A chink in the armor of Norma brass

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I have been on this forum singing the praises of Norma brass but I may have found an major issue.

First let me say that I do not have a ton of experience with norma brass. I began using it in my .300 win mag for competition with load data in various previous posts.
It is very consistent upon arrival with uniform necks, primer pockets, flash holes, overall weight +/- 1 gr , initially trimmed to within .001" of minimum...So about as good as Lapua. And best of all there is extra case capacity in .300wm making almost perform like a .300 RUM.

But, I have found an issue with the primer pockets coming loose after just a couple loads.

I will remind everyone that I have extensively tested this load, fired it in competition, and run it through Quickload. I have examined the cases, primers etc. No pressure signs at all and Quickload has my pressure at 58,300 or so PSI and the software is within 6 fps of my average so I think it's pretty close.

Some of the pockets are still tight after 3 loads, some are a bit loose but still firmly hold a primer. But in some I can tap the case and a seated primer falls out. (I noticed no resistance when priming so I tapped the case on the bench and it feel out of a handful of them). In the second batch of 100 brass several pockets were loose after the first load.

With max pressure in a .300 wm being 64k psi, and me around 58.5k psi, this is nowhere near max. In fact it's about 1.75gr below max.

I have never had pockets get this loose this fast in any rifle (or pistol for that matter) at pressure this low. For all the comments that suggest "over pressure.... Reduce charge.... Start low and work up...Etc etc" pressure may be the issue, but only because this brand of brass is too darn soft in the head and not because the load is in general too hot.

I once tried hornady brass in my .338 LM and it stuck brass at a minimum power load whereas Lapua brass could handle anything I felt safe loading.

I have the RW hart primer pocket tightener and am in the process of making a similar device myself, but this is just too early to need it on this brass.

:( I guess once this stuff gets to be useless I'll move to a different brand and re-work the load.....But it is a bit frustrating given the cost and the fact that it shoots 1/4 moa with this load.
 
Mississippi: "I have never had pockets get this loose this fast in any rifle (or pistol for that matter) at pressure this low. For all the comments that suggest "over pressure.... Reduce charge.... Start low and work up...Etc etc" pressure may be the issue, but only because this brand of brass is too darn soft in the head and not because the load is in general too hot."

I experienced this same circumstance not so long ago but with 223. My first thought was "what have I changed recently to maybe cause this ?" Answer was I had just acquired a wet tumbler with stainless steel pins to really clean my brass inside and out, primer holes and all. First batches of really shiny 223 had lots of loose primers holes. I changed to only cleaning fired-primed cases in the tumbler. Problem went away. Many I know say that the stainless pins cannot do this, but the problem went away after protecting primer pockets from the pins.

I am not suggesting you have the same problem I did. I am suggesting the "question" I asked myself might have an answer from you that holds the key.
 
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Norma is top notch brass from Sweden. Thing like this is quite out of ordinary. I suggest contacting them. Perhaps they did something wrong when they annealed this batch of brass.

I had similar, actually worse, experience with loaded cartridges from a much lower grade manufacturer. It was m1 carbine rounds. The spent primers just rolled out of the pockets during extraction, jamming up the action. I thought my rifle had developed way excessive headspace problem. It was brass being too soft. I have stopped buying from that manufacturer since.

You may want to discard those brass. I would not want to tighten them or anything. 300 wm is a stout round. Containing that pressure with questionable brass I will not do. Norma should appreciate you contacting them. You may help them spot a batch of bad brass.

-TL
 
I talked with Norma USA on the phone. They were great to work with. I need to send them some of the loose pocket brass and they are going to replace it with a different lot (all 200 pieces). Hopefully it was just a bad lot. But it's just weird
 
Good to hear, I was just going to suggest it.

I have hundreds of Norma Brass in several calibers including 7mmRM and 300 WSM and have not had this problem with multiple reloads at full pressures.

Let us know how it works out.
 
I have hundreds of Norma Brass in several calibers including 7mmRM and 300 WSM and have not had this problem with multiple reloads at full pressures
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Yes, it's just weird. Some of the cases, maybe 40% are tight and feel secure. Another 25% feel like other brands of brass I have fired maybe 8 times with full power loads.
Another 25% felt like this is the last primer they will ever hold, and 10% can't hold a primer anymore.

