brass

New to the reloading scene. Trying to buy components and brass is something I haven’t researched much.

What brands is everyone using and what are you staying away from?

I’ve had consistent results with Norma & Hornady.

Inconsistent results and more prep work with Rem & Winchester. Not saying its bad brass, just not as consistent in neck tension, wall thickness, and holding form. Jeff Heeg had put up some great info on anealing brass. My 22-250’s, Win 270, and a couple others didn’t really matter much. The 7mmRUM, 270WSM, and 7WSM that I load for made a big difference in reducing flyers.

hooknfinger wrote:

New to the reloading scene. Trying to buy components and brass is something I haven’t researched much.

What brands is everyone using and what are you staying away from?

It depends on what your goals are. If your just loading to save money and have fun, the brass is not an area that I’d overthink. Get some and start loading. Your biggest accuracy factors when just starting out are finding the best bullets, powder and charge weight, and bullet seating depth for a given rifle. The brand of brass doesn’t turn a bad load into a good load.

For target and varmit shooting, I don’t care. I have some of almost everything. Keeping brands seperate is too much of a hassle.

If I had to buy 1000 cases tomorrow, I’d look at Lake City. Good brass and long lasting. They are also reasonably available.

Norma are the Cadillac for consistency and lifespan. But they come at a Cadillac cost.

As long as we’re on the subject of brass, do you know what a primer crimp is how to remove it? Some brands of brass use a military primer crimp that must be removed before reloading. Obviously, in .223, 308, and other military chamberings is where you run into crimped primers.

Grouse.

Hook

My favotite brass in order

Lapua, Norma, Hornady

If you plan on reloading your brass as much as possible, paying a little extra up front save’s you from having to replace your brass sooner.

If you know you will be in a situation that your odds of loosing brass are high while shooting then use Hornady or Remington brass.

Grouse
Check out the Wilson trimmers I have used their primmer pocket crimp trimmer on the 50 BMGs, done once and your set.

JH

Yes, I just wanted to point out the existance of crimps in case Hook didn’t know about them. He doesn’t say what he intends to reload, but there’s a strong chance if it’s one of the military calibers, he’ll run into crimped primers sooner or later.

I just use my little carbide chamfer tool and do them over a bucket while watching TV. Very easy to remove, the only thing I reload that has crimped brass is the .223.

I’m just not that fussy about brass because I have so many cases and I have to have so much loaded ammo for varmint hunting and target shooting.

Grouse

I did read about the crimps, but thanks for the reminder.

I’m starting with .22-250. Then .300 rum and .260 maybe some 30.06 and .325 wsm

I’ve got a lot of once fired 250 brass, mostly hornady,couple box of rem and winchester.

Do you guys reload the nickel plated brass? Is the harder casing going to ruin my die’s? I’ve got 125 nickel plated winchester cases that I have put aside till I gather more info on.

I load a small number of nickle for an 30-06. No issues so far

Hook
I have only worked with Lapua and Horandy brass in my setup.

Not trying to change the subject, but how do you find the old info you mentioned Randy, I clicked on the search and entered annealing brass and nothing was found.

Theres probably a lot of good stuff accumulated here on this sight from the looks of what goes on here.

I think one of the luckiest things I did when getting into reloading years ago other then researching was to spend a day with a well educated and known reloader and get some hands on experience and a sit down conversation as to what is needed and what is a waste of money.

The day and gas to make the trip was well worth the education I recieved.

JH

hooknfinger wrote:

Do you guys reload the nickel plated brass? Is the harder casing going to ruin my die’s? I’ve got 125 nickel plated winchester cases that I have put aside till I gather more info on.

Load as normal. The nickel plating is extremely thin plating over a brass case. It makes no difference other than you want to make sure your dies are clean and lube the cases well so you don’t scratch that pretty plating.

Grouse

Jh

http://www.in-depthoutdoors.com/community/forums/topic/testbench_723154/

As only could be explained by the legend – Mr. Jeff Heeg

Annealing Brass

http://www.in-depthoutdoors.com/community/forums/topic/testbench_723154/

Thanks for the link

JH

The link was a good read folks thanks for the info.

