Best brass

[Dirtlaw]

It goes without saying that buying better quality brass saves a lot of trouble. Lapua makes incredible brass. But there some others that are good as well. Does anyone have experience with brass that you feel is even better than Lapua?

[divingin]

All subjective.

Brass, being a manufactured commodity, is subject to manufacturing defects, like any other manufactured item. "Better" does not equate to more accurate, or longer lasting, or any other metric. It means it starts out as being somewhat more consistent than other brands, which, while a plus, may or may not matter as it gets used.

Intended use comes into play. Lapua is good brass. Excellent starting point if you're playing the precision game. As are quite a few others: Peterson, Alpha, Norma, etc.

That said, if you're running, say, a rifle that beats brass up, and/or are not looking for precision downrange, you could save a bunch of money by going with a cheaper, mainline consumer brand, and never notice a difference.

In any case, brass is a consumable. Care may make it last quite a bit longer than some think possible, but eventually it will need to be replaced.

In the end, brass is only part of the equation. As a handloader, your care and attention to detail, and practices finding a load will have a lot larger effect than whose name is stamped on the brass.

[Dirtlaw]

All subjective.

Brass, being a manufactured commodity, is subject to manufacturing defects, like any other manufactured item. "Better" does not equate to more accurate, or longer lasting, or any other metric. It means it starts out as being somewhat more consistent than other brands, which, while a plus, may or may not matter as it gets used.

Intended use comes into play. Lapua is good brass. Excellent starting point if you're playing the precision game. As are quite a few others: Peterson, Alpha, Norma, etc.

That said, if you're running, say, a rifle that beats brass up, and/or are not looking for precision downrange, you could save a bunch of money by going with a cheaper, mainline consumer brand, and never notice a difference.

In any case, brass is a consumable. Care may make it last quite a bit longer than some think possible, but eventually it will need to be replaced.

In the end, brass is only part of the equation. As a handloader, your care and attention to detail, and practices finding a load will have a lot larger effect than whose name is stamped on the brass.

I've never used Peterson, but I've heard a lot of good about the company.


What about consistency and how close it is to spec starting out? You can ruin anything, but it's easier to start with good consistent brass than brass that is not.

[Ronin6]

Lapua is probably the best.

If you ever sample weigh the different head stamps you will see why Lapua and Peterson are the preferred and Starline is better than most. The more consistent the Brass the more consistent your reloads………..if you care about consistency.

If reloading for plinking any inspected Brass works but even then you should sort by head stamp.

You could go even deeper and sort by volume.

[Dirtlaw]

Very well stated (in my opinion).

[Cowboy T]

In my experience, Lapua is the best, followed by Norma. Winchester and Prvi Partizan is also very good, I'd say tied with each other.

For handgun brass, Starline, for me, has been tops. I don't know about Starline's rifle brass yet. Winchester handgun brass is also quite good, even the nickel-plated variety.

Lake City rifle brass is pretty decent. I use it for .308 Winchester, and I get good precision from my loads, certainly not good enough to win most contests, but still pretty good.

[kcstott]

It goes without saying that buying better quality brass saves a lot of trouble. Lapua makes incredible brass. But there some others that are good as well. Does anyone have experience with brass that you feel is even better than Lapua?

[divingin]

Peterson (308 and 6BR) tends to be heavier than Lapua. You can make the assumption there's less capacity; I've never measured it.

Quality IMO is pretty equal; I've yet to run across a bad piece in either, and they both seem very consistent.

My last batch of Lapua 6BR seemed to have somewhat wonky necks; a skim cut to thin them out yielded cuts anywhere from a quarter to full circumference, with more brass removed towards the shoulder. I don't recall turning having that problem before (but it may have, and I simply don't remember.)

A friend of mine shot some Alpha brass (all he could get at the time); a couple out of the hundred had folds in the shoulder. That said, I guess he was satisfied with it performancewise.

[LynnJr]

Lapua

[QED]

Lapua is probably the best but the few hundred 5.56/223 brass cases I purchased had way too much neck tension, so I had to run them through an expander mandrel. I know that some people resize new brass by default but I don't because until the brass has been fire formed, I wouldn't know appropriate amount of shoulder bump to apply.

[kcstott]

Lapua is probably the best but the few hundred 5.56/223 brass cases I purchased had way too much neck tension, so I had to run them through an expander mandrel. I know that some people resize new brass by default but I don't because until the brass has been fire formed, I wouldn't know appropriate amount of shoulder bump to apply.

I've never seen new brass that you could shoulder bump. it's all .004" to .012" under minimum regardless of caliber.
I run all brass through sizer first, then anneal, then trim and deburr, etc.

All competition brass starts life the same way.

[QED]

I wish you well with your brass prep process. I do OCD level brass prep so I try to minimize the amount of sizing/resizing that I perform, especially when it is done blind vis-a-vis the target chamber dimensions. If one has precisely measured the chamber dimensions of the intended gun, then yes, full length sizing new brass might be fine.

[hermosabeach]

For plinking, I have reloaded some US military 38 special cases almost 20 times

Super thick brass. Swathes primer pocket. From the 1950s.
Family friend was a marine pilot. I got his empties when I was a kid.

So for plinking, some extra thick military brass is awesome


Shotgun - Winchester AA hulls

[Ronin6]

I've never seen new brass that you could shoulder bump. it's all .004" to .012" under minimum regardless of caliber.
I run all brass through sizer first, then anneal, then trim and deburr, etc.

All competition brass starts life the same way.

You Anneal after you Size?

[kcstott]

I wish you well with your brass prep process. I do OCD level brass prep so I try to minimize the amount of sizing/resizing that I perform, especially when it is done blind vis-a-vis the target chamber dimensions. If one has precisely measured the chamber dimensions of the intended gun, then yes, full length sizing new brass might be fine.

I'm going to sound like Guffy. I may sound grouchy in this but I promise I'm not, I'm OCD too and I'm letting you know why you should Full length size brand new brass for match guns.

I know my chamber dimensions of my match rifles Because I machined them. That's how I also know that brass in general is way under sized brand new. Full length sizing it will not bump the shoulder in most cases with most dies. The reason behind full length sizing new brass is to catch any outliers in the mix and insure all neck tension is the same. I've shot brand new un fireformed brass in a match and only seen minor variation in elevation. I got news for you too, unless you are pushing really hot loads it will take you two to three firings to get fully fireformed brass with Peterson. After that yes you will see the sharp corners of the shoulder of your chamber in the brass.
I'm not full length sizing for the sake of sizing, I'm doing it to insure there are no odd cases, no out of round necks, and that there is nothing else possibly wrong with the cases. It's just insures a solid base line to start from.