One batch of the lot (100 pieces) were all fired at the same pressure. The other batch of 100 from the lot were fired the first time at different pressures for load development. Then all loaded and fired again at the same pressure. many of those pockets are now too loose.

As I said in the OP, the only other time I had a brass issue was Hornady brass in my .338lm.

I'm going to get some Winchester brass to use while I wait until mid may when the get a fresh lot of brass from Norma. Winchester is close in volume to Norma so I hopefully won't have to adjust the load too much, or my dope. But still sucks to have to re-work loads.
 
223 Norma brass No longer made by Norma

223 Norma brass is no longer made in Sweden by Norma. It is made in Switzerland by the parent company factory (RWS I think it is). Straight from Norma USA (also not in Sweden).
https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=579509&highlight=norma+223
I know, its a different caliber, but the Norma name on something does not necessarily mean made in Sweden by Norma anymore. Lapua has done the same thing before with different "color" boxes.
 
It may be something to consider too that if you have more case capacity, you also have less case someplace in the walls and or base.
 
It's made in both places. The note in the thread you linked to said brass for reloading was made in Switzerland, but they still made brass for commercial loads in Sweden. If you get a copy of the Norma manual, they describe all the relationships in some detail. However, the fact brass was made in another plant should not mean the QC is done differently if it is made under Norma's control. Their manual says one of their routine quality tests is that brass withstands ten loadings.
 
So here is a probably dumb question: did you try different primers?

Maybe the primers are what is out of spec?

Probably not, but couldn't hurt to check.
 
Excellent question!

Yes I did. First off, I use CCI-250 primers which have a diameter of .2113" . Maximum SAAMI for a LR primer pocket is .2100". CCI is a medium sized primer with Remington being the smallest at .2100 and Federal the largest at .2120" . Win is within 1/10,000 of CCI.

Anyway, I tried CCI - 250's from two different lots (Fifw cci-200's are .2112 )and tried different primers from the same lots. Got the same results.

I measured the primer pockets of the most loose cases and got 0.2135 - 0.2130 ( primers fall out). Some of the cases that still hold a primer well measure 0.2105.

An aside, my father who shoots & reloads competition trap and sporting clays loads won't use CCI because if he does he can't change back to Remington because they stretch the pockets because they are hard and do not slightly deform as much as Federal which is a bit bigger.
But I say this because if you can't firmly seat a CCi or federal primer, it seems nothing will seat firmly.
 
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I figured you had but I didn't see it mentioned.

Sounds like you got a bad lot for sure.

I've read about the different diameter and cup strengths of primers and though it was worth a shot. ( Pun intended )

:cool:
 
One of the quality features of norma brass is that it's tough as nails compared to other brands at the case head area. This usually boils down to showing less signs of pressure than others would so there's a chance your pressure estimations are off and you're shooting hotter than you think. I know I'm shooting over map in the 7 mag and I get about 4 reloads before noticing a difference in tension while seating the primer and about 6 before I'm either coating the inside of the pockets or retiring the brass. Fwiw every brand of brass I ever used in my 300wm gets flogged out pockets very quickly, even when I'm not loading hot.

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One of the quality features of norma brass is that it's tough as nails compared to other brands at the case head area. This usually boils down to showing less signs of pressure than others would so there's a chance your pressure estimations are off and you're shooting hotter than you think.
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Yea, and I have heard others say it is soft, so don't shoot hot loads in Norma brass.


Im not sure if you bothered to read the entire OP but I did everything I could to try and tell you that it isn't overpreassure. At least not that I am over MAP...or even close to MAP. I am around 58.5k psi...Map is 64k. And I don't generally use the casehead to indicate pressure because by the time the casehead expands, you are generally well over pressure. Before that you will experience difficult extractions, extractor marks, swells near the web, blown out primers, pierced primers, shoulder bulge, cracked cases, and a bunch of other things I am leaving out.

I have NONE of that...nothing, zip, zilch, Nada. Quickload is within about 5fps of my chronographed velocity. It says 58.5k psi. Could it be off? sure. But it isn't going to be off THAT MUCH while still predicting almost the exact velocity!!!

i knew this comment was coming, no matter how much you assure people over the internet, they will assume you screwed up. But I posted this anyway just to see.

