Brass Quality

[Pawnee Bill]

Which is the better brass; Lapua or RWS?

 

[Terry]

Lapua

 

[watercam]

If for no other reason Lapua is much more prevalent in the States and, I suspect, less expensive. If you are a competitive shooter loading 1000 to many more thousands of rounds a year that becomes very important. For hunting perhaps less so. RWS certainly has a good reputation but I have never seen or handled any.

 

[amlevin]

If for no other reason Lapua is much more prevalent in the States and, I suspect, less expensive. If you are a competitive shooter loading 1000 to many more thousands of rounds a year that becomes very important. For hunting perhaps less so. RWS certainly has a good reputation but I have never seen or handled any.

You needn't "suspect" that Lapua's less expensive. In .308 it's about $0.75 per case and the RWS runs $1.85 per.

At that price one might expect it to walk the bullet downrange and place it exactly where it should go 8)

Now if it's perfectly straight, all cases weigh the same, you never have to trim it, and the primer pockets hold up for 100 or more load cycles, then that RWS brass might be the ticket :

 

[Dusty Stevens]

Rws is super fine brass.

 

[dkhunt14]

RWS is a very hard brass and will take more pressure then Lapua and the pockets hold up better. Matt

 

[JRS]

RWS is a very hard brass and will take more pressure then Lapua and the pockets hold up better. Matt

+1 - it is also dimensionally more consistent than Lapua brass.

 

[Dusty Stevens]

I wish it was more widespread and available. I have a few sets of different calibers and altho i dont shoot those much that brass is still 100% perfect after 20yrs

 

[Brians356]

You needn't "suspect" that Lapua's less expensive. In .308 it's about $0.75 per case and the RWS runs $1.85 per.

Bruno's has Lapua standard 308 Win for $0.67, Palma for $0.74.

I lucked into 50 RWS 223 Rem cases when a friend gave me a box of Black Hills ammo. I had no idea they were special until I started measuring them - very consistent. The headstamp looks like very fine etching (laser?) rather than stamping. I scoured the local stores for more of that B.H. ammo (which was not expensive, BTW) but every box I opened had L.C. brass. Bummer.

 

[Laurie]

RWS is a very hard brass and will take more pressure then Lapua and the pockets hold up better. Matt

+1 - it is also dimensionally more consistent than Lapua brass.

Looking at 308 Win, we have had a great deal of RWS brass available in the UK as RUAG (RWS' owner) contracted to supply our NRA with RWS 308 Win cartridges loaded with the old-model 155gn Sierra MK for four years. As a result, we have had easy access to the stuff both in the loaded rounds and in huge quantities of once-fired RWS brass after major comps. The once-fired stuff has never commanded particularly good prices, and there was a period where it was almost hard to give it away. It certainly never impacted on Lapua 308 Win case sales whether in standard or Palma form.

Having been able to use both extensively, the two makes have very similar weights, capacities, neck thickness etc so much so that loads worked up in one can be transferred to the other without much load fine-tuning if any is needed at all.

Quality wise (weight consistency, neck thickness in individual cases and between cases in a lot etc) the best of the RWS about matched the poorest of the Lapua.

Strength / life-wise when identical loads were employed, Lapua LRP brass gives around two or three more firings before before primer pockets loosen. There is no comparison with Palma brass in this respect. I can't comment on other calibres, but I don't know of any around where British shooters will choose RWS for preference when they're available from both manufacturers.

 

[Elwood]

I can't give any comparisons between RWS and Lapua in the same case caliber, but I did use RWS 7x57 brass to form into 6mm Crusader brass (6mm AI) and I have never had such consistent measurements for concentricity and neck wall thickness as the RWS, in fact my recent batch of Lapua 6.5x284 brass has been pretty poor.

The RWS primer pockets held up amazingly well in the 6mm Crusader which was shot to near full max and I had 15 to 17 firings out of two lots of cases.

 

[Brians356]

I can't give any comparisons between RWS and Lapua in the same case caliber, but I did use RWS 7x57 brass to form into 6mm Crusader brass (6mm AI) and I have never had such consistent measurements for concentricity and neck wall thickness as the RWS, in fact my recent batch of Lapua 6.5x284 brass has been pretty poor.

The RWS primer pockets held up amazingly well in the 6mm Crusader which was shot to near full max and I had 15 to 17 firings out of two lots of cases.

Where can I get some RWS 7x57 cases? I don't need a large number, say 50 or so.

 

[Brians356]

Well, waddya know. Who knew?

https://www.huntingtons.com/store/home.php?cat=275

You can buy RWS 50 BMG cases for only $18.98! (Per case.)

Ok, so no surprise RWS brass is really expensive. For example 223 Rem is $1.55 per case. Ouch.

However, you can buy some Black Hills 223 40-gr V-Max ammo from Lucky Gunner for $0.84 per round (or from your local FLSGS) and have 50 empty RWS cases when you've shot it up:

http://www.luckygunner.com/223-rem-40-grain-vmax-pt-black-hills-50

 

[Rust]

45 years of shooting and loading. For match rifle loads Lapua. For general loading, Winchester, albeit it takes more inspection and prep.

Or to put it another way, anymore I only use chamberings that Lapua brass is available for.

And don't bother mentioning Norma. Been there, done that, no joy, actually negative joy.

RWS, what I've gotten over the years has been good but so expensive I've only used it because of weird Euro chamberings and oddball projects that in hind sight I shouldn't have bothered with. Hey, I was young once.

 

[riflewoman]

In my experience brass can probably be ranked in decreasing order of quality:

Lapua,
Pre 70s Winchester
Winchester

Federal
Norma
Remington
Fiocchi,

PPU

Any military including LC and IMI.

YMMV

 

[Brians356]

In my experience brass can probably be ranked in decreasing order of quality:

Lapua,
Pre 70s Winchester
Winchester

Federal
Norma
Remington
Fiocchi,

PPU

Any military including LC and IMI.

YMMV

Nosler is not in your list. Or is is made by one of the others (Norma for example)?

Also, RWS is missing. No experience with those two?

 

[riflewoman]

No experience with them. I have 100 nosler in 222 but haven't loaded them yet. Nor have I played with Hornady other than some very old Frontier 223 many years ago. Those were made by Federal IIRC.


The list above is not all inclusive and their isn't a huge difference between the ones grouped together.