"Quality of brass"

[GuillermoAntonio]

Question for the wise men of this forum:

How important is brass when it comes to reloading?

Leaving the obvious "safety is first" out of the equation...

Assuming we are talking of once fired brass, is, for example, federal brass better than Winchester brass? how bout LC brass?

I recently acquired several hundred pieces of once fired ".308 LC Match" brass.

Will this brass have an effect on my reloading data? Will there be a change in pressure?

Should I even use it for my current application? (100-300 yards, paper) or save it for the future when I become more proficient and start shooting at longer distances?


AR-10 18" Barrel 1:10 twist


Thanks

[Kwikvette]

I've only heard and read good things about LC brass; it's all I use for .223 and if I had a lot for .308 I'd use it as well.

With that being said, whenever you change a single component in your load, you'll need to develop a load again.

Reason is, each type of brass will have its own internal volume. This can lead to changes in pressure even if you kept all other things equal.

If you scroll down a few threads, you'll see I posed the question "what's the best .300wm brass".

I plan on stockpiling on only 1 type of brass the way I do for my other calibers. This way, once I develop a load with said brass, my load can stay the same as long as the brass doesn't vary by much from one piece to the next.

[Kwikvette]

By the way, high quality brass will be subject to tighter tolerances. Weight difference will be minimal, flash holes will be center, and primer pockets will be consistent in size from one to the next.

For precision, you only want the best. Seeing as how you're using a gas gun, I'm sure you can get away with "range brass". Just FL size it and let us bolt gun guys blow our money on the expensive stuff

[ojisan]

In .308 you have to watch out for mil spec brass, which is often thicker than commercial brass.
The thicker brass can reduce inner case volume, meaning less powder is needed.
Now in theory mil spec brass should be marked 7.62 x 51 but it is better to check the case capacity to be sure.

Here's a vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gu525lHgVE

More:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_l0s5n5Q-0

[GuillermoAntonio]

In .308 you have to watch out for mil spec brass, which is often thicker than commercial brass.
The thicker brass can reduce inner case volume, meaning less powder is needed.
Now in theory mil spec brass should be marked 7.62 x 51 but it is better to check the case capacity to be sure.

Here's a vid:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gu525lHgVE

More:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_l0s5n5Q-0

Watching now, thanks!

By the way, high quality brass will be subject to tighter tolerances. Weight difference will be minimal, flash holes will be center, and primer pockets will be consistent in size from one to the next.

For precision, you only want the best. Seeing as how you're using a gas gun, I'm sure you can get away with "range brass". Just FL size it and let us bolt gun guys blow our money on the expensive stuff

LOL, One step at a time brother, I spent all of 2017 building rifles.
I plan on spending all of 2018 learning to reload and reloading everything I can use in the future and I have 2019 set on Hunting. So yes a bolt gun is on the sights

Your LC 308 brass is of good quality, on par with the high price Lapua and others.
I have 32 years hand loading under my belt with NO mishaps, so I have a fairly good grasp on the subject,

That said, prepping the once fired brass to get the most accuracy and life from it will require a one-time labor consuming effort.

The first will be the depriming and removal of the primer crimp, MOST important.
I suggest a decaping only die for this and then crimp removal.
Get yourself a go, no go primer pocket gauge so you know when you have the crimp removed for proper re priming.
At this time it is a good idea to also uniform the inside of the flash hole.
I would also recommend annealing the necks to make them more malleable and easier to resize.

From here tumble and clean the cases, it will make the resizing easier and have less wear on your dies.

Full length resize or better yet Small base resize to make the first chambering in your gun reliable.

Measure the case length and trim to specs. Remember to chamfer and bevel the case mouth.

Tumble again to remove resizing lube or wipe clean before going on with priming, powder charging, and seating the bullet.

Weighing the brass cases at this point and separating lots by weight and you just made yourself a few lots of match brass.

