Remington vs Winchester brass?
- Thread starter brkncly
- Start date
This is just an experriance with a certain dealer.I just recently purchased 22-250 Remington brass, all bulk) from two locations.One lot of 200 was from Lock Stock & Barrel and the other lot from Cabela's. The lot from Lock Stock came in two baggies of 100ea. and was the worst brass I have ever seen and not advertised as anything but new Remington brass. Stay far away from them is my advise.The Cabela's brass, which was cheaper) came in sealed Remington bags and is very nice brass.
E-mail me I'll send u a small assortment...various brands...You can decide for yourself...Over the years I've used more Rem brand brass & get decent life from it...I've had problems split necks & or too soft or too hard with the other brands...After you get to know what to look & measure for.. you will be able to sort out the best cases from each bag & only use those when trying to shoot your best groups...The 22-250 was one of my favorite cartridges but lack of Lapua match grade brass leaves me to use other cartridges today..That said I've shot some nice under 1/2 inch groups & some one holers using remington brass..mike in ct
Well, the best brass is Lapua in my opinion, but again you pay for that quality. I've had real good luck reloading Prvi Partizan .223 brass which you can buy pretty cheap from www.wideners.com It's annealed and for the price is a good deal. Here's the link http://www.wideners.com/itemdetail.cfm?item_id=8551&dir=278|282|811
As to the orgional question, I'll take Winchester over Remington because it's harder brass and seems to last longer.
Danny
As to the orgional question, I'll take Winchester over Remington because it's harder brass and seems to last longer.
Danny
Here is my experience, feel free to laugh.
I have a plain old 25-06 hunting rifle that shoots 3/4 inch with brass out the bag. I have always used R.P. branded brass. When stretch marks became clear on the brass I went to my store and asked for a bag of R.P, went home made ten rounds and went off to check zero. First 3 rounds bang on the money, next round rattled my shoulder, vented out the bolt and spat the primer out. A closer inspection revealed.... bag of brass had 10% Win brass in it and boy was there a difference in pressure.
I've been reloading for years, hunting, comp' and benchrest, but you can bet your dollar I will take nothing for granted again.
The store keeper shrugged his shoulders and said, "that's not our problem we buy our brass pre-bagged."
I have a plain old 25-06 hunting rifle that shoots 3/4 inch with brass out the bag. I have always used R.P. branded brass. When stretch marks became clear on the brass I went to my store and asked for a bag of R.P, went home made ten rounds and went off to check zero. First 3 rounds bang on the money, next round rattled my shoulder, vented out the bolt and spat the primer out. A closer inspection revealed.... bag of brass had 10% Win brass in it and boy was there a difference in pressure.
I've been reloading for years, hunting, comp' and benchrest, but you can bet your dollar I will take nothing for granted again.
The store keeper shrugged his shoulders and said, "that's not our problem we buy our brass pre-bagged."
For my 22-250 I like the nosler brass from Cabela's. $34.99 per 50 and I have loaded them 6 or 7 times.
After a 4 year hiatus, got back in to the 22-250 'business', and picked up a factory sealed bag of 100 Winchester brass, lot# 2BD10) at a local Gander Mtn., most places were 'out