Hornady brass, any good?

[hogpatrol]

My experience with Hornady new unfired brass has been positive. Granted I've only purchased and loaded two bags of 50 rounds each in 223 Rem. First, none of the cases contained any defects. Every bag of Winchester brass I ever purchased had at least 3 to 5% defective cases, the 22 250 being the worst i.e. cold laps in the shoulder and split necks. Secondly, I full size all new cases anyway but I was surprised to find that the Hornady case had to be full sized to chamber.

I've got 12 reloads through this lot and so far there has been no problems. Remington and Winchester brass is very hard to find in the local shops in my area so that's why I purchased Hornady.

Help me out here. It's good brass but you had to full length size it to chamber? And you can't find Winchester or Remington brass in .223? Run up the road to Cabela's in Hamburg. If it's anything like the Cabela's here in Delaware, there are enough bags of .223 in those and other makes to pull down the brass rack.

 

[Puzzaz01]

I'm not wanting to say I'm a big Hornady fan, because I'm not. But I do need to say the life of their brass is pretty darn good, I have 18 loads on a sorted set of 20 cases. Now as for as the volume consistency .... It's terrible. If you have enough of it to sort thru it, prep it and anneal it I believe you'll be ok.

 

[RonAKA]

My experience with Hornady new unfired brass has been positive. Granted I've only purchased and loaded two bags of 50 rounds each in 223 Rem. First, none of the cases contained any defects. Every bag of Winchester brass I ever purchased had at least 3 to 5% defective cases, the 22 250 being the worst i.e. cold laps in the shoulder and split necks. Secondly, I full size all new cases anyway but I was surprised to find that the Hornady case had to be full sized to chamber.

I don't mind having to size down new brass. I would much rather have it a little too big than too small. It is hard on brass to blow the shoulder ahead 10, 15, 20 or even 25 thou. Some brass is like that. And unless you have an expander ball die, you have no way to deal with a neck ID that is too small.

 

[Homerange]

Hornady is popular especially for 223 where their 50 packs are some of the cheapest here for club shooting.
I've used it for a few years for general plinking and varminting, all of it "range" brass of which it's done a good few reloads without an issue.

 

[JAlfred]

It seems strange that so many are winning in PRS shooting with Hornady brass, when it is claimed to be so bad...

I am curious to know how influenced that number is by 6.5 Creedmore brass and ammo availability. Hornady was the primary name available in 6.5 CM for a while IIRC .

 

[Fotheringill]

No experience with any Hornady other than in .223. Variations in neck to base, ogive, neck thickness, neck growth. All with the same batches of once fired rounds in my rifle only.

I won't use it to reload. In my caliber, Lapua, RWS and, believe it not, General Dynamics, work best and are consistent in all of the above.

I have turned down bagfuls of Hornady at the range that were offered gratis.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

The other thing Hornady told me is they make the 17 hornet brass for the other ammo manufacturers. So if I buy Winchester brass I am only getting Hornady brass with a different head stamp. More than likely the 375 Ruger brass from Nosler is re-stamped Hornady cases, sorry lead slinger.

That's a good point because as far as I know, all Nosler brass is re-stamped from a different manufacturer. I know Norma makes most of the brass for Nosler, but in the instance of the 375R, you might be right. Very well could be re-stamped Hornady brass.

 

[RonAKA]

I am curious to know how influenced that number is by 6.5 Creedmore brass and ammo availability. Hornady was the primary name available in 6.5 CM for a while IIRC .

It is highly influenced by the non availability of the CM brass from Lapua. Lapua is the obvious first choice, and they are using it as the second choice in the absence of Lapua. However, the significance is that CM is available from others including Norma and they are picking Hornady over those choices.

 

[RonAKA]

No experience with any Hornady other than in .223. Variations in neck to base, ogive, neck thickness, neck growth. All with the same batches of once fired rounds in my rifle only.

You might find this article about brass uniformity interesting. Lapua was best, and Hornady second.

 

[hogpatrol]

You might find this article about brass uniformity interesting. Lapua was best, and Hornady second.

What's the date of this comparison? Tooling wears out, brass alloys change, manufacturing processes change, bean counters tell the engineers they want cheaper. Why no Norma and Nosler in this chart?

 

[shoot4fun]

I am curious to know how influenced that number is by 6.5 Creedmore brass and ammo availability. Hornady was the primary name available in 6.5 CM for a while IIRC .

