What's the difference in brass??

jbmoose

What is the difference between different manufacturers brass? I've been reloading about six months now and know that military brass (LC & WCC) is thicker and supposedly lasts longer. What about Winchester, Remington and the higher priced stuff like Lapua, Norma and Hornady? What makes the difference in price worth it? Please don't give me a "You get what you pay for answer." I'd like to know why.

Thanks

jonk

Depends what you are shooting. Some brass is thicker, some thinner, some softer, some harder. For every day hunting or range use at 300 yards or less, I doubt you'll see a difference.

Now you get out to longer range, then premium brass- Lapua, Norma, etc.- is worth it. More consistent.

zimmden

The higher priced brass is usually sorted by weight. It usually indicates the brass thickness is more uniform giving you a more even neck thickness. Some brass is notoriously thin (Norma). This is OK if you neck turn for tight chambers. Lapua and Norma drill flash holes making them more uniform without much of a burr left inside. Remington and Winchester punch the holes. The more expensive brass is sometimes "case prepped" ie; deburred, primer pockets uniformed, weighed, chamfered inside and out, and Lapua appears to anneal theirs. Some have more uniform length and sorted by lot. Benchrest shooters do most of this themselves for their accuracy results. The more uniform the brass, the more accurate the reload all other things being equal. If your shooting involves the utmost accuracy, the higher price and effort is worth it. If not, the less expensive brass works fine. Bob

Rocky Raab

The key, really, is the rifle.

If you are shooting a factory rifle with normal chamber and bore tolerances, there is absolutely no point whatever in enduring all the drudgery of weighing cases, turning necks and uniforming every aspect of a case. The rifle simply isn't capable of taking advantage of all those tweaks. If you have a custom or dedicated target rifle, you already know all this, so most people who ask the question don't have a specialized rifle.

For them, any brand of brass is fine. It IS important from a safety standpoint to pick one type and stick to it. Or as a minimum, note which kind of brass was used to work up a given load and use only that kind for that load. The reason is the range of case volume that occurs among brands. If you develop a load in a voluminous case by Acme, but later load that near-maximum charge into a small-volume case by Zenith, you could push pressures to a dangerous level.

That's why most load manuals specify which brand of brass they used to develop a given load; it matters.

v35

In the mid 80s I did some case forming using all the common 223 brass of the time. Federal brass was mechanically inferior to other brands.
The tests involved severe reforming and high pressures.
I don't know if differences could have been apparent if the cases were not altered.
My conclusion at the time was inferiority of Federal brass in composition, heat treatment or both.

nononsense

jbmoose,

Don't forget the obvious point either, the cost of Lapua and Norma brass is exaggerated by import taxes and duty fees. While this doesn't make up the whole difference in the whole cost factor between U.S. brass and the imports, it is a contributing factor.

Lapua and Norma brass is manufactured to higher and stricter standards as compared to American manufactured cases. Case to case variations are much smaller and concentricity is much better. The imports are segregated into lot batches as is American brass but they are not sorted unless it's by the end sellers. Both Lapua and Norma are neck and shoulder annealed. Lapua cases are harder and tougher than the Norma cases. Norma is in the process of making some changes in this aspect though.

"Norma's brass cases are prominent in the world for being of high quality. New, unprimed brass that features chamfered and deburred case mouth, drilled and deburred flash hole, is sized and ready to load."

"Already decades ago Lapua ammunition factory started to focus more into target shooting side at the civil market. At that time a strong effort was put into product and machinery development. The match component tradition was born."

It takes more time and effort to fix, sort and reject American brass in order to achieve the potential for the accuracy and quality required for competition than it does to just buy the quality in the first place. This is an idea that has been lost on American manufacturing for the last couple of decades unfortunately. But if you're hunting within the 'normal' boundaries and ranges, U.S. brass is more than sufficient.

The other two makers, Hornady and Federal fall into a category of making better shooting ammunition than component cases. Both makers cases are softer and withstand less working pressure than the others. But the dimensional quality of the cases is usually better than Winchester and Remington. Tommy Milner has left Remington as CEO now so we may see some improvements coming in the next few years.

Best.