Who actually makes brass?

[Bmi48219]

I sort a lot of brass and often find myself wondering who really makes it.
I'm pretty sure Federal makes their own and the brass for their Wolf line.
Fiocchi makes theirs and Perfecta too.
I'm guessing Remington makes their own and Winchester too, BTW Winchester brass seems to be the softest, if the ejector dents on their once fired auto loader brass are any indication.
But I kinda doubt Speer has their own brass forming plant. Same for Browning. Seems like ammo isn't a large enough percentage of Browning's sales to make a brass plant worthwhile.
I wonder if Hornady just buys the short brass the other manufacturers won't use, Hornady brass seems shorter in most calibers I've seen.
Just a guess on my part but I think a lot of the imported brands are single sourced too.
If anyone knows definitively who makes brass for whom why not share your knowledge here?

[Rcmaveric]

I have always been curious if there were certain brass that were the same just different rebrand.

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[NikA]

Well, Federal, Speer and CCI have the same parent company, Vista Outdoors. I'd guess their brass is made on the same equipment. Remington and Winchester used to make their own, but if you read the fine print on their boxes, so much of their ammo is subcontracted out of the US, I have some doubts about how much brass they actually produce. I'd guess Browning falls in this category also: mostly foreign subcontractors. Starline makes their own and probably supply a good number of boutique makers based on headstamp lettering similarities. Hornady I believe also makes their own and has their own spec, hence the short cases. Then there are a number of international players: Fiocchi, S&B, Norma, Lapua, PPU in Europe, Armscor in Phillipines, PMC in Korea come to mind. Then you have a number of state enterprises: Tula/Wolf/Barnaul all out of state plants in Russia, probably others I'm forgetting.

[NikA]

As an example of subcontacting, WWB was (at least 2-3 years ago) entirely produced by S&B in the Czech Republic, and both Wolf Gold and Tula BrassMaxx were subcontracted to PPU and their Bosnian sister plant (whose acronym I forget at the moment).

[Hardcast416taylor]

Jamison brass.Robert

[uscra112]

I have to assume that Lake City brass is made at the Arsenal.

Starline makes brass, and I've read that they do contract runs for the big names.

It doesn't take such a huge investment. For a while we had a small business called Jamison making high quality brass for many obsolete calibers. Sadly they got into legal trouble, closed, then re-opened as Captech, but now they're closed again, some say because of internal conflict among the owners.

[Bmi48219]

Anyone know who makes "USA" brand brass?
i guess its like air bags or dog food. A few manufacturers have pretty much cornered most of the market.

[6mm win lee]

I have to assume that Lake City brass is made at the Arsenal.

Starline makes brass, and I've read that they do contract runs for the big names.

It doesn't take such a huge investment. For a while we had a small business called Jamison making high quality brass for many obsolete calibers. Sadly they got into legal trouble, closed, then re-opened as Captech, but now they're closed again, some say because of internal conflict among the owners.

Are you certain they are closed/out of business?

I ordered a run of brass from Jamison in the summer of 2011. They would not email updates after I called them. Then around 2nd of October I called them and was told the final item needed had arrived to start the run and every thing would be done a a few weeks. Called on the 21st and their phone was dead and web site was gone. Chased them down to a lawyerette in Rhode Island who told me jamison was in receivership. I was given the name of the lawyer who was handling the action. In the end I got my money back which I did not want because I wanted the order completed. And I was told by the new folks they would honor the original order for the same price. I said no way since the same flubba-dubs were working the levers. Next time I will have a lawyer draw up a contract if I have to deal with those people.

Better to search out real businesses to do the work is what I decided.

I hope they stay out of business and rot in hell.

[Outpost75]

During the Vietnam war there were three primary copper and brass producers of first-draw cups for small arms ammunition: Olin, Anaconda and Scoville.

Anaconda and Scoville are no longer in the "cup" business, but produce primary copper for other purposes.

Olin is the sole US producer of cups, so far as I know. Cups are also imported from Italy, ROK and possibly India and China to supply US industry.

DoD has priority in buying the available cup production. With the need to replace expended war-reserve stocks, this limits the supply available for civilian consumption.

This is why are are seeing increased use of steel cases imported from Eastern Europe, China and Russia, as well as some US manufacture of aluminum cases.

[jmort]

Peterson
https://www.petersoncartridge.com/our-process/drawing-brass
Olin
https://olinbrass.com/portfolio/ammunition/
Alpha Munitions
http://alphamunitions.com
General Dynamics
https://www.gd-otscanada.com/product/brass-and-metal-parts/
PMC
http://pmcammo.com/about/
Blackstone
https://www.blackstonebullets.com/new-brass/
Nosler - Not sure they make it, but it appears that they do
https://www.nosler.com/brass/
agemann
logo-jagemann

Jagemann Stamping leverages nearly 70 years of manufacturing experience to provide manufacturers with the absolute best brass, plated brass, and oxidized brass solutions across most pistol and an ever growing number of rifle calibers.

products-jagemann-01products-jagemann-02products-jagemann-03

Kinetic Industries
KineticIndustriesLogo (2)

