High End Brass for Hunting Hand Loads

[MuleyFever]

Peterson 280 Ackley just started shipping last week. It's available at Graf & Son.

Peterson now makes 280 Ackley brass. Available at Grafs. I just ordered 100 yesterday.


Ha! Guess I should read down to the bottom before I reply!

Never heard of them but I am new to reloading. Are they worth buying over Nosler? I have about 300pcs of Nosler now.

 

[Trigger06]

I'm not sure if it's worth it or not, it is a bit of an experiment. I had a $100 bill to spare, so I decided to give it a go. I have heard good things. I am currently running the nosler brass as well.

 

[mvrk28]

In my 6.5 CM I am currently using Alpha Munitions SRP brass.

The biggest thing I notice is there seems to be a lot less runout on my concentricity gauge. Also, SD's are fairly close. I have used Peterson in it before and really liked it, had some issues with primer pockets on a few cases but nothing that looked like a widespread issue, probably just a few blems.

Planning on a 280 AI build in the next year, stoked to see Peterson is making cases for it.

 

[unclericco]

I ran across the 280AI Peterson’s brass a couple of weeks ago and ordered 100. Seems like good stuff but I haven’t fired any yet. Was happy to see some higher end stuff finally come to market.

 

[HiMtnHntr]

I often save my best brass for hunting loads, just for piece of mind, but have used all kinds. You don't need special brass to make an accurate load.

 

[briscoetab]

There is absolutely no reason to buy high dollar brass for the op’s use. Neither is there a reason to do any extra prep like weight sorting or anything else. I would chamfer and debur the necks, clean it and resize and reload it.

He’s talking about hunting rounds out to 500yds, brass is not going to have any effect. I’ve used plenty of Hornady brass for shooting long range matches. I am currently shooting Alpha munitions in all of my rifles but shoot quite a few matches where yardages go up to 1200-1400 yards and honestly I’m not sure it makes much difference still.

If you want to shoot expensive brass and have the money, do it but as far as it making any difference, it’s not for your application and for most others it’s not either. There is no doubt most of the quality brass is much more consistent in weight and higher quality all the way around but for most that will have little actual effect on paper.

 

[nubrun]

There is absolutely no reason to buy high dollar brass for the op’s use. Neither is there a reason to do any extra prep like weight sorting or anything else. I would chamfer and debur the necks, clean it and resize and reload it.

He’s talking about hunting rounds out to 500yds, brass is not going to have any effect. I’ve used plenty of Hornady brass for shooting long range matches. I am currently shooting Alpha munitions in all of my rifles but shoot quite a few matches where yardages go up to 1200-1400 yards and honestly I’m not sure it makes much difference still.

If you want to shoot expensive brass and have the money, do it but as far as it making any difference, it’s not for your application and for most others it’s not either. There is no doubt most of the quality brass is much more consistent in weight and higher quality all the way around but for most that will have little actual effect on paper.

100% agree. I'm a new hunter but avid long rnage shooter (1,200 yards). At 500 yards small velocity changes due to brass weight inconsistencies aren't make or break. At 1,000 yards those small differences make a BIG difference. I think a bigger concern would be to make sure the brass (if fired brass) is sized correctly and chambers easily.

Now I will say there is a mental conponent here too. If new Lapua brass or weight sortd brass makes you feel confident in your shot, it could lead to better shots (mental side of the game). So if you want to buy high end brass go for it, it definitely can't hurt.

 

[unclericco]

There is absolutely no reason to buy high dollar brass for the op’s use. Neither is there a reason to do any extra prep like weight sorting or anything else. I would chamfer and debur the necks, clean it and resize and reload it.

He’s talking about hunting rounds out to 500yds, brass is not going to have any effect. I’ve used plenty of Hornady brass for shooting long range matches. I am currently shooting Alpha munitions in all of my rifles but shoot quite a few matches where yardages go up to 1200-1400 yards and honestly I’m not sure it makes much difference still.

If you want to shoot expensive brass and have the money, do it but as far as it making any difference, it’s not for your application and for most others it’s not either. There is no doubt most of the quality brass is much more consistent in weight and higher quality all the way around but for most that will have little actual effect on paper.

Not sure I agree with you here. I have spent money on all different brands of brass and I prefer the higher grade stuff as I've gotten more firings for my money spent as a reloader. Blowing out primer pockets in some brands in just a few reloads but easily getting 2 and sometimes even 3 times the firings from the same load out of higher grade brass. I would rather use Lapua, ADG, etc. so saying it's useless for most others applications I would say is not a true statement.

