Black Hills Match Brass?

[Ledd Slinger]

I just purchased 115 pieces of once fired Black Hills Match Brass in 308 win (from factory ammo) to to try for forming 6XC cases.

Anybody ever use the BH Match Brass to give me some insight on it's quality? Perhaps info on who manufactures it for them? Primer pocket strength with hot loads? I heard it's Winchester brass, but not sure. What else do they do to it to call it 'match' brass?

I know that the Black Hills Match ammo is held in high regard amongst shooters who don't hand load so I have high hopes for the brass. Thank you all.

 

[FatBoy]

I haven't used loaded BH in years but I was under the impression it was made for them by Star. Pretty good brass. Got several loadings of 44.4gr Varget under a 175SMK and the pockets are fine.

Not sure how well they form?

 

[Ledd Slinger]

I plan on annealing them down low on the shoulder with my Vertex annealing machine before attempting any forming. Should help the operation go smoother anyhow. Thanks for your input Fatboy

 

[jonbearman]

I have some I hammered for multiple reloads just to see if it could take abuse, well they worked fine. Mine was a .308 as well using 168 grain match bullets. Primer pockets stayed decent so if I had a bunch more I would use it.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

Great to hear jon. Thank you

 

[Road_Clam]

I purchased 100 rounds of .223 BH 69 gr SMK match ammo and the casings were not BH , but RWS (which i'm reading is really good quality brass).

 

[Ledd Slinger]

Interesting. They might have had various manufacturers make brass for them over the years. The pictures of the brass I bought clearly shows the headstamp and it reads;
'BHA MATCH 308 WIN'

'BHA' stands for Black Hills Ammunition.
So not sure who actually makes it, but it has their own stamp on it.

I only paid $34 for the 115 pieces and they also come in original factory 20 round ammo boxes that I can always find a use for. So I figured I'd give the brass a shot. Glad to hear good things about it so far

 

[XTR]

I've got several hundred 308 cases they scale a and neck wall thickness measure in the middle of my W-W cases depending on lot. I've always assumed that they were W-W, and sort and use them with my WW.

I think mine scale at 155 or 156gr ±.5 or so

 

[lightman]

Same here. I had some 223 cases from about a year ago and they measure and weigh like WW brass.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

Did some more digging and found an article on the 6mmBR sister site. Go figure :

It says Black Hills uses Winchester brass in their match ammo. Guessing BHA must have them stamp it for them then BHA probably fully preps it before loading. If true, its fine by me. Ive always thought Winchester was one of the best economical brass manufacturers. From experience, I would prefer Winchester brass over Remington, Federal, or Norma. Lapua being the only better alternative in my opinion.

Look under the second section of the embedded article from the top entitled 'Preferred Brass'
http://www.6mmbr.com/308win.html

 

[amlevin]

Interesting. They might have had various manufacturers make brass for them over the years. The pictures of the brass I bought clearly shows the headstamp and it reads;
'BHA MATCH 308 WIN'

'BHA' stands for Black Hills Ammunition.
So not sure who actually makes it, but it has their own stamp on it.

I only paid $34 for the 115 pieces and they also come in original factory 20 round ammo boxes that I can always find a use for. So I figured I'd give the brass a shot. Glad to hear good things about it so far

I have a bunch of the same brass. I've compared it carefully, looking inside at the case web and flash hole. Both the BHA and Winchester appear to have been formed with the same punch.

I just call this BHA brass "My Winchester SELECT brass". I use same loads but the volume seems to be more uniform than retail winchester and results on target follow.

 

[Road_Clam]

I Unknowingly purchsed some once fired .308 W-W "Marksman" brass come to find out it's REALLY precise stuff ! I did some neck concentricity testing on my W-W marksmen brass and it's to within .0015" pretty darn true concentric necks

http://forum.accurateshooter.com/index.php?topic=3859905.msg36490960#msg36490960