Originally Posted By: reb8600Originally Posted By: B23And those would be Hornady Lot#'s.
To double check myself, so I wasn't spreading bad information, I talked to Federal again earlier today. The Tech I talk to was great and very willing to share/give out information. He confirmed what I'd been told before, and to date, all of the Federal AE ammo for the 17 Hornet is made for them by Hornady. I asked if Federal had different specs than the Hornady labeled ammo, he said no and everything is the same with the exception of the headstamp on the brass.
He did tell me Federal had plans to start making their own 17 Hornet ammo in house but they hadn't done so as of yet. I asked him, for future reference, once their in house made 17 Hornet ammo hits the shelf, how will we be able to tell the difference between it and the stuff made by Hornady, he said Federal uses a whole different Lot# sequence than does Hornady. Hornady Lot#'s are numbers only, like your boxes have, where as Federal uses letters and numbers in their Lot#'s.
I also asked about the odd cases we often see. He said he fields calls on this all the time and actually had some on his desk a customer had sent back. He told me nearly 100% of the calls he takes regarding this is from people with CZ 527 17 Hornets and they usually all say the same thing, it shoots fine but the brass comes out looking odd.
Hornady needs to do a better job on their own ammo if that is the case. Everything about the Federal is better than anything with the Hornady name on it. The brass, accuracy and consistency puts Hornady ammo to shame.
reb8600, your Fed AE ammo very well may shoot better for you than the Hornady labeled stuff and I certainly believe you when you say it does, but, unfortunately, whether you like it or not, it's still Hornady ammo, just with FC headstamp and a different wrapper.
orkin was kind enough to send me some of his fired brass with the FC headstamp as well as some of his Hornady fired brass. I measured, weighed, and checked case volume in water.
I compared orkin's fired brass from his gun to the brass that has come out of both of my CZ 527 17 Hornets.
New unfired brass and new loaded ammo very consistently measures 1.046-1.047 from base to shoulder datum. Fired brass from orkin's, as well as both of my CZ 527's, measures 1.0505 - 1.0570 with most of them coming in at 1.0505 - 1.0555. As you can see, this stuff is moving forward a lot.
Case weight tends to be a little all over the place. I weighed all of orkin's brass, less primer, the FC stamped brass ranged 49.7-50.2 and his Hornady stamped brass was 51.3-52.3 I have some Hornady brass that weighs 50.2 avg and some older stuff that weighs 52.7 avg.
Fired brass all seems to have about the same case volume of 14.7gr H2O regardless of what it weighs empty, but new unfired brass that I've measured varies from 13.85gr h20 to 14.35gr h2O and for the most part, the new brass that weighed in the low 50's had the slightly larger case capacity.
Neck thickness is another item that tends to have a pretty healthy variance and ranged from .009 - .0115
Orkin's FC brass all measured .009-.0095 but his Hornady brass was .011-.115 My older Hornady Lot# stuff measures .011 but my newer Hornady brass is thinner and is .0095-.010
It seems the newest Hornady brass, whether it has a FC or Hornady headstamp, seems to be a little lighter in weight, have a bit more case volume, before it's fired, and have a little thinner necks.
Sooo, I think if a person wants to try and squeeze the most accuracy possible from his reloaded ammo in their 17 Hornet, it would probably be a good idea to keep your brass separated based on their Lot #'s. And, since there is a fair amount of variance in neck thickness, if you want consistent neck tension, you may want to invest in a bushing die. I have a Redding FL bushing die as well as a bushing only neck sizing die, it'll be interesting to see which one produces better shooting ammo.
I can definitely see how or why folks are getting case separation with these things because if someone is sizing their brass all the way back to SAAMI or Hornady book spec of 1.047 they are working the bejeezus out of their brass.