Hook keep us in the loop as you gather equipment and start working with your loads, there’s lots of good info being shared here.

A good friend of mine just got back from the Dakota’s, sounds like they had a great time hunting yotes.

Loading ammo and then having a blast using what you made is pure satisfaction.

JH

Another brass question.

What’s everyone favorite case cleaning method? I was goona purchase a tumbler but got to reading on the sonic cleaners. I know they are more money but do they do a better/faster job?

hooknfinger wrote:

Another brass question.

What’s everyone favorite case cleaning method? I was goona purchase a tumbler but got to reading on the sonic cleaners. I know they are more money but do they do a better/faster job?

I have both. I use them for different jobs because while a tumbler can clean brass, a sonic cleaner cannot polish.

Sonic Cleaner
Pros: Cleans a variety of things very well, including super-dirty range pickup brass, machine parts, gun parts, etc. Also gets into small places like primer pockets.

Cons: It’s a wet process, so everything put in, has to be dried. Capacity of most units is limited, so large batches of brass take time. Does not polish, just cleans. Drying the brass adds time.

Tumbler
Pros: Gets things nice and shiny and also does a pretty good job of cleaning as well. Can do large batches. I can tumble hundreds of brass at once in my Lyman. Not a wet process, so any brass taken out can be used right away without waiting for it to dry.

Cons: Tumbler media gets stuck in flash holes. Separating media and brass is messy and takes time. Relatively slow. Takes a couple of hours per batch at least. I bought a plug in timer so the machine shuts down after running a set # of hours.

Grouse

Eventually I will own a Sonic Cleaner and do a 2 step process. Right now i tumble them and here is the 2 pain in the rear things. As Grouse mentioned, seperating brass and media takes a lot of time. I was just shown a trick to speed it up, and it works. When your done with the tumbler, put your brass in an ice cream pale or whatever, flip the lid over on the tumbler and places a few brass on top at a time. Turn the tumbler on and it will vibrate most of the media out of the brass. I still take a primer port reamer and clean them all out.

The biggest thing I don’t like is the media stuck in the neck. I like the inside of the neck to be as consistent as possible. Some get cleaned well, others don’t. The sonioc will fix that.

I have no experience in the sonic cleaners or tumbling machines. I have never used these machines, are they effective in cleaning brass well and saving time?

I have cleaned a bunch of brass in my time and use a liquid called iosso, it seems fast and does a nice job cleaning. I am still using the same jug I bought from the beginning of reloading.

I never timed myself but I would be close to saying 20 to 30 minutes to start cleaning to being ready to prime a 100 rounds of large brass.

This is just my method of cleaning there are a lot of good options as noted.

Just hearing the pros and con’s from actual experience is what I like reading versus what someone heard.

JH

There really isn’t any time savings with a tumbler. It’s more that it’s the best way to process large numbers of brass with very little physical labor.

The main advantage is the “fill it and let it run” nature of it. I bought a $10 “countdown timer” from Menards, so I can set how long I want it to run and then it just shuts off.

I have a Lyman 1200 vibrating tumbler and I can easily dump 150 .223 cases in it and over 100 .22-250 cases per cycle.

So what I tend to do is go down after work and fill it up and set it for 3 hours. By the time I get the kids fed and we have them in bed so I have time to work, the tumbler is done and I can start.

The other advantage to a tumbler is as I mentioned, it’s a dry process. So you don’t have to worry about having to carefully dry the cases before loading, you can go straight from polishing to reloading in minutes.

With all other wet processes including chemical clean, sonic clean, and wet stainless steel media tumbling, you have to dry the cases. This adds extra time and effort and while technically it can be done faster than tumbling, it’s a lot more faffing around than I’m willing to do.

Grouse

I went to the stainless steel pins in a tumbler with Lemie Shine and just a dab of dish soap. To me it beats any other way out the primer pockets are clean as a whistle. Doing wet is not a big deal rinse out the pins and throw the cases on an old towel crab the corners roll them around some and let dry. If in a big hurry can throw them in the oven at low heat, best is in the summer lay them out in the sun matter of minutes they are dry.