Brass for accuracy

pyscodog

Active member
I bought a Sendero in 7 Mag. I have dug through all my stuff and came up with some brass for the rifle. I have Win, R-P, and a very few FC. All has been fire through an Encore with what seems to be a large chamber because full length sizing still leaves me with a tuff chambering round. Case OAL is varies on the Winny brass from .005 to .016 over reccommend lenght. The rifle was bought for mainly long range shooting with very little hunting in mind. Mainly target shooting.
Should I:
1) Scrape it all and buy new quality brass
2)polish,trim,anneal,and resize
I know none of it has very few firings cause I didn't keep the Encore very long. But I'm also not sure where it all came from either. If I use the old stuff, which is better, Winchester of Remington. I usually lean towards the Winchester in my other rifles. Thanks
 
If you full length resized and it is still tough to chamber, mabey the streached in the encore. Trim to length and try again. Had a similar problem with 22-250.
 
Unless you are talking OLDER brass, Winchester doesn't make powder OR brass cases anymore; haven't for quite a while now....

I interchange brass constantly in my 1,000 yard gun/loads.
Unless you bought some funky specialty stuff. ALL brass is essentially the same, NORMAL manufacturing tollerances and metalurgic build is the only diff. Once you fire in your gun, re-size the same, the internal capacity is also... THE SAME!!

Don't get caught-up in thinking that there is going to be a change in the alignment of the stars, by using the same "branded" brass.
 
Got several boxes of once fired brass shot from a Remington 700...most I believe is Winchester. I'd hook you up with it for postage. I won't ever use it and don't load 7mm mag
 
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Originally Posted By: DarkkerUnless you are talking OLDER brass, Winchester doesn't make powder OR brass cases anymore; haven't for quite a while now....

I interchange brass constantly in my 1,000 yard gun/loads.
Unless you bought some funky specialty stuff. ALL brass is essentially the same, NORMAL manufacturing tollerances and metalurgic build is the only diff. Once you fire in your gun, re-size the same, the internal capacity is also... THE SAME!!

Don't get caught-up in thinking that there is going to be a change in the alignment of the stars, by using the same "branded" brass.


Really? Sorry, but there is a difference. Just weigh some Nosler against Federal. Federals some heavy brass. Where do you think the weight is if the outside is equal? Even if you think the weigh difference isn't in case wall thickness and it's just different brass, then your looking at differing neck tension not to mention one will expand different then another when fired, causeing bigger extreme spreads. Result less accurate. Can you use a hodge podge of different brass? Yes, but if your out for accuracy it's better to have the same brass not just the same brand but the same brand with the same weight.

Some may not notice the difference but to say it doesn't matter at all is just wrong.
 
Originally Posted By: chucknbachOriginally Posted By: DarkkerUnless you are talking OLDER brass, Winchester doesn't make powder OR brass cases anymore; haven't for quite a while now....

I interchange brass constantly in my 1,000 yard gun/loads.
Unless you bought some funky specialty stuff. ALL brass is essentially the same, NORMAL manufacturing tollerances and metalurgic build is the only diff. Once you fire in your gun, re-size the same, the internal capacity is also... THE SAME!!

Don't get caught-up in thinking that there is going to be a change in the alignment of the stars, by using the same "branded" brass.


Really? Sorry, but there is a difference. Just weigh some Nosler against Federal. Federals some heavy brass. Where do you think the weight is if the outside is equal? Even if you think the weigh difference isn't in case wall thickness and it's just different brass, then your looking at differing neck tension not to mention one will expand different then another when fired, causeing bigger extreme spreads. Result less accurate. Can you use a hodge podge of different brass? Yes, but if your out for accuracy it's better to have the same brass not just the same brand but the same brand with the same weight.

Some may not notice the difference but to say it doesn't matter at all is just wrong.

