Falling in love with your brass

H

hammie

New member
Old bear started a thread about the quality of starline brass. I've always considered starline to be as good or better than any domestic brass. But that got me wondering: How do others here rank the quality of the different manufacturers?

I've listed some manufacturers below. Add others as you wish. Your opinion can be based on overall quality, durability, uniformity, or any other personal objective or subjective criteria. For example if you like Lapua brass best because it's so darn pretty, then that's fine. Just state so. I put hornady as a manufacturer, but Hornady's website is not clear on that. Initially Frontier ammunition was loaded using re-formed military surplus brass. I remember buying a box of .243 Win in the 60's from an OTASCO store (Does anyone remember Otasco: Oklahoma Tire And Supply COmpany?) The brass had a military headstamp and you could see a slight crease on the shoulder where the original .308 neck began. Anyway, I thought Hornady later partnered with federal for their brass. Now I don't know where hornady gets their brass.

Possible brass manufacturers/sources include but are not limited to: Lapua, Norma, Winchester, Remington (Is remington now federal?), Hornady, Federal, Starline, Privi Partizan, Sellior & Bellot, Fiocchi, CBC, or any others.
 
Lake City Brass from back in 50s and 60s , They made some fantastic brass especially for 30-06 M72 for national matches

But PPU brass to me is the absolute best value out there, I have gotten 15 firings out of an M1 with no case head seperations or split necks, only reason I had to toss them was that case heads looked like they went thru a meat grinder
 
@akinswi: Thank you!! I forgot about lake city brass. Some of the best. And certainly yes, about PPU brass. A short time ago I bought some PPU .30-'06 ammunition. I didn't expect much from the brass, but surprisingly, it is good brass
 
How do others here rank the quality of the different manufacturers?
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That's not as simple a question as it seems, to me. All the different makers, all the different calibers, and all the different batches produced cover a huge range of quality.

I've been loading for about 50 years, and have used brass as old as some made in the 19-teens all the way up to stuff made in the last few years, and for over 30 different calibers, and the best brass I can remember differs with different calibers and time periods.

Additionally, not everybody makes everything, and I've got some cartridges that brass only came from one source unless formed from some other case.

I've been happy with nearly all the new brass I've bought over the years, though sometimes the bulk packed stuff gets a bit bent/out of round case mouths.

I don't have any personal experience with Lapua, they have a high reputation. Norma has always been very good for me, as have lots of others. For what I do, I don't need (or want to pay a premium) for "the best" when "works good enough" does what I need done, and cheaper.
Win, Rem, Fed and other common makers have been good enough for me, if they make what I need. Some don't.
 
@44AMP: Thanks for the response. Your opinion is always valued. And you're right. The answers can be complicated and variable. Decades ago, I liked winchester brass, but for the last 10 or fifteen years, the quality, for me, has seemed to decrease. Remington brass has been serviceable, but I sometimes had trouble with neck tension on straight walled autoloading pistol cartridges, especially .45 ACP. The brass seemed thin. For now, I would rank things this way, starting at the top:

Lapua, Norma, Starline, Federal.

As you say, the rest are quite serviceable and pretty much the same. It's sort of like arguing around the hot stove at the general store about deer cartridges. They all do the job and there's not more than a nickel's worth of difference between them. Oddly enough I have some PMC (Korean?) 6.5x55mm brass from 40 years ago, when that swedish cartridge was nearly impossible to find in the US. Still using it. In any case, I was just curious about the opinions and experience of others.
 
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He stole the answer from me, it's definitely hard to settle on a headstamp when it has varied so greatly across time and differing calibers.

Most of my experience is in handgun brass. If it helps any, I can tell you the WORST.

What, wait? Wouldn't we argue on that, how would we ever agree and yes, you are correct, we would argue on that and we would never all agree but that's fine, I'd still be right regardless of the arguing! :D

But seriously... the worst in the history of man, time and space is A-MERC. This company is long gone outta business, thank the Lord. Worst dreck ever. Nothing approaches A-MERC when it comes to royally shoddy cartridge brass.
 