 

[nubrun]

Not sure I agree with you here. I have spent money on all different brands of brass and I prefer the higher grade stuff as I've gotten more firings for my money spent as a reloader. Blowing out primer pockets in some brands in just a few reloads but easily getting 2 and sometimes even 3 times the firings from the same load out of higher grade brass. I would rather use Lapua, ADG, etc. so saying it's useless for most others applications I would say is not a true statement.

I think you are getting away from the the context of the OP's question. He has once fired horandy brass already, and is asking whether there is a performance benefit within 500 yards to go with high end brass. For my long range target guns I run Lapua brass for the reasons you mentioned. But I also shoot 1,500 rounds a year through it at least. For a hunting gun at 20 rounds a year, I don't know that brass life comes into play. My $0.02.

 

[unclericco]

My post is definitely relevant to OP's question and I'd still buy and use the higher end brass for his application. I have a custom 6.5 PRC and can tell you that the Hornady brass for this cartridge doesn't last long at all, most notably the primer pockets. I know people who decided not to buy it because of the brass problems alone.

 

[MuleyFever]

I think the answer to the OP is to use the brass he has until it’s shot out and that from there buying new higher quality brass is probably a good idea from a long term use point of view.

 

[wyosam]

I like to hunt with high end brass for a different reason- I like to practice leave no trace, including brass. It’s easier to stay motivated when its Lapua I’m looking for in the snow and not the cheap stuff.


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[nubrun]

I think the answer to the OP is to use the brass he has until it’s shot out and that from there buying new higher quality brass is probably a good idea from a long term use point of view.

That's my opinion as well. Depending on how much he has, that my last a long time.

 

[nubrun]

I like to hunt with high end brass for a different reason- I like to practice leave no trace, including brass. It’s easier to stay motivated when its Lapua I’m looking for in the snow and not the cheap stuff.


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Haha- ain't that the truth. If I'm missing a piece of Lapua brass at the range I'm organizing a search party.

 

[briscoetab]

Not sure I agree with you here. I have spent money on all different brands of brass and I prefer the higher grade stuff as I've gotten more firings for my money spent as a reloader. Blowing out primer pockets in some brands in just a few reloads but easily getting 2 and sometimes even 3 times the firings from the same load out of higher grade brass. I would rather use Lapua, ADG, etc. so saying it's useless for most others applications I would say is not a true statement.

I said the higher quality brass is higher quality in every aspect, which includes the durability or ability to be shot more. You are right there are times when it’s worth the cost.

I will say that I made an assumption and didn’t state that, most people I know including my self, do not reload brass for hunting rounds more than a handful of times. Most of the people I know and myself included in that, only shoot at most 100 rounds through a hunting rifle a year, lots of people I know including people who have been reloading for awhile may only shot 20-30 a year in their hunting rifles after load development. At that pint brass life really is unimportant. Now my match rifles, which I also hunt with, get anywhere from 1000 rounds to 3000 rounds a year depending on how much I want to shoot that year. At that point brass life becomes important to me, as well as consistency.

On top of that the average reloaders I know do not anneal and after 6-8 reloading most brass including the quality stuff will either begin to have cracked necks or the neck tension becomes super inconsistent to the point it will affect a shot at 500yrds.

I’ve heard several people complain about Hornady, mainly loose primer pockets after 1–2 firings. Maybe I’m lucky but I’ve had a pretty good bit of Hornady brass for a couple different rifles and out of probably 500-600 cases I’ve scraped 10-20 maybe because of loose primer pockets and that was after 7-10 firings I would guess. I wasn’t shooting hot but the loads were 2 grains past book max for one rifle, so not a mild load either.

I will agree with you, if I have my choice and all else is equal I’m going with Alpha and Lapua brass. In the ops case I took it as, is there any performance gain by shooting quality brass when shooting at 500 yards, there’s not unless you are using some very low dollar budget brass. If you do plan on reloading the bass upwards of 7-10 time then there may be some benefit of higher quality brass if you anneal. If you don’t anneal it will not mater that you have high quality brass as it relates to brass life.

That is just my opinion based on my experience with Hornady and Remington brass, I’m not sure if I’ve used any other of the cheaper brands of brass besides those. Other people may of had worst luck with those companies.

 

[tdhanses]

I’ve use cheap brass and expensive, case life is the biggest diff I’ve found. I think Norma is way over priced and not worth it.

 

[bruceleroy]

I love brass arguments. Most steps people take are pointless. But which ones? Everyone assumes it's thenhigher quality brass but almost no one is willing to skip their 9 other steps to prove it. Every step might help. When they are combined they certainly help, a little. Sort of like weight sorting bullets but not checking for length consistency.
All I know is that if Brian litz doesnt see the need for it then 99.99% of everyone else wont be able to tell any difference either.
Shoot your brass until it dies OP then buy something else.