+1 If you want good brass go Norma, Nosler brass has been pretty good to me but it is not of the quality of Norma brass
 
Originally Posted By: pyscodogI bought a Sendero in 7 Mag. I have dug through all my stuff and came up with some brass for the rifle. I have Win, R-P, and a very few FC. All has been fire through an Encore with what seems to be a large chamber because full length sizing still leaves me with a tuff chambering round. Case OAL is varies on the Winny brass from .005 to .016 over reccommend lenght. The rifle was bought for mainly long range shooting with very little hunting in mind. Mainly target shooting.
Should I:
1) Scrape it all and buy new quality brass
2)polish,trim,anneal,and resize
I know none of it has very few firings cause I didn't keep the Encore very long. But I'm also not sure where it all came from either. If I use the old stuff, which is better, Winchester of Remington. I usually lean towards the Winchester in my other rifles. Thanks

or you can give these a whirl
http://www.sinclairintl.com/reloading-eq...-prod39926.aspx
 

There is definitely a difference in brass, ie weight and consistency from one piece to another. If you weigh them, you'll see.

Several years ago I acquired 500 pieces of 25-06 brass, Remington brand, and weighed them all piece by piece, and separated them into 20-round boxes by weight, ending up with 100 "good" rounds out of the 500. Most boxes had no more than .2 grain difference in weight once I got through with them.

That was a lot of work that I generally don't do, but I had plans to experiment with several techniques to hopefully make an out-of-the-box Browning A-Bolt with pencil barrel shoot well. It did, generally 1/2" to 5/8" 3-shot groups, nice little triangles normally, sometimes shooting less, and with a very stiff trigger at that. I'm not advocating that you weigh all your brass, just mentioning that weighing them will definitely show you the differences in weight from piece to piece.

Weighing the brass was just part of it though. I also removed the primer pocket flange on the inside of the case, hand weighed each powder charge, seated the primers with a Lee Priming Tool, and used Lee Collet dies for the loading.

I'm sure ALL those things is what made the rifle a very pleasant shooter, and not just the brass weight. But, I learned very quickly that brass is indeed different from piece to piece.

I hear that Lapua brass is very good - if you can find some. It is no longer available in the 7mm mag from what I understand. I've had good luck with Norma brass in 22-250, so that might be another consideration if you are looking for brass that has a somewhat better reputation.

Having said all this, I mainly use Remington brass, and some Winchester and let it go at that, but one thing I don't do is to use a mixture of brands of brass in the same rifle. I just don't feel good about doing that for the thoughts of potential loss of accuracy. But, that's just me.



 
Originally Posted By: chucknbach

Really? Sorry, but there is a difference. Just weigh some Nosler against Federal. Federals some heavy brass. Where do you think the weight is if the outside is equal? Even if you think the weigh difference isn't in case wall thickness and it's just different brass, then your looking at differing neck tension not to mention one will expand different then another when fired, causeing bigger extreme spreads. Result less accurate. Can you use a hodge podge of different brass? Yes, but if your out for accuracy it's better to have the same brass not just the same brand but the same brand with the same weight.

Some may not notice the difference but to say it doesn't matter at all is just wrong.

A difference, yes. Does it matter like many *think*? Not in my experience.

Where do I think the weight difference comes from?? Different metalurgical make-up. You don't honestly think that there is ONLY ONE recipie, and ONLY ONE machine making brass do you??

If you wanted to be "out for accuracy" you wouldn't be *weighing* your brass in the first place; you would be sorting by VOLUME. VOLUME is important for burning rates and pressures developed. Wall thickness is not, specific gravity of the metal is not.

My 50 year span of Hodge-Podge headstamps, IS MOA at 1,000. Which is WHY my claim is that it doesn't matter to the extent that people think.
Will MOA at 1K win the world title?? Certainly not.
But it will out-do 90% of the shooters that challenge me, while spending half the time at the reloading altar.
 
I know when I used to own a 223wssm the brass had to be realy close before it would shoot good, which was hard to do out of 500 rounds you might get 30 rds that were close to the same weight
 

Well Darkker, you probably have more experience than I do, but I weighed mine. Whether it made an ounce worth of difference or not, I can't say for sure. I do think all the things I did, combined, made a difference, but probably just weighing the brass alone was useless.

Here's a note I found on Krieger website. Interesting.