Guess the bottom line is what you can find. Kinda like primers, unless you stocked up on your favorite primers years ago , your left on what you can find
 
There is brass and there is brass....:rolleyes:

Brass for reloading (bought new) and brass for reloading from fired cartridges can give you quite different results, even when both are from the same maker.

Virgin brass seldom has anything happen to it even after long term storage, beyond perhaps some tarnish, or slight "handling" damage, when properly stored.

Brass from fired rounds can be literally anything from excellent to totally useless for reloading and good only for scrap.

And, its not just age that does it, its quality of original manufacture, age, and (always) storage conditions that affect the brass. And its the storage conditions that we almost never know about that does it most, I think.

I've had more than one example of brass having been degraded over time by the deterioration of the powder, or what I assume was the case.

Back in the early 70s my Dad traded some boxes of police match .38 wadcutters (which he detested, but got in a deal) for some .45ACP ammo. The .45ACP ammo which we THOUGHT was GI ball.

It was in the brown cardboard GI boxes, but the ammo inside was REM-UMC nickel cases, with 230gr ball slugs. There was a uniform tarnish on the bullet noses but otherwise it looked fine, and didn't appear to be reloads.

Only about half of it went off, and of the half that fired, about 1/3 to 1/2 of those cases cracked, badly. The ones that didn't are still in my brass stash today, and have been reloaded multiple times without any issues at all.

Another example I had was some 7.62NATO stuff with TZ headstamp 99-01 stuff, dingy, dirty, with actual sand in the box....

100rnds tested, 11% fail to fire, and 17% of fired cases cracked, at the head, just above the web!! :eek:

Pulled down the rest of that batch, definite powder deterioration. Tossed all of it but the bullets, (which were ok, once cleaned up).

The worst stuff I can remember was some A-Merc and GECKO-BAT pistol brass (9mm if I remember right, perhaps some .45 too) that snuck a few cases into a batch of once fired stuff I go a couple times. Flash holes about twice normal size, or off center, just generally crap I culled out during pre-loading inspection, and tossed...

I have a box of DWM .308 Win brass that I first loaded in the 70s. Didn't keep good track of how many times I loaded stuff back then, but they've been loaded several times. Still in my brass stash, and good for at least one more run...

Alot of brass life depends on the load and the gun(s) its fired in, more than the quality of the brass case itself. Even high end brass won't last its full potential if loaded too hot, or fired in oversize chambers and worked a lot back and forth sizing and firing over and over.
 
Speaking of Starline, in 2 different time periods I ordered 500 pieces of 6.5 Creedmoor Large Primer brass. I remeber testing water volume from both groups of 250, after firing, and it was exactly the same... Thats pretty decent in my book,.
I have two bags of Winchester made .458 win Mag brass and they have terrible mouths... :D I dont own a .458 win mag....
 
I have two bags of Winchester made .458 win Mag brass and they have terrible mouths... I dont own a .458 win mag....
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I do own a .458 Win Mag, and I have noticed bagged brass in that caliber (also in .45-70 gets a number of out of round case mouths. Simple to fix, before sizing, the "dents" are due to the thickness of the brass at the mouth, the size of the mouth (larger opening easier to bend) and the bashing around cases can take during shipping and handling packed loose in a bag.

Loose pack in a box protects the brass more, and if you're old enough, you can remember when virgin brass came packed in individual round boxes just like loaded ammo, except of course for Winchester packing both brass and loaded ammo in boxes without any partitions in certain calibers.

I've never noticed Winchester .458 brass having "terrible mouths" only that by the time the brass gets to you, some of them are bent. Terrible packing, not terrible brass.
YMMV :D
 
Another vote for the quality of PPU (PVRI PARTIZEN) brass!
Using it to form 7mm-08AI. Alliant PP2000MR, Fed 210M, 140gr Berger VLD. ES-6, SD-2.
Had some i reloaded 30+ times.

Got some PPU 7X57 Mauser cases for 257 Roberts. Also formed 257 Roberts AI from it.
Along with my daughters 7X57 Mauser i custom built for her.

And PPU has been doing well in my 7mm Rem Mag.

For my 284 Win, i have Norma that i've been shooting. And picked up 3 boxes of Peterson brass.
Also ended up with Peterson brass for my 7mm Weatherby Magnum.
 
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