Good Brass ??? Bad Brass ???

Patriot

Patriot

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Some of the posters to my thread on the .40 and .223 brass got me to
thinking about what is the good brass and what is the bad (less desirable)
brass. Thread contributions and opinions are solicited.

Thanks,

TBP
 
brass

Round Gun Shooter said:
Stay away from anything with the head stamp AMERC
Click to expand...

I 2nd that, I bought 5000 rounds last year for a great price( thanks to my father dealer cost) but i try to use some of the brass this year for reloading its crap.But the good thing about was the junky still paid me full price for the junk brass[smile]
howie
 
There's quite a bit of talk about staying away from the PMC brass (used) due to case head separation. I try to stick with Federal and Winchester used brass.
I also (better safe(r) than sorry (or KB'd) dropped in a Lone Wolf barrel for my G22- great bbl, far better support than stock.
 
I personally don't like S&B brass... the pockets seem excessively tight IMO. Others say they have no problem seating primers with S&B. Go figure.
 
Federal pistol brass has always had a good reputation. Unfortunately, the only way to get it in recent years has been to buy loaded ammo.

One of the issues, nowadays, is that you can't tell who made the brass by looking at the headstamp. Winchester and others are reported to be selling ammo and components made abroad.

The most common complaints about imported pistol brass seem to be about variations in the sizes of both the primer pockets and flashholes.

I've seen enough recent reports of problems with Amerc brass that I don't bother to pick it off the ground. I got one bad lot of 9mm brass a few years back. The flashholes were undersized and kept pulling the decapping pin from the die. IIRC, the headstamp was "TZZ" or something like that. OTOH, I have always liked Norma brass, when I could get and afford it.

I suppose that all you can do is to try to stay with American brand names and US milspec headstamps and hope for the best.
 
As for .223 brass, Federal is generally considered not really desireable; too thick and soft. Lake City, Winchester, Remington are all considered good to use. Lapua also very good.
 
Lugnut said:
I personally don't like S&B brass... the pockets seem excessively tight IMO. Others say they have no problem seating primers with S&B. Go figure.
Click to expand...
Ram priming :)
The only progressive I know of that does it the 1050, I prime off the progressive. S&B is tighter but the difference in force necessary is negligible. I am too cheap to throw away brass. It is good stuff otherwise.
 
adweisbe said:
Ram priming :)
The only progressive I know of that does it the 1050, I prime off the progressive. S&B is tighter but the difference in force necessary is negligible. I am too cheap to throw away brass. It is good stuff otherwise.
Click to expand...

Are you saying the 1050 has ram priming? How is that different? In my experience, even with an RCBS hand primer- I'd ruin many of the primers while installing them in the S&B cases. Not sure if I just got a real tight batch but I prefer to not try them again.
 
I use the Lee Auto Prime II. The ram of the press is used to seat the primer so you have all the mechanical advantage of the press working for you. It also seems to allow me to line up of the primer with the pocket fairly well so I don't get crushed or flipped primers anymore. It seats them to the bottom of the primer pocket every time.

With most progressives you prime by pushing the handle up/forward where you have less mechanical advantage.
 
Last edited:
Lugnut said:
Are you saying the 1050 has ram priming? How is that different? In my experience, even with an RCBS hand primer- I'd ruin many of the primers while installing them in the S&B cases. Not sure if I just got a real tight batch but I prefer to not try them again.
Click to expand...

I find that it depends on the caliber. I use a Hornady L-N-L which primes on the downstroke of the press (at the bottom). I can get plenty of force to prime almost anything (including unprocessed military brass). However, with some brass - like S&B in .38 - that primes hard, I get misfires due to deformed primers. I've done fine with S&B in .45 though.
 
EddieCoyle said:
I find that it depends on the caliber. I use a Hornady L-N-L which primes on the downstroke of the press (at the bottom). I can get plenty of force to prime almost anything (including unprocessed military brass). However, with some brass - like S&B in .38 - that primes hard, I get misfires due to deformed primers. I've done fine with S&B in .45 though.
Click to expand...

