Favorite make of brass?

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Commercially loaded ammo brass: Remington
European Commercial brass: Sellier & Bellot
Virgin reloading: Lapua
 
That was a good find.
The only 45 colt gun I have is a Bond Cowboy Defender Derringer in 45 Colt/410. I don't shoot it very much any more.
When I do carry it I like the 410 buckshot.
 
GeoDudeFlorida said:
Hmmm… well, just speaking from my experience, I gotta say Buddy Brass. It’s not just free, I didn’t have to bend over to pick it up. So it’s also sweat free and sugar free. Not to mention cage free, free range, no carb and non-gmo.
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You dont have to sort buddy brass to make sure what caliber it is. ;) no junk steel either.
 
Brass weight is an indicator of volume. Here are my records of range pickup 40 S&W brass I weighed: Federal (10% 67gr and 90% 69gr), R&P (10%63gr, 70% 64gr, 20%66gr), Winchester (70% 69gr and 30% 67gr), Speer ( 5%61gr, 20% 63gr, 45% 64gr, 45% 66gr, 5% above). For 9mm cases PMC ranged evenly from 57gr-67gr. S&B about the same. For lead reloads I lean toward Remington because the case walls are thinner and won't swage the bullet as much. For rifle brass, Lapua was the most consistent followed by Norma. Federal is third. From weighing brass, I have an impression that the best brass is who developed the round. So for 7RM, Remington would be better and for the 300 Win Mag, it would be Winchester.
 
BJung said:
Brass weight is an indicator of volume. Here are my records of range pickup 40 S&W brass I weighed: Federal (10% 67gr and 90% 69gr), R&P (10%63gr, 70% 64gr, 20%66gr), Winchester (70% 69gr and 30% 67gr), Speer ( 5%61gr, 20% 63gr, 45% 64gr, 45% 66gr, 5% above). For 9mm cases PMC ranged evenly from 57gr-67gr. S&B about the same. For lead reloads I lean toward Remington because the case walls are thinner and won't swage the bullet as much. For rifle brass, Lapua was the most consistent followed by Norma. Federal is third. From weighing brass, I have an impression that the best brass is who developed the round. So for 7RM, Remington would be better and for the 300 Win Mag, it would be Winchester.
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There are some interesting options like the Peterson long 300wm brass. Preventing that huge first fire forming stretch has to help life.
 
LiveLife said:
Favorite make? Of course, any new brass I find on the ground. :D

For .223/5.56, I prefer those with primer pocket crimp intact to indicate they are once-fired for me to happily swage the crimp. For .308, same year LC headstamp for more consistent internal case volume.

For pistol brass with neck tension concerns like 9mm 115 gr FMJ/RN, I prefer make of brass that doesn't produce any bullet setback but not so thick to bulge the case neck to where finished rounds won't fully chamber.

Compromise? Brass with thinner case wall get used with larger sized lead/coated lead bullets.
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I too like finding the crimped primer in my range pickups.
In 223/556, mostly headstamps of LC and FC.

In handgun cartridges, I have mostly Federal, R-P, and Winchester.

The only problem I have had was some Winchester 357 SIG splitting at the neck. But I bought a bunch of Speer brass and these were thrown in, I have no idea how many times they were reloaded.
 
I am new to using LC brass but I actually like it so far. Everything else I will use. Particularly pistol cases free off the deck. Ill keep whatever, to give an excuse to buy a new rifle, got a nice stash of 270, 6.5 Creed, 22-250 and other but no rifle to shoot it out of. The worst by far, tied, is herters and Winchester. Always something effed up with win brass. My favorite for bottleneck is Rem
 
When times were normal, for handgun, I'd buy mostly Starline cases. I have not tried their bottle neck cases except for 32-20. Before the recent shortages, Starline was the only source I found for the quantity of cases I wanted to buy. I like having 500-1000 new cases on hand for future use.

For rifle, even in good times, it kind of has been buy what I find. Winchester and R-P are favorites. Lake City is good. I recently built a 22BR rifle and I buy Lapua 6mmBR cases to reform. I have a large quantity of Hornady 204 Ruger cases. It was what was available when I was getting ready for a prairie dog adventure. These still have a few reloading cycles left in them.

The last 221 Remington Fireball cases I bought were Nosler as those were the only ones available. I do have case forming dies and 222 Remington cases are the best and unfortunately they are getting harder to find.

I used to pick up range cases and buy once fired but they have gotten to be a PIA. I've stopped obtaining once fired cases. It is just not worth the effort. A bunch of case head separations in my M1A and some primer seating problems in "no-name" 38 Special and 9x19 cases sealed the deal.

Most of my shooting is reloaded ammunition. I do occasionally buy factory ammunition to shoot and I do keep the cases. But I know where they came from.

I have several 38 Special revolvers that are machined for moon clips. TK Custom makes two different moon clips, one ofr W-W cases and the other for R-P and Starline cases. I've settled on the moon clips for R-P and Starline cases. I still have and use W-W cases and other cases but they are relegated to non-moon clip use.