The Norma brass is headed to Norma for analysis. Meanwhile I have to wait for a new lot.
 
Well I'm definitely not saying you messed up. I'm suggesting that without a strain gauge, estimated pressures are just that, estimated. I mentioned that my rifle is definitely over map, and the norma brass shows little or no signs of pressure. I've had similar experience in a couple of our 243's also.
Mostly I'm just offering a different opinion than what others have suggested about norma being soft. Norma was suggested to me by a ballistic tech years ago as being some of the toughest brass with the best usable life, especially for loading hot. In my experience, using it in multiple calibers and having gone through a thousand or so pieces I can agree with them.
It is possible that they sent you a soft batch, I'm not ruling that out but, if they send you a new batch and you have the same issues then maybe the answer lies somewhere else.


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I'm not going to quote all of what Nosler guy said....But here is where I am at with this. Using RP brass with near MAP in my hunting .300wm loads I got 5 loads before the necks cracked (this was before I began annealing). But the primer pockets were tight all the way to the end....Same with Winchester but with Winchester I got 6 loads before the necks cracked.

I am going to try Winchester brass that I am painstakingly prepping and culling using exactly the same components, yet different brass. Because of the reduced volume of Winchester brass compared to Norma, I have to back the load down some to get near the same pressure I was at before, but at a slightly higher pressure to get the same barrel time. If the pockets stay tight here on win brass, then it is the brass.

Also, it isn't like ALL the primer pockets opened up on the Norma brass. They all started tight when new, but a significant percentage, about 25%, loosened up...And after 3 firings at the same pressure now, some are loose, and some arnt. The ones that became loose after the first firing got worse after the 2nd. The ones that didn't loosen up after firing#1, remain tight after#3. I kept them separate and processed them separately. However that isn't really necessary, you'll know which is which when you go to seat primers.

So either Norma makes brass with inconsistent casehead hardness (my ES on this load is in the single digits most days and never more than 15fps) and this is just too "hot" for some of their brass, or I got a bad batch.

If it is indeed a bad batch, the next lot should be just like the ones that didn't loosen up...If this is just how Thier brass is, then I will either switch to Winchester and buy a whole bunch anticipating I'll need to do a bunch of prep work and culling, or I'll buy RWS Which is the "lake city" of .300 wm brass - but it is pricy and has a lower volume so I'll lose a good deal of velocity.
 
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I am one of those people that thinks Norma brass is softer. I had a lot of experience with "Making" hard to get brass that Norma manufactured because of that reason. My homemade stuff lasted longer. Odd you would go right to Winchester brass. I always considered them the next softest brass after Norma. What ever works for you.
 
Odd you would go right to Winchester brass. I always considered them the next softest brass after Norma. What ever works for you.
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I went to winchester for that very reason, and because it has as close to the same case volume as Norma as all others...which means my load after a re-work should yield similar results. Although that may not be the case.

But because Winchester is supposedly soft, if the pockets hold with similar pressure/velocity, then Norma is VERY soft, and I will note that and not use it until something changes.

It's a balencing act between performance, brass duribility, and barrel life. If i want max brass life and great consistency, I go with RWS in this particular cartridge (lapua doesn't make .300wm brass). If I want max performance in terms of accuracy and velocity, I go with Norma. Maybe Winchester is somewhere in the middle.

Im a bit limited, but blackhills use WW super brass (winchester) for their loads. The only other options are Federal, RP, and Privi.

Im betting this was just a soft batch...put i have plans B and C ready if need be.
 
The other thing about Winchester is that it is almost always on the low end with their brass specs. This is a real concern with military (US and foreign) guns because military brass is usually above SAAMI specs to begin with. I don't know about Norma. It has been a long time since I loaded their brass.
 
The other thing about Winchester is that it is almost always on the low end with their brass specs. This is a real concern with military (US and foreign) guns because military brass is usually above SAAMI specs to begin with. I don't know about Norma. It has been a long time since I loaded their brass.
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base to Datum was the same as Norma when new ....And I have a very tight chamber, it is a match rifle. So being loose in a military, field gauge headspaced rifle, matters not in this case. Winchester has its place, and can work excellent. But if you don't have the tools, time, patience, and know how to prepare your brass, just buy RWS or Lapua and don't worry about it.
 
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