perfectly well & good.

When you need or simply want more than that, there are many different avenues of travel to get there and a precious few of them are moot points.

[William T. Watts]

I prefer R-P, W-W, F-C in that order, I have a large lot of brass for each caliber I load for, typically 3-4K rounds for each. I have zero dollars in my brass (that's the fun part), two years ago I purchased 80-90K rounds of R-P brass that went thru the Remington Ballistics lab at the Lonoke Ammunition plant. Much of the brass I sold, what was left I had nothing in it and at my age (68) it will last me the rest of my life. I have no interest in trying to push the number of times I can load a case, I am satisfied with 3 loadings and recycle. If I were having to purchase brass I still wouldn't try to load a case more than 3 times. I've conducted my own tests and found that cases begin to fail with the fourth loading, that's good enough to say three and done. I believe Laupa or Norma is excellent brass, I can afford to purchase their brass but choose to purchase a new rifle ever now and then with the savings! To address your question about which case to use with the 7MM Mag and 300 Win Mag I prefer R-P, I think Winchester cases aren't as uniform as they once were and no longer use them, F-C are to soft to use in high intensity calibers. I've seen F-C primer pockets open on the first firing and will toss them in the recycle bucket if I pick any up. Obviously my case of choice is R-P! TMO William

[Innovative]

Your reloading technique can make a difference as to which brand is best.

I rate brass quality like this:

1. Lapua
2. Federal
3. Winchester
4. Remington

This holds true for most of the calibers that I load. Unfortunately, a list of the most affordable and readily available brass would be in the exact reverse order.

[Snakedriver]

Crazy as it may sound, for range practice I've found that Wolf "Gold" 160's are very accurate in 7mm Rem. Mag. out to 200 yards. Considering the price of the Wolf's, a tight clustered group with all bullet holes touching is darn good.

For reloading, I will take whatever brass I can get my hands on. The Wolf's a fully reloadable too by the way.

[misskimo]

Aw come on y'all. I know it's good to brag. But I just can't believe at 200 yards that you getting bullets holes that's touching each other . Nope.