Could be the dependent on the caliber- I tried 9mm. I also have the L-N-L.
 
Funny, I had the opposite experience. I can't get my Dillon SDB to prime .45 reliably but it can prime 9MM reliably.
 
Mooney said:
There's quite a bit of talk about staying away from the PMC brass (used) due to case head separation. I try to stick with Federal and Winchester used brass.
I also (better safe(r) than sorry (or KB'd) dropped in a Lone Wolf barrel for my G22- great bbl, far better support than stock.
Click to expand...



I haven't had any issues with PMC in .38 super. I keep reloading mine until I lose it. No cracks or head seperations
 
Supermoto said:
I haven't had any issues with PMC in .38 super. I keep reloading mine until I lose it. No cracks or head seperations
Click to expand...

I 2nd that... I've been using PMC for about a year now without any problems at all!!! Again, mine is in .38 super as well. I don't notice any difference with the PMC vs. Starline vs. Federal. I now go where it is cheapest.
 
Only the PMC .40 brass, to be specific, is what I referred to (forgot to specify .40 or .223). I have yet to have an issue, but have read it in a couple other places...as always, it can be taken with a grain of salt, but with other brass around, why chance it? A couple threads....

see post #20...

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=47640

posts 7, 12, 13, 16...

http://www.brianenos.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=44707

http://www.thefiringline.com/forums/archive/index.php?t-124248.html

Ariel (if you can read this....)- there sometimes has to be a little "tweaking" of the primer carrier on the Dillons when you switch from large to small primers, and vice-versa- the procedure is simple (outlined in the manual). I had crushed primers when setting up to load .40 on my 550; saw the carrier wasn't going quite far enough forward, read the book, adjusted the carrier, and the issues went away. This MAY be the problem, if you haven't tried it...it may be worth a try.
 
I'm staying away from reloading any .40s if I can. Most of my brass is from my G22 which has since been sold, but the brass is noticeably bulged where the chamber of the Glock is wider.
 
It's not that the Glock chamber itself is wider, it is that it is not fully supported. Most, if not all, aftermarket barrels for Glocks have a better support for the brass. You can see what I mean by taking out the barrel and dropping a round into the chamber. There's an awful lot of brass that you can see at the top of the feed ramp. I am running a Lone Wolf barrel, which, while not completely supporting the round, does a much better job of it. An undersized sizing die can fix the "Glock bulge" from factory barrels, but my Lone Wolf does not produce a bulge, even at major power factors.

The unsupported piece of the chamber is usually blamed for KBs in Glocks, most often by seperated cases....as reported by many sources.
 
vellnueve said:
I'm staying away from reloading any .40s if I can. Most of my brass is from my G22 which has since been sold, but the brass is noticeably bulged where the chamber of the Glock is wider.
Click to expand...

I'm actually starting to ramp up my production of .40 S&W. I agree for sure that Glock barrels cause more brass expansion than many other .40 S&W guns. I find the M&P .40 doesn't cause anywhere near the buldge- less than my Sig 229 .40 as well.
 
vellnueve said:
I'm staying away from reloading any .40s if I can. Most of my brass is from my G22 which has since been sold, but the brass is noticeably bulged where the chamber of the Glock is wider.
Click to expand...

A Lee Factory Crimp die will solve this problem. What I've done is when I resize my brass I set the die as low as possible. Then I use the Lee Factory Crimp die which resizes the brass completely on the last stage. In .40 my chamber is extremely tight and I've shot tons of Glock brass without any problems with the Factory Crimp Die.
 
Well, .40 is way down on my list of stuff to load, but I will keep that in mind.

Mooney, when I had my G22, I did buy a LWD barrel for it and noticed the same results as you did (no bulging). I sold it to buy my M&P, which doesn't cause the problem and is a nicer gun to boot IMO.
 

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