Inspect New Brass

[largom]

With all of the rain and now cold weather and nothing else to do I decided to prep some new 222 Rem. brass for benchrest shooting. I had a bag of 100 new Remington brass and a bag of 100 new Winchester brass. With the bag of Remington brass I found 18 pieces with off center flash holes. Really off center, some touching side of primer pocket. Would probably shoot OK but would destroy a depriming pin when reloading. Have found cases in the past with no flash hole but this is the worst batch of new cases I have ever had. Looks like Remington quality has went way downhill.
Larry

[dale2242]

When I build my sage rat rifle in 221FB I put a lot of money in the barrel, stock, trigger, and scope.
I was looking for a very accurate rifle, which it is.
I bought Lapua brass. It is expensive but is worth the money as it is of much higher quality than domestic brass.
I won`t pay that price for most of my brass. Most of it is pickup.
For benchrest shooting I would go for the best brass I could get...dale

[lightman]

Everyones QC seemed to slip during the 2007-2008 shortages and sadly never really came back up to where it should be. Remington and Winchester were both pretty good at one time. For what you're doing I also second Lapua.

[Preacher Jim]

I have gone to lapua brass for all my benchrest rifles. Why spend what you spend to build a quality rifle and scrimp on brass.

[gunauthor]

I don't shoot benchrest, but have had pretty good luck with Hornady brass. It is somewhat more expensive than run of the mill brass, but I think it is worth it.

[Shepherd2]

I bought Winchester rifle cases for years and had good results with them. The last I bought was 100 6.5x55 cases. Eight of the brand new cases went in the scrap bucket. One didn't even have an extractor groove. Now I buy Hornady and Lapua or Starline if they make the case I need.

[JMtoolman]

Bought 100 new Winchester brass last year for my dad's rifle. I only got 79 cases that were useable. The rest had folded necks, cracks and dents. Sent Winchester a e-mail with pictures of the bad cases. They wouldn't even bother to reply! Won't use there cases again! The toolman.

[goryshaw]

The only new rifle cases I buy anymore are Privi Partisan (PPU) through Powder Valley. About 1k so far in 7.92x57, 7.5x55, 7.65x53, 7x57 and 6.5x55.

Primer pockets are extremely tight on new brass, requiring breaking the edge with an RCBS case mouth deburring tool, and even with that I have priming problems on 10% or so. My old RCBS PosiPrime is the only priming system that I have had any success with. Subsequent loads generally don't have a problem but initial loading is PITA. I haven't had any visible quality issues, unlike US manufacturers, but I wouldn't recommend them unless you are willing to do some pre-processing and/or put up with the priming issues. BTW, I've tried CCI, Winchester and S&B primers with the same results.

[bmortell]

I have a 100 batch of starline 44mag which pretty much all have a stretched thin ring about half way down. they are fine in my revolvers but my lever action wanted to tear them in half till I polished the chamber. I thought it was only the guns fault at first since it only did it in one gun and it was brand new then I looked inside the brand new cases and it was already there.

[robg]

I must be lucky I've used lapur brass but I don't think its any better than sako Winchester etc had duff lapur cases that wouldn't fit shell holders .