Next loading you can Neck size if you’re shooting a bolt gun and you’re good to go.
Just watch case growth and work hardening as you reload a few times and trim and anneal as necessary.
Done properly you will get another 6 to 8 loadings as long as you’re not shooting max charged loads.
Have fun, safe shooting

Thanks for this great info. I knew I would need to learn to remove pocket crimps sooner or later.... I guess this brass will be the first reason.

[kcstott]

All good info posted above.

It comes down to a few things.

1. What do want to do with the ammo

2. How much do you want to spend

Precision costs money, how much do you wan top have?? That said I think you have your bases covered.

[Jta]

I remeber a while back ether on this forum or another one someone posted different case capacitys for 308 win from different manufactures, i thought lc brass was one of the smallest for case capacity while Winchester was on the higher end.

[GuillermoAntonio]

I'm very happy to help out a newer'ish OR new to a certain task, fellow hand loader.
If needed, I can suggest some of the precision tooling I mentioned in my post and where to check for the best prices on them.
As the other poster replied, Precision does cost, however, properly planned for, it is easily kept to a minimum and will last through several more hand loading cycles.

[Rocketman99]

Same here.

Good info Red Mist, I'm going to sit back and learn too.

[divingin]

I remeber a while back ether on this forum or another one someone posted different case capacitys for 308 win from different manufactures, i thought lc brass was one of the smallest for case capacity while Winchester was on the higher end.

LC is heavier than most (as are a few others: Fiocchi [GFL headstamp], MKE, couple more i can't think of right now.)

It's not a real big deal (danger-wise) if you're not working the upper end of the pressure curve (in which case, you'd be working up to your load with the components you're going to stay with. At least if you're smart, you will.)

In general, I find that going from, say Hornady or Federal cases to LC means about a .3 to .5 grain decrease in charge to get similar performance. When you're talking 40+ grains/charge, it's not a huge percentage.

LC brass is annealed prior to loading, so if you are sure you have once-fired cases, you can probably skip a re-anneal for a couple/few load cycles. Do check the primer pockets and OAL though.

[OpenSightsOnly]

I recently acquired several hundred pieces of once fired ".308 LC Match" brass.

Will this brass have an effect on my reloading data? Will there be a change in pressure?

LC match brass doesn't have a crimp so that saves you time from reaming or swaging the primer pocket crimp.

If you are using data from reloading manual, always start low (about 1.5 grains off the powder charge and work it up.

[tonyjr]

I would save it until you think it is time .
Right now , just use range brass to learn on .
The only time I go by head stamp is on my 45 APC's
I have 5 and 3 of them " like " different brands .
I am cheap , so I watch at range and if you shoot
what I want / like , I ask , other wise I just pick up everything .

[tonyjr]

Red Mist Maker
Thanks , I just ordered one - Heavy Duty Decap Die .
Last year 3 nephews bought the 308 / 762's and 600 rounds .
Anyway we pick up range brass too and I / we have popped a few universal pins .
To me , those cases are not worth my trouble andthey go into brass bucket .
Does RCBS have the same policy as Lee - break one and just pay shipping for replacement ? I generally order 3 from Lee .
308 , 30 carbine 38 , 45 and 223 all I have found with stacked primers

[milw50717]

Brownell's
100-015-614WB
Large Primer Pocket Swage Gauge

I'm interested in this as I have just had to swage some commercial Federal and Remington 223 cases as it was not smooth when priming them on my progressive. The cases didn't look to be crimped but the edges of the primer pockets were not smooth after decapping. Maybe I should have reamed them a little ?

Back to the gages. I have seen some slight differences in primer size, so I am wondering how tight fitting these gages are going to be in the cases which is dependent upon a number of factors. Is there a SAAMI or similar standard for primer sizes and would this gage be set on that ?

To answer my own question after some deft googling. There are SAAMI specs for primers - rifle & pistol - which are the sizes that Ballistic Tools mention on their website, so the question becomes are the gages based on the max allowable size, anyone got a gage and a pair of calipers handy ?

[OpenSightsOnly]

For 223 brass processing, have never used a primer pocket gauge.

I use a spent primer as my gauge for the lot that I am processing using a Dillon 600 Swage.

After 7 reloads, brass is retired.