I reload and shoot something north of 30 different cartridges. I'm probably shooting 5-7 different cartridges actively at any one time but it changes over time so I have to be flexible in the new cases I buy to keep my back up inventory in stock.

I'll do my part to pay it forward and leave the fired cases from someone else on the ground for those willing to grovel for it.
 
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AJC1 said:
There are some interesting options like the Peterson long 300wm brass. Preventing that huge first fire forming stretch has to help life.
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I feel like if they want to impress me, make 300 win mag without a belt. I'd buy it. I hate that belt. It makes the 300 win mag less than perfect IMO. As it is, 30 Nosler seems more interesting to me.
 
For bought and paid for brass, I mostly have Winchester, followed by Starline and Hornady. I do have some Dogtown brass. 243 that also doubles as 260. The only premium brass I ever bought was Nosler. The first piece I pulled out of the box didn't have a flash hole. I never bought anymore after that. I have no theoretical problem with Lapua or Norma except the price. I am fine doing all the work on ordinary brass to square it away.
 
Pistol brass just about anything. Most likely I will lose it before I out use it. Though I do save my 45acp R-P brass just for cast bullets.

Rifle brass, I don't buy new so what I find and even now that has been limited. I wrote this before but will repeat. Last summer I did an unscientific test of LC, GFL, PMC, PSD AND Norma brass in my 223. Loaded 20 of each all the exact same with the same components at the same time on the same machines. The idea was to see if brass made an accuracy difference. I now only keep Norma and PMC brass...

I have almost 500 pcs of GFL that was once fired all from the same gun, has never hit the ground and all back into the original 50 count boxes. It is still all sitting there.
 
If I'm buying new brass I like Starline, Lapua and Norma. For range brass I guess Remington and LC. I used to buy new Winchester brass but it seems like their QC has really slipped. I get a few out of every hundred that are damaged and several split necks on the first firing. Winchester brass caused me to buy an annealing machine!
 
I like Starline for pistol if I'm buying new, Fed, Win, Rem, Blazer if range pickup or from factory ammo.

For rifle I like Norma the best but Remington and Winchester are good too. In my AR I like LC the best.
 
Depends on caliber and purpose. For the long range stuff I push hard, Lapua or Nosler, with pref going to Lapua. For pistol, Starline or JMC. For standard .223/5.56 Starline is perfectly fine, but I do have some Lapua that I use for pushing 75 HPBT really hard. For .30-06 Garand stuff, the Starline is fine, but I generally use Nosler for the hunting ammo.
 
BreechFace said:
Commercially loaded ammo brass: Remington
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It's interesting that a lot of folks like Remington brass. I suppose it depends on the year. I've had some good Remington brass and some straight out of the factory ammo box that split (9mm). They do seem to have a few different headstamps. Notably they have one headstamp where the letters are smaller. These were from a PPQ with no issues with any other brass (factory or reloads).

https://imgbox.com/s5rRa4Tr

s5rRa4Tr
 
I also like using LC 30-06 brass when resizing and trimming the brass for a T99 Arisaka. The brass is strong and doesn't have markings on the head that will confuse anyone.
 
packetloss said:
It's interesting that a lot of folks like Remington brass. I suppose it depends on the year. I've had some good Remington brass and some straight out of the factory ammo box that split (9mm). They do seem to have a few different headstamps. Notably they have one headstamp where the letters are smaller. These were from a PPQ with no issues with any other brass (factory or reloads).

https://imgbox.com/s5rRa4Tr

s5rRa4Tr
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That's like some of the stuff I've been cutting down into 9mm Mak. Some MXT is so brittle it chatters and splits as soon as the cutting tool touches it. Some mxt cuts like butter and has a clean finish. Slightly different headstamp, same manufacturer, and it's pretty obvious the brass has either been treated differently (chemically or heat treat?) or the foundry used a different recipe. Based on the color and grain my guess is one foundry uses a little more tin in the brass than the other. Other than the cut, and size of the letters in the headstamp, they look the same.
 
packetloss said:
It's interesting that a lot of folks like Remington brass. I suppose it depends on the year. I've had some good Remington brass and some straight out of the factory ammo box that split (9mm). They do seem to have a few different headstamps. Notably they have one headstamp where the letters are smaller. These were from a PPQ with no issues with any other brass (factory or reloads).

https://imgbox.com/s5rRa4Tr

s5rRa4Tr
Click to expand...

Once fired Remington brass seems to be fetching a premium and is segregated off. So there must be demand for it.
https://www.diamondkbrass.com/9MM.html
 
packetloss said:
It's interesting that a lot of folks like Remington brass. I suppose it depends on the year. I've had some good Remington brass and some straight out of the factory ammo box that split (9mm). They do seem to have a few different headstamps. Notably they have one headstamp where the letters are smaller. These were from a PPQ with no issues with any other brass (factory or reloads).

https://imgbox.com/s5rRa4Tr

s5rRa4Tr
Click to expand...


And then in other threads the complain about how bad it is, to thin, no neck tension and all that.o_O
 
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