Does anyone here have any experience with Starline .243 WSSM brass? Good or bad? I’m currently running an Aero AR10 in .243 win. My next thermal gun will be a .243 WSSM in an AR15. Even though I am a year or two out on the new gun, I have started to purchase some WSSM brass when I see a deal come up. So far I have mainly purchased new Winchester brass, but I did find a deal on a bunch of Starline new brass. I have read about the WSSM thickness issues and will be annealing all my brass. Is the Starline brass comparable to the Winchester? I can’t seem too find many reviews on the Starline.
Thanks

I didn't even know they were making it, and don't have a rifle any more to try it out. I have a bunch of Winchester, old and new production. I did anneal what I was using, and it takes a lot of heat to heat that thick neck fast enough to not heat up the base also. I ended up setting them in a pan of water and heating with oxy/acetylene torch set very low. It worked well but there's certainly better ways to do it I'm sure. FWIW, I couldn't wear a case out. The pockets never got loose it seemed.

Dtech? That will be sweet, it's a hammer.

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They don’t show it available on their web page. But I can find them all day on Gunbroker. 38.00-48.00 per bag of 50. I have one of the basic little Anneal Rite spinning mandrel annealers so hopefully it works out.

All the pictures show the headstamp as 243 Win, not 243wssm.

I think it's an error.

Last I heard, Winchester, Federal and Hornaday offered wsssm brass.

I've only used Winchester brass, for my son's 223wssm.

Used Winchester and FC brass for a number of years in a Dtech 243 WSSM. The old stock Winchester is good brass, but I preferred the Federal, which was a bit softer, resized easier and I never had to anneal it where the Winchester seemed to work harden faster.

Regards,
hm

I have purchased some already. It is definitely WSSM. Haven’t loaded any yet because I don’t even have the gun. I was just curious if anyone has used them before I go buy more.

So you have it in your possession?

Do the necks appear to be very much thicker than, say, 270 or any 'regular' cartridges?

I ask because the wssm brass I've been using, Winchester brand, in both 223wssm and 25wssm necked down to 223, is very thick, and neck splits on the 2nd or 3rd loading is normal. Annealing is going to be required.

I personally can't answer how thick the starline wssm brass is, but it should be thick like the Win brass because that's how the chambers are reamed. If it was thin like most calibers you'd probably have more split necks due to over-expansion when firing.

At a glance, it appears to be similar to the Winchester brass I have purchased. Due to the thickness of the brass, I planned on annealing every reload every time. I’m fairly new to annealing so I am not sure if this will help or not.

Just a quick update on this. I found another deal and ordered more of this “Starline “ brass. Even though the bag is marked Starline, the brass head stamp is FC for Federal…

Hang on to the FC cases, you're gonna love them!! They are a bit softer than the old Win brass was. I never annealed nor split an FC case neck but they were hard enough to still hold primers on repeated reloadings.

Regards,
hm

Thanks good to know. I will probably just go ahead and get some more. 38 bucks for 50 isn’t terrible for WSSM brass nowadays. I haven’t even ordered the upper yet but it looks like I need too. With this being my first “off the grid caliber” I wanted to get at least 500 pieces of brass before I got too deep into the project.

I have 400 pcs new FC brass listed @ $65.00/c postage paid in classified here if interested:
https://www.predatormastersforums.com/fo...153#Post3316153

Regards,
hm

I just annealed some Winchester 223wssm brass the other day.

I used a propane torch, and, on average, it took about 10-11 seconds for the neck 'glow' to begin.

Other, regular caliber brass I've annealed with the torch takes about 1/2 that time.

Good to know the Starline is Federal. I'll have to get some.