Starline bottlenecked rifle brass

what brass is generally best for precision accuracy?

  • Lapua

    Votes: 19 76.0%
  • Hornady

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Starline

    Votes: 5 20.0%
  • Nosler

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Norma

    Votes: 1 4.0%
  • Federal

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Winchester

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Remington

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    25
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sequins

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Hello friends,

I reload for several handgun calibers and have always been very satisfied with Starline brand brass. I'm branching out into rifle reloading, 5.56x45 specifically, and I'm curious whether or not the Starline rifle brass is of high quality.

I've read that Lapua is considered the gold standard, followed by Hornady, and after that it's a crapshoot. I haven't really heard anything about Starline, though, and since it's considered the top of the pack for handguns I was curious how it measured up for rifles relative to Lapua/Hornady.

I intend to take every possible step to ensure I have the most accurate rounds possible and will likely compare Lapua and Starline head to head, but I wanted to know what you all thought before I start on this endeavor.

So, how does Starline rifle brass rate?

(I'm planning on developing loads around the Berger 77gn OTM bullet)
 
I don't think there's much chance that Starline is even attempting to do what Lapua does in terms of tightness of QC. Lapua is just sort of different.

But I've been pleased with the Starline .223/5.56 brass I've gotten and used. It's certainly capable of making sub-MOA ammo. Whether your gun is capable of taking advantage of the tighter tolerances of the Lapua, I couldn't possibly say. Very, very few gas guns would be, though.
 
Starline rifle brass is G2G! I've had no issues with it across many different calibers. It does tend to be heavier than other brands and has less powder capacity.
 
I can't answer your question since I only have experience with Starline, but I would think the chief advantage of something more expensive like Lapua is that they've done some of the work you might have to do with another brand. If you're going to trim, debur, chamfer and turn the necks on the brass, if you're going to uniform the primer pockets and the flash hole, and you're going to anneal the mouths then I doubt I would see the top 5 on your list or maybe any at all showing much difference. I think it falls into that category of things that people do that don't make a difference. There was a thread on that last year. Personally, I just clean and neck-size my Starline bottleneck rifle brass and load it up. It shoots more accurate than I do. Off a bag, the rifle shoots sub MOA and if it fails to do that, I'm not blaming the brass.
 
I voted for Starline because that is what I have been shooting but I think Lapua is the best out of the box brass. With Starline I still deburr the flash hole, uniform the primer pocket, size it and trim it if needed, then of course bevel and chamfer the case mouth. It may not need all of that but at that point I know where I'm starting from. The weight consistency of each case can be a little better with the Lapua as well. The one thing I didn't like about the Lapua is the under size flash hole requiring a smaller deprimer pin. The Starline seems to be holding up well in 6.5CM I have 4-5 firings on the brass so far.
 
Starline is good brass. If you are going to compete, however, I'll bet more precision shooters shoot Lapua than anything else. And Peterson is building a reputation for excellent brass.

According to the precision rifle blog, in 2015 more than half of the top 100 competitors used Lapua, of the remaining shooters the vast majority chose hornady, and of the ~5% of ranked shooters not using lapua or hornady case selection was not consistent enough for a decisive third place.

Based on this it's clear the Lapua brass is preferred by competitors, but at nearly 3 times the price of starline I'd like to know it's materially better. I intend to neck turn, chamfer, uniform, etc (all steps except annealing, which I'm still researching). I will do this to any brass I get, lapua as well.

Starline being extra thick is nice in handguns in my experience, but is that good/bad in a rifle? As long as it's concentric and in spec I'd imagine it's g2g.

Once I get my most recent order from midway I'll be comparing measurements for neck thickness at 4 points per piece and weight per piece for all 100 pieces, both lapua and starline. It seems like there isn't much data on Starline and everyone just picks Lapua based on reputation, but my experience with Starline in hand guns is that their brass is excellent and might well be competitive. The PR blog post from 2015 predates the release of Starline bottleneck cases so it's entirely possible they're competitive and it just hasn't been proven and published anywhere yet.
 
I've used Starline rifle brass in my 6.5 CM. I've done comparisons and Lapua is by far more consistent. Now you can hand sort and pick with any mfg and come up with a set of brass that is consistent. The difference is that you may/will need a large pool to chose from. This is after you have sorted, neck turn, and all the case prep. Now I know with Lapua brass I can get 10+ firings before the primer pockets get loose on my 223R brass.
 
Starline shows a lot of promise but it ain't going to be Lapua! In the poll, I would list Lapua, Norma and Nosler in that order, not knowing much about Starline yet.
 