 

[mvrk28]

I love brass arguments. Most steps people take are pointless. But which ones? Everyone assumes it's thenhigher quality brass but almost no one is willing to skip their 9 other steps to prove it. Every step might help. When they are combined they certainly help, a little. Sort of like weight sorting bullets but not checking for length consistency.
All I know is that if Brian litz doesnt see the need for it then 99.99% of everyone else wont be able to tell any difference either.
Shoot your brass until it dies OP then buy something else.

You're dead-on about the other 9 step thing. Weight sorting anything has always made me laugh. A while back I tested a ton of brass, I checked the weight of each case, then the volume and I can tell you there is NO correlation between case weight and case volume. This was all new brass that was within .001" in length of each case. There is a 3-4 gr difference in case weight and sometimes the heavier cases have more volume and sometimes they have less volume. The weight of a case, in my opinion, is about as useless of a measurement as I can think of. If somebody is willing to go to those lengths, it's much more worth it to measure case volume as that is what will truly make a difference in SDs anyway.

 

[briscoetab]

You're dead-on about the other 9 step thing. Weight sorting anything has always made me laugh. A while back I tested a ton of brass, I checked the weight of each case, then the volume and I can tell you there is NO correlation between case weight and case volume. This was all new brass that was within .001" in length of each case. There is a 3-4 gr difference in case weight and sometimes the heavier cases have more volume and sometimes they have less volume. The weight of a case, in my opinion, is about as useless of a measurement as I can think of. If somebody is willing to go to those lengths, it's much more worth it to measure case volume as that is what will truly make a difference in SDs anyway.

I pretty much agree. I’ve definitely started to reduce brass prep that I used to do. Much of the prep that I did was based off of info that some other people had gathered and there was enough info out there that showed weight sorting and some other brass prep steps could help.

I had also checked case weight and volume measurements but only on a handful of pieces of brass and what I found was typically weight and case volume did align. That was 3 or 4 years ago and I didn’t go too in depth, I just did it to see if there was a reason to weight sort. It seems like I remembered there being a much more significant weight difference though, like 10 grains from lightest to the heaviest, I could be wrong it’s been awhile back ago. That being said, never saw anything on target, with SD’s or ES that made me think it helped any. On top of that it became very difficult for me to keep track of weight lots and not mix them up. I had two actions that I had 2 barrels each for that were 22 CM and 6.5 cm and I had around 900 pieces of brass total between the 4 barrels that I needed to keep separated. Definitely wasn’t worth it.

Pretty much I chafer and debur the necks and that is with a giraud trimmer. I anneal and that is with an amp annealer. I clean the brass and that is basically just to keep my dies free of junk. The only step I do now that takes me a significant amount of time that I would like to skip is cleaning the brass. Honestly all of those brass prep step could be skipped as well and probably see very little change other than when the brass gets several firings on it and the neck tension starts to get inconsistent or necks start cracking.

 

[mvrk28]

I pretty much agree. I’ve definitely started to reduce brass prep that I used to do. Much of the prep that I did was based off of info that some other people had gathered and there was enough info out there that showed weight sorting and some other brass prep steps could help.

I had also checked case weight and volume measurements but only on a handful of pieces of brass and what I found was typically weight and case volume did align. That was 3 or 4 years ago and I didn’t go too in depth, I just did it to see if there was a reason to weight sort. It seems like I remembered there being a much more significant weight difference though, like 10 grains from lightest to the heaviest, I could be wrong it’s been awhile back ago. That being said, never saw anything on target, with SD’s or ES that made me think it helped any. On top of that it became very difficult for me to keep track of weight lots and not mix them up. I had two actions that I had 2 barrels each for that were 22 CM and 6.5 cm and I had around 900 pieces of brass total between the 4 barrels that I needed to keep separated. Definitely wasn’t worth it.

Pretty much I chafer and debur the necks and that is with a giraud trimmer. I anneal and that is with an amp annealer. I clean the brass and that is basically just to keep my dies free of junk. The only step I do now that takes me a significant amount of time that I would like to skip is cleaning the brass. Honestly all of those brass prep step could be skipped as well and probably see very little change other than when the brass gets several firings on it and the neck tension starts to get inconsistent or necks start cracking.

Right there with you, what I saw in my test was that there wasn’t enough benefit to spend the time. I usually wet tumble to clean, then anneal (currently using annealeez), resize and then vibratory to clean the lube off the cases.

Then it’s standard chamfer/debur. I trim when necessary.