Kinetic Industries is a US based brass case manufacturer of rifle brass. They specialize in high end match grade brass cases! Their .308 match brass is available now for OEMs, and more large rifle calibers will be coming soon!
Alpha Munitions
http://alphamunitions.com
Nexus
https://nexusammo.com
MAXUM -Rio
http://www.rioammo.com/en/rio_ammunition/about_rio
CBC - Sellier & Bellot
http://www.sellierbellot.us/index.php/corporate/about-us
Shell Shock
https://www.shellshocktechnologies.com/about/
Jagemann
https://www.jagemannsportinggroup.com/reloading-brass/

[uscra112]

Right around 2011 Jameson got caught shipping some piddling order of brass to Canada without getting an export license. Feds nailed the owner. That killed the company the first time. A while later (year or two) a group of investors restarted the facility under the name of Captech. All was well until about 18 months ago when they shut down again. Rumors abound. Most plausible one is that there's some conflict among the partners that couldn't be resolved. Hurts. Their brass was top quality. I bought quite a bit of .25-20 Stevens to reform to .22 Lovell. I don't know whether the facility and machinery are still intact.

[lefty o]

cci makes their own, as does federal. well, at least all the common stuff, they do at times buy brass for oddballs that it doesnt makes sense to tool up for , or set up a line for a run. pretty sure all the big players make their own. one of my jobs at federal was making rifle brass, and ill tell you it takes some serious machinery to make brass.

[DonMountain]

I recently took a tour of the Starline factory in Sedalia, Missouri. During the most personal tour of the shop floor, I saw how they produce all of their brass casings from receiving flat sheets of brass and the initial punching operations, to the cupping operation through the final forming operation along with all of the heat treatment and washing processes. I now buy all of my brass from Starline since I know they are made here in Mid-America! And they produce really good quality casings. Here is their website:
https://www.starlinebrass.com/

[EDG]

My guess is none of the companies smelt copper to make brass.
At one time Olin had a brass mill and WW bought Olin metal.

Today I suspect everyone buys coiled brass strip stock from a brass mill and draws it into cases.

So no one really makes their own raw material brass any more than they make their own lead metal.

[dbosman]

The story I've read is that Winchester is making the Browning "elk" brass.

[EDG]

Once upon a time the Hornady Frontier brass appeared identical to WW cases.

[salpal48]

I have another post called Mixed Brass. recently i purchases new PPU 22 hornet. Mixed In one of the sealed packs was Winchester 6mm Remington. all packs were made in Serbia
I firmly Believe all This is made outside the US

[uscra112]

cci makes their own, as does federal. well, at least all the common stuff, they do at times buy brass for oddballs that it doesnt makes sense to tool up for , or set up a line for a run. pretty sure all the big players make their own. one of my jobs at federal was making rifle brass, and ill tell you it takes some serious machinery to make brass.

It does indeed, and it takes some serious smarts to keep the process in tune so that it makes GOOD brass. And it would be simple economics for any of the big loaders to buy cases in the marketplace from time to time. Machinery has to be taken off-line for unexpected maintenance. Demand for a particular caliber may have been underestimated, so they didn't run enough. Copper price is very volatile, so brass price will be, too. Demand for some popular caliber may be so great that they choose to stick with running that, and so buy in the less common ones like 6mm Remington.

How long did a changeover of dies take? How much scrap was made before everything was tuned-up again?

[lefty o]

most lines stick with the same parent case per se. changing from 30-06 to 270 might take up to an hour, and maybe scrap half of a 5gal bucket worth of brass.

[samari46]

I remember S&B saying in one of their ads that when called upon the make brass for some of our large ammo manufacturers. Years back got a deal on S&B 8mm mauser both fmj and their soft point hunting ammo, $10 bucks a box. This is loaded to CIP specs 198 gr bullet at 2500fps. Though that may have changed. Amerc brass is junk, goes right in the scrap bucket. Speer's regular brass is ok but their cheaper line with the dished case heads leaves me to wonder who makes that think it's their blazer line. Some of the MFS made in Hungary also was ****. Off center flash holes way off center. Frank

[Twicepop]

Before retiring from driving truck in Feb., 2016 I had a dedicated route that started from a wiring harness producer in Warren, Ohio. From there the wire scrap went to Ft. Wayne, IN to be processed into a more manageable form. From Ft. Wayne it went to Buffalo, NY for smelting to be formed into different copper based products. Some of it was processed into copper billets/ingots, some of it was blended with zinc and other trace elements for different grades and types of brass. One of the other operations at this facility was making cartridge grade brass and the blanking/pre-form operations for cartridge cases. On a couple of different trips into this facility I noticed many Canadian pennies laying on the floor around the loading docks. The pennies always looked like they had been "beat-up". I asked about the pennies laying around and about the damaged condition, and they told me this. Canada had eliminated pennies from their currency and these were brought in to be smelted for the metal that was in them (copper coated zinc). They were de-faced to remove any monetary value and turned in scrap metal.

[quasi]

yup, that's true, we no longer have pennies.

[rmatchell]

Starline actually makes brass for alot of companies. Hornady, Winchester, and others

[pacomdiver]

Fiocchi recently made a bad batch of 223 55g fmj brass, got 300 rnds at a gunshow a couple months ago and shot it up with some friends, plus some my cousin bought at the same show, after picking up the brass and sorting into calibers, i found alot had split necks