Everyone gushes on about Starline, I opine that it's just because it's readily available, and, in their defense, they make a lot of odd brass, which endears them to shooters. They have been around a long time, which helps, too. Personally, I don't think Starline is All That and a bag of chips, but it's reasonable. It is not, IMHO, match quality brass.

"I just got a bag of brass from Starline... it's great!" Yea, call me in 10 years. I have some Starline pistol brass... the .38's are probably 20 years old, as is some of my .45ACP brass. Both batches suffer from body and neck cracks... some of the .38 brass cracked on the second loading (moderate load of Unique, fired in a S&W) and now I am losing about half of my .45ACP brass at each firing. Contrast that with some of my other brass, primarily Federal, Winchester, and RP, that is just as old and still going strong. Not that I don't lose a case here and there, but not at the rate the Starline is failing.

I did finally buy some Starline rifle brass... some .45-70... last year. It's not bottleneck brass, but we will see how it holds up over time.
 
Charlie, I have Starline 10mm with 20+ firings on it. I'm still waiting for the first case failure. Failure rates for other brass have been noticeably higher. Same for .38 special and .357 mag.

I'm not saying your experience isn't your experience, but mine is about 180° away. In fairness, none of mine are 20 years old. I've only been reloading about 10 years. Maybe their recipe is not the same as 20 years ago. Or maybe yours got exposed to ammonia. Or maybe the brass doesn't care about mileage, but sheer age gets to it. IDK. But I will happily trade away R-P brass for starline on a 2-to-1 basis.
 
Or maybe the brass doesn't care about mileage, but sheer age gets to it. IDK.

That's a question I have... is it age related hardness, or just a bad alloy mix? Some of the .38's split on their second firing, they were just a few years old at that point. The .45's were fine, its just in the past few years after many loadings they started to split.

As far as RP brass, I have 1000 .41 Mag cases I bought at the same time as my Starline brass (yes, I was single back then, so I had money to burn on reloading stuffs and motorcycles!) so they would have been stored and used in the same environment... they are fine, and subjected to heavier loads, for sure, than either of the others. Oddly enough, I recently traded into some Starline .41 brass, including some nickle brass... so we will see how durable it is.

Brass is an odd subject. People go on and on how terrible Federal brass is, particularly in rifle brass, and I've never had any problems with it... including something like .30-06 in my M1 Garand... which isn't kind to brass for sure. Same with RP. Some people go on and on how great Starline is... I just don't see it.
 
IMO if you start loosing brass to neck splits before loose primer pockets that is the time to invest in annealing. I basically have a butt load of mixed range brass in several calibers that I reload. I separate rifle and revolver brass by headstamp. I have no set opinion on which is the best or for that matter the worst as far as longevity. It all wears out but my .22 Hornet brass wears out the fastest. YMMV
 
I didn't see it mentioned anywhere, but what exactly is the rifle you're planning on using this brass in?

I ask because I have seen Highpower shooters hold up line changes while looking for their "precious" brass. To my mind that gives a huge advantage to using something like Lake City 5.56 brass in an AR-15. Sure, it's no fun to lose your prepped brass, but you aren't counting how many quarters you lost either.

Otherwise your top brass options would be Lapua, Norma and Nosler, in my opinion. I've never tried Hornady brass in any rifle caliber, though I'm about to reload some once fired .308 brass soon.
 
Just gathered some data on the Starline brass that I'm happy to share with everyone, I hope it's useful to other besides only myself,

Methodology:

Sample size is 25 pieces of Starline brass, each piece was weighed once, measured for overall length once, and then the necks were measured at three separate points.

Test Equipment:

- Mitutoyo 115-313 ball anvil micrometer
- Mitutoyo 500-196-30 digital calipers
- My Weigh GemPro 250 digital scale

(Sample of 75, 25 unique pieces)
Average Neck Wall Thickness: 0.0132"
SD Neck Wall Thickness: 0.0004"
ES Neck Wall Thickness: 0.002"

(Sample of 25)
Average Weight: 100.22gn
SD Weight: 0.22gn
ES Weight: 0.88gn

(Sample of 25)
Average Length: 1.7489"
SD Length: 0.0016"
ES Length: 0.006"

My Lapua brass will be here soon enough and we can compare the numbers, in the mean time I'll be ordering some neck turning tools I suppose.
 
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I use both Starline and Hornady for my Creedmoor. The Hornady as held up well but I’m migrating to Starine small primer as the Hornady wears out. I’ve got Hornady brass that’s been reloaded 6+ times and it’s still usable, but I anneal and that helps. All the brass I’ve retired was due to loose primer pockets. I chose Starline over Lapua because Starline uses a bigger flash hole than Lapua and I don’t have to change decapping pins when I change from Hornady to Starline. The cheaper price is also a factor.
 
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