A very important part of reloading for accuracy is weighing components. For maximum accuracy Brass & Bullets should be within about .2 (two tenths of a grain), and powder charges should be within .1 (one tenth of a grain). Brass can also be sorted by ‘water capacity’ in cc’s to segregate brass by volume or inside area capacity.

http://www.kriegerbarrels.com/Proper_Reloading_Practices-c1246-wp7875.htm


Here's yet another interesting article from Sinclair

http://blog.sinclairintl.com/2008/12/24/weighing-cases/


There are some other sites that minimize the effects of weighing cases, ie, that in and of itself, it may not really help the accuracy issue.




 
Originally Posted By: DarkkerOriginally Posted By: chucknbach

Really? Sorry, but there is a difference. Just weigh some Nosler against Federal. Federals some heavy brass. Where do you think the weight is if the outside is equal? Even if you think the weigh difference isn't in case wall thickness and it's just different brass, then your looking at differing neck tension not to mention one will expand different then another when fired, causeing bigger extreme spreads. Result less accurate. Can you use a hodge podge of different brass? Yes, but if your out for accuracy it's better to have the same brass not just the same brand but the same brand with the same weight.

Some may not notice the difference but to say it doesn't matter at all is just wrong.

A difference, yes. Does it matter like many *think*? Not in my experience.

Where do I think the weight difference comes from?? Different metalurgical make-up. You don't honestly think that there is ONLY ONE recipie, and ONLY ONE machine making brass do you??

If you wanted to be "out for accuracy" you wouldn't be *weighing* your brass in the first place; you would be sorting by VOLUME. VOLUME is important for burning rates and pressures developed. Wall thickness is not, specific gravity of the metal is not.

My 50 year span of Hodge-Podge headstamps, IS MOA at 1,000. Which is WHY my claim is that it doesn't matter to the extent that people think.
Will MOA at 1K win the world title?? Certainly not.
But it will out-do 90% of the shooters that challenge me, while spending half the time at the reloading altar.

I think the point is heavier brass has less volume because of thicker walls, therefor would have a higher pressure than a lighter piece of brass. Because if there is extra brass its all going to take up volume on the inside of the case thus giving you less volume on the inside. Just an example.
 
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Originally Posted By: 6mm06
Well Darkker, you probably have more experience than I do, but I weighed mine. Whether it made an ounce worth of difference or not, I can't say for sure. I do think all the things I did, combined, made a difference, but probably just weighing the brass alone was useless.

Here's a note I found on Krieger website. Interesting.

A very important part of reloading for accuracy is weighing components. For maximum accuracy Brass & Bullets should be within about .2 (two tenths of a grain), and powder charges should be within .1 (one tenth of a grain). Brass can also be sorted by ‘water capacity’ in cc’s to segregate brass by volume or inside area capacity.

http://www.kriegerbarrels.com/Proper_Reloading_Practices-c1246-wp7875.htm
I always thought that weighing your cases would give a guy a pretty close estimate that all your volumes were close as long as the case were the same weight, guess I was wrong. Some guys even weight there primers, what a waste of time.
 
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I've always been under the impression (from so much that I have read for many years) that weighing brass is something benchrest shooters generally do. Maybe I'm wrong and I admit I'm not a benchrest shooter or expert reloader by any means. I'm just a hunter who likes the best reasonable accuracy I can get, with a reasonable amount of work involved.

But, I keep finding articles like this, so what am I and others to think?

Weigh the cases and separate by lots not greater than one grain in weight difference or about 0.5 percent.
Reason: We know that the outside dimension of each case is the same as all other cases. A weight difference between cases means that the interior is different in volume or the head is different in size. A case that is heavier than the others indicates less interior volume, and the pressure will be greater than for those cases that weigh less. Differential pressure results in variations in velocity and larger long-range groups.

http://www.6mmbr.com/jgcaseprep.html


Now, I realize that some guys do things one way and others do them another. Nothing wrong with that. It's good to be an individual sometimes and not always follow the status quo.

However, wording like this that seems to come on pretty strong just stirs up trouble and kind-of puts others down.

If you wanted to be "out for accuracy" you wouldn't be *weighing* your brass in the first place; you would be sorting by VOLUME.


