New Brass

[dragman]

Just curious to what everyone else does with a new gun for load development and new brass. The last 4 times I started from scratch with a new gun and new brass I did the load development on new brass (that I preped myself not just out of the box) and the load didn't change after it was fired. I have always been told that once fired and new brass will be different but for me it hasn't. When I open a new box of brass I tend to the primer pockets cut the necks trim and run them through the dies so that they are preped just like if they were fired. Is this normal or is it common for virgin brass and once fired to shoot the same??? thanks for the info.

 

[K22]

All my rifles have their own set of dedicated cases so I always start with new brass and go through the normal preparation process of sizing, trimming, flash hole deburring and uniforming.

I haven't noticed any significance difference between new brass vs fired brass but my accuracy standards are probably not as severe as a benchrest or competitive shooter. I do aim for 1/2 moa from my varmint rifles and under 1 moa for my big game rifles.

I full size ever time, bumping the shoulder back about .002" thus the need to dedicate cases to a specific rifle. (I stopped neck sizing a few years ago and switched to full sizing to obtain less run out and more reliable feeding in the field. I've notice no decline in case life using the aforemetioned shoulder bump process.)

I found that this process yield very consistent reload, accurate, and problem free field use.

 

[dragman]

thanks for your insite. I aim for 1/4 MOA or better as I am competition shooting most of the time. I just question myself sometimes cuz people always say no no it's gonna be different but I haven't seen it.

 

[pmarauder]

What chambering? You may not see much difference at 100...... between right out of the box brass that has been touched up....vs. twice fired brass.....but it will be apparent at 1000. I was shooting some fresh fire formed brass vs my good brass at 1k and POI was much different. I guess it depends on what your trying to do??

 

[dragman]

I am doing all 1000 yard shooting. I have shot, 284, 6.5X284, 6BR, and 300WSM those are the Four I have ready to shoot this year. I never go unfired VS twice sometimes If I find a load fast I will leave the once fired and the new brass together for the first match just so I don't shoot it just to shoot it and put extra 80 rounds on my barrel. after the first match I keep them on the same number of firings.

 

[Shynloco]

dragman,
For whatever this is worth, I've been told by a Lapua Rep NOT to FL size new Lapua brass, but do the others things and THEN fireform them. The idea is to put the brass through at least one cycle of the expansion/contraction cycle. I've seen posts by some of the more serious competitive shooters run the cycle twice before using that new brass in competition. Personally, I remove the expander balls anyway in my FL dies and use a Mandrel die for size the neck. As a result, Concentricity is extremely uniform and I get hardly any movement of the needle (Sinclair Concentricity Gage) when checking the runout on finished cartridges AND neck tension (which is critical for accuracy) is also relatively light and uniform. Works for me.

 

[Leaddog]

I shoot Lapua .308 brass.

When new out of the box, I doubt you could FL resize if you wanted to. The brass is undersized. Neck tension is the issue with new brass. It's tight. I recommend running an expander mandrel through the necks and resizing with your bushing die. I do not use the die expander button. New Lapua brass also needs the nylon brush run through the necks due to the grittiness from the factory annealing. If you do these things, then yes, accuracy is quite good with new brass. My brass performs best after two firings.

I prep my new brass by trimming and neck turning (skimming .0005), but that's a story for another time.

I also anneal after each firing. My Benchsource makes light work of the process.