Harder Federal Brass Case Heads

[watercam]

Was attending a Long Range State Championship match this last weekend and a Team Savage member was there. He mentioned that he had spoken with a Federal Ammunition rep who noted that they had added an additional strike to their brass manufacturing process to make their case heads harder and thus enabling them to last longer with hotter loads. Apparently they started doing so a year ago and simply never told anyone. Then could not understand why no one was buying their brass. They might have told someone about it sooner!
May have to give them a try for Palma!

 

[Joe R]

If you want stronger cases just get the Lake City brass. Federal operates the Lake City plant owned by the DOD. I use them for F-TR. The trick to working with LC is to anneal and when resizing them give it a 10 second dwell time. Its really strong brass so that strength manifests itself in the resizing step and wants to snap back to its fired dimensions. That's why some people say that it is difficult to work with. Once you get tuned you'll learn to love it. The fact that is so cheap is icing on the cake and courtesy of US taxpayers. Typical government behavior, buys the best and then gives it away.

I'm running a pretty warm load of 44.9 grains of Varget (Sierra says max is 38.5 grains) while pushing a Berger 200 hybrid and I'm on my 7th firing with the LC without any problems. The Lapua only lasted 3 firings, the same as the FGMM brass. See http://www.weatherford-reloading.com/

I'm kind of lazy so once I turn the necks and get the brass "tuned" I don't want to re-do it until I have to. I expect I'll get at least 10 firings, but I'm really hoping for 20.

Joe

 

[ta406]

If you want stronger cases just get the Lake City brass. Federal operates the Lake City plant owned by the DOD. I use them for F-TR. The trick to working with LC is to anneal and when resizing them give it a 10 second dwell time. Its really strong brass so that strength manifests itself in the resizing step and wants to snap back to its fired dimensions. That's why some people say that it is difficult to work with. Once you get tuned you'll learn to love it. The fact that is so cheap is icing on the cake and courtesy of US taxpayers. Typical government behavior, buys the best and then gives it away.

I'm running a pretty warm load of 44.9 grains of Varget (Sierra says max is 38.5 grains) while pushing a Berger 200 hybrid and I'm on my 7th firing with the LC without any problems. The Lapua only lasted 3 firings, the same as the FGMM brass. See http://www.weatherford-reloading.com/

I'm kind of lazy so once I turn the necks and get the brass "tuned" I don't want to re-do it until I have to. I expect I'll get at least 10 firings, but I'm really hoping for 20.

Joe

Can you explain what you mean by a 10 second dwell time? I'm guessing that you mean leaving the brass in the die for 10 seconds during the sizing process?

 

[watercam]

I am getting 14 or so firings from my Lapua Palma brass. Not sure why you are not able to have the same. Ah well, hot loads. I worked with LC brass once and did not care for it. Perhaps it is a good winter project to try again.
I only mentioned the Federal stuff in case it was all anyone could find but I now see that no one has any in stock!

 

[Joe R]

ta406 said:
I'm guessing that you mean leaving the brass in the die for 10 seconds during the sizing process?

Exactly. Brass is a bit elastic and wants to return to its previous shape. Some people give their re-sizing step a couple of seconds of dwell time. That may work for some brass, but it doesn't work for LC brass.

Many people give up on it because they say its hard to resize and that's true. The first time it is fired its in machine gun that has a generous chamber, so when you re-size it the first time it takes some brute strength. If you have a bad heart or arthritis I would advise you to stay away. But after you've resized it the first time its easy streets.