7 SAUM brass

[kennyg]

I am in the process of putting together a 7 SAUM and am trying to decide which brass to run. This is not a competition rifle, but I do want it to shoot to its full potential. My chamber will have a .322 neck, a little loose I know but that is what my smith had available and I did not want to purchase a reamer.

Here are my options as I see it:

+buy 7 SAUM Nosler brass and pay $2 a piece. Hopefully have to do little to no prep work??
+buy 300 SAUM Nosler brass and pay $1.20 a piece, then neck down and probably have to neck turn
+buy 7 SAUM Remington brass for $.70 a piece, then weight sort, neck turn, etc.

For those of you who have been down this road before, what would you recommend?

Oh and I have a Forster Fl die that I was planning to use, possibly will send it in to get the neck honed for proper neck tension.

 

[rcw3]

If it were me I would use Remington brass (as I do now with my 7 SAUM's), sort it and neck turn it only if you feel there is enough variance in the neck thickness (case to case) that you need to make sure the neck tension is consistent.

Robert

 

[TonyR]

I necked down the 300RSAUM Nosler to 7mm then turned the necks. It worked fine. Or you could by Norma 300RSAUM and neck that down but I believe that Norma supplies Nosler. I found that the extreme weight spread in the Nosler was about half of the Norma. I have heard that the Remington is inconsistent from lot to lot. Some good some bad.

 

[jamesh]

With Nosler 300 SAUM brass there is no need to turn the necks. Loaded rounds measure around .316" depending on bullet used. If you aren't shooting competition you should be able to get by with the cheap Remington brass.

James

 

[kennyg]

I am concerned about having to deal with the 'donut' if I neck down the 300 Nosler brass.

Also, for those of you that use this brass, do you still sort by weight/capacity or are they good enough to shoot without sorting?

 

[TonyR]

You will have a donut to deal with if you neck down, although I have to deal with donuts in all of nthe brass I turn. The necks will not fit onto the turner mandrel otherwise. It is just worse when I neck down. I use a Wilson inside neck reamer with my case trimmer. You just need to find an expander mandrel that works with the reamer diameter. Neal Jones Custom products makes them in any size you want. The spread in a box of 50 Nosler is still about a grain and a half whle the spread in the Norma I've weighed is more like 2-3 grains as I recall. I guess it depends on how precise you want to be.

 

[jamesh]

There is no issue with a donut when necking down unless you neck turn the brass after necking down or you are pushing the shoulder back. It is necking up when you may have a donut issue but only if the shoulder is thicker than the neck brass. Not all brass has a thicker shoulder.
The Nosler brass is factory sorted by weight, no need to weight short. I shoot them in 1000yd IBS matches without sorting.

James

 

[Preacher]

All I ever use in my 7 SAUM's is Remington brass that has been sorted, and not very many of them seem to be out of specs, just never seen the need to buy any of the high priced stuff.....
I just checked my bone stock 700 Remington hunting rifle for the upcoming season and 2 shots out of a cold clean bore went into .638 @ 200 yards... I highly doubt any other brand of brass would have done any better.....

 

[kennyg]

Do you that use Remington brass find it to be a lot softer then the Nosler/Norma brass? I am just wondering if one will give a lot more reloads then the other, provided all other factors are the same?