204 Ruger brass?

Squeeze

Squeeze

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OK, so my very old Winchester 204 Ruger brass is starting to, piece by piece, end up in the scrap bucket. This is Winchester brass, when Winchester was arguably the best 204 Ruger brass. Winchester doesn't seem to be making it at the moment, and even if they were, I am not sure I would want it. So time to move on. Any suggestions on who makes the better quality 204 Ruger brass today? And please don't tell me Hornady. In 6.8 SPC, I bought a test batch of Hornady, and that stuff is now relegated to plinking ammo in hopes it will be lost in the weeds. Maybe it was a bad batch, but I haven't forgiven them yet.
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I wish Starline would start making 204 Ruger brass! Anyway, any suggestions are appreciated.

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Any truth to the rumor that Norma makes brass for Nosler, Nosler does some prep on the bulk Norma brass, and sells it as Nosler brass?

I don't know what to make of this rumor. I have some Nosler(bought SSA and got Nosler) 6.8 SPC brass, that is just OK. I would have expected better if it was Norma. I have some Norma 260 Rem. brass, and some SSA 260 Rem. brass, and for this cartridge, the brass does not look like the same manufacturer, but sorting and prep, could make it look different, I guess. Now that I am curious, I will run both headstamps through the Bench-Source annealing machine. Different brass metallurgy shows up well there.

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Can I ask what kind of problems you've had with Hornady 204 brass?

I bought a bunch, 10 boxes of once fired Hornady 204 about 8 years ago and use it along with Win. for my 204 cats, 22-204, 6mm-204 and 25-204 and I couldn't tell the difference between Horn and Win, they both need annealing about the same amount, primer pockets hold up under the same loads and they neck up and down pretty much the same(no more losses with one than the other).

I bought some new 222Rem Winchester brass and it is just like the 204 brass I bought 10 yrs ago in fact the old Win brass actually had more wrinkled necks than this new bag of 222 (1 in this bag), the old Win brass always had 1 or 2 extra in a bag this bag of 222 wat 100 on the button.
 
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I recently purchased Hornady 204 ruger brass, first loading with imr 8208 has yielded very good groups. I have been loading Berger 35 and Sierra 39 gr bullets, using CCI br primers, I have not measured any fired brass as I'm only 60-70 brass into the 250.
 
Originally Posted By: AWSCan I ask what kind of problems you've had with Hornady 204 brass?

I have a tight neck 6mm WOA, that shoots sub-MOA with a number of different bullets, brass, and primers. It is not very picky. Its primary purpose is long range colony varmints, antelope, or predators. I need it to shoot itty bitty groups.

Hornady brass turned it into a 1 MOA rifle, at best, no matter what I tried to tweak in the developed loads. I anneal all brass, every time it is loaded, so I doubt if it was neck tension. My only guess was variances in case capacity, but I grew tired of trying to solve the riddle, and now all of the cases have been formed back into 6.8 SPC cases, and it will get used for woodland predators, and plinking. If others are happy with Hornady, more power to them. I won't be buying any more, unless I don't have another option.

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Originally Posted By: SqueezeAny truth to the rumor that Norma makes brass for Nosler, Nosler does some prep on the bulk Norma brass, and sells it as Nosler brass?

I don't know what to make of this rumor. I have some Nosler(bought SSA and got Nosler) 6.8 SPC brass, that is just OK. I would have expected better if it was Norma. I have some Norma 260 Rem. brass, and some SSA 260 Rem. brass, and for this cartridge, the brass does not look like the same manufacturer, but sorting and prep, could make it look different, I guess. Now that I am curious, I will run both headstamps through the Bench-Source annealing machine. Different brass metallurgy shows up well there.

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This has been argued to death for the better part of 10 years.

General consensus is that Norma makes the majority with Federal and a couple others filling in the gaps.
 
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