That is a great deal of it but also take into consideration the 6.5 SAUM 4S and the 6 Creedmoor.
I have 6.5 Creedmoor brass, and still use it, from my original batch of 2009 brass. It is still holding primers (although some finally wore out) and still holding neck tension (regular annealing). I've shot thousands of rounds of factory Hornady ammo over the last 8-10 years and never had issue with any of it. Not to mention that most all the Hornady-Haters still shoot Hornady Amax bullets (ELD-M). I once was talking to a friend about 6 Creedmoor loads. He said his brass life sucked; only two reloads per case on Hornady. When asked his load I was surprised to hear him spout out a load that was a full grain over mine and touting a "great" speed that was over a hundred FPS less than mine. In any event, his load was just a "brass-killer".

 

[JRS]

What's the date of this comparison? Tooling wears out, brass alloys change, manufacturing processes change, bean counters tell the engineers they want cheaper. Why no Norma and Nosler in this chart?

2012

 

[wiuprof]

Since two of the most popular cartridges with PRS competitors are the 6 & 6.5 Creedmoor rounds, it is not surprising that Hornady
brass is popular.

http://precisionrifleblog.com/2015/10/12/best-rifle-caliber/

http://precisionrifleblog.com/2015/12/27/best-bullets-brass-primers-powder/

They note that "most guys running 6.5 Creedmoor or 6mm Creedmoor cartridges were using Hornady brass".

 

[jepp2]

I guess I am another one that is very pleased with Hornady brass. I only have used it in 204 Ruger and 223. Most of what I shot was factory loaded Superformance since I could get them for almost the cost of new unprimed brass. Didn't lose a single round in the initial firing for over 1,000 rounds. Primer pockets are nice and tight and weight variance was about the same as Win or Rem. The sizing was Ok on mine, definitely not short, case head to shoulder datum, like some brass.

It was much better than the recent Win 204 Ruger brass I bought where I had to return over 15% due to the shoulders not being properly formed. On these the case head to shoulder datum measurement was over 0.010" short and the shoulder didn't properly form on the first firing with a normal pressure load. The picture below shows this issue with the brass on the left side being the problem. The color was quite different from the acceptable brass like it was a slightly different alloy.

[URL=http://s860.photobucket.com/user/jepp2/media/Brass%20Color1_zpss9xbpkd8.jpg.html][/URL]

 

[RonAKA]

What's the date of this comparison? Tooling wears out, brass alloys change, manufacturing processes change, bean counters tell the engineers they want cheaper. Why no Norma and Nosler in this chart?

June 15, 2012

Here is the link to read the whole article.

 

[hogpatrol]

June 15, 2012

Here is the link to read the whole article.

Ron, Thanks. That's ten year old data. I wonder how well it matches with what's out there today.

 

[Ledd Slinger]

June 15, 2012

Here is the link to read the whole article.

Ron, Thanks. That's ten year old data. I wonder how well it matches with what's out there today.

I'm no mathmagician but...

 

[hogpatrol]

I'm no mathmagician but...

Ledd, dig a little deeper, data from the origin is http://www.6mmbr.com/223Rem.html copyright 2007. 2012 is the reprint. Tipoff is Lake City '06 brass. The article and brass data is over nine years old.

couple edits to correct dates but stand by the fact that this is old data.

 

[RonAKA]

Ledd, dig a little deeper, data from the origin is http://www.6mmbr.com/223Rem.html copyright 2006. 2012 is the reprint. Tipoff is Lake City '06 brass. The article and brass data is 10 years old.

The article seems to point back to the Accuate Shooter site. I couldn't find a definitive date on the Accurate Shooter page, which I have always found a bit annoying. I suspect the reason may be that each page gets updated when they get new data to add.

 

[jlow]

It seems strange that so many are winning in PRS shooting with Hornady brass, when it is claimed to be so bad...

LOL! Yes, this has to be taken in context. The real reason is because PRS shooter generally as a group they hate reloading (I am just telling it as it is) and so they shoot 6.5CM as a caliber because they can get Hornady factory ammo at a reasonable price, so a lot of Hornady 6.5CM rounds gets used, ego a lot of Hornady brass gets used. Some are reloaded again because they have lots of it. That is not to say some do not buy Hornady brass and reload it and reload it well but I am just speaking of "in general" which is what the graph depicts.