 
Originally Posted By: DarkkerOriginally Posted By: chucknbach

Really? Sorry, but there is a difference. Just weigh some Nosler against Federal. Federals some heavy brass. Where do you think the weight is if the outside is equal? Even if you think the weigh difference isn't in case wall thickness and it's just different brass, then your looking at differing neck tension not to mention one will expand different then another when fired, causeing bigger extreme spreads. Result less accurate. Can you use a hodge podge of different brass? Yes, but if your out for accuracy it's better to have the same brass not just the same brand but the same brand with the same weight.

Some may not notice the difference but to say it doesn't matter at all is just wrong.

A difference, yes. Does it matter like many *think*? Not in my experience.

Where do I think the weight difference comes from?? Different metalurgical make-up. You don't honestly think that there is ONLY ONE recipie, and ONLY ONE machine making brass do you??

If you wanted to be "out for accuracy" you wouldn't be *weighing* your brass in the first place; you would be sorting by VOLUME. VOLUME is important for burning rates and pressures developed. Wall thickness is not, specific gravity of the metal is not.

My 50 year span of Hodge-Podge headstamps, IS MOA at 1,000. Which is WHY my claim is that it doesn't matter to the extent that people think.
Will MOA at 1K win the world title?? Certainly not.
But it will out-do 90% of the shooters that challenge me, while spending half the time at the reloading altar.

Well I'm in the 10% then and would challenge you if you were closer. All of that and I spend....not alot of time at the bench, the reason I weigh instead of measuring volumes. I buy good brass because they are all close and just check a few in the box. Weight is a good indicator of case volume actually checking the volume the best, you said they were all the same. Thicker wall with the same outside dimension = less case capacity = higher pressure all other things being equal. Thicker walls probably go with a thicker neck which will give you different neck tensions, so on and so forth.

I'm so glad that you are now agreeing with me though that it does matter and like I said before some may not notice.

I'm a very lazy reloader. I adopt the things that make the most impact for the lest amount of work. Brass is one of the bigger things that makes a difference that's easy. I don't go through the lengths that some go through. I don't reload to reload, I do it to get more accurate than I can buy at the store, so far I've succeded. You may like to pick up your used brass at the range and save a few pennies and that's perfectly all right, some reload to save $.
 
OK just took out a random federal brass and a nosler.

Federal brass weighed 240gns and held 84gns of H110

Nosler brass weighed 219gns and held 90gns H110


So Darkker they are not all the same!


Edit: Brass from 7mm RM
 
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Originally Posted By: DarkkerOriginally Posted By: chucknbach

Really? Sorry, but there is a difference. Just weigh some Nosler against Federal. Federals some heavy brass. Where do you think the weight is if the outside is equal? Even if you think the weigh difference isn't in case wall thickness and it's just different brass, then your looking at differing neck tension not to mention one will expand different then another when fired, causeing bigger extreme spreads. Result less accurate. Can you use a hodge podge of different brass? Yes, but if your out for accuracy it's better to have the same brass not just the same brand but the same brand with the same weight.

Some may not notice the difference but to say it doesn't matter at all is just wrong.

A difference, yes. Does it matter like many *think*? Not in my experience.

Where do I think the weight difference comes from?? Different metalurgical make-up. You don't honestly think that there is ONLY ONE recipie, and ONLY ONE machine making brass do you??

If you wanted to be "out for accuracy" you wouldn't be *weighing* your brass in the first place; you would be sorting by VOLUME. VOLUME is important for burning rates and pressures developed. Wall thickness is not, specific gravity of the metal is not.

My 50 year span of Hodge-Podge headstamps, IS MOA at 1,000. Which is WHY my claim is that it doesn't matter to the extent that people think.
Will MOA at 1K win the world title?? Certainly not.
But it will out-do 90% of the shooters that challenge me, while spending half the time at the reloading altar.

imagine what kind of accuracy you'd get with good quality brass from the start. your accuracy your getting now is a testament to that rifle, she's a shooter for sure. My self i refuse to sort out my brass or bullets, so i just buy my components in such a manner that there's no need. Good brass in larger quantity and take care of it so that it lasts as many firings as possible, excellent quality bullets in larger batches and all of the same lot #.

I do agree on your point about case volume vs case weight, cases can pick up weight just from being thicker in the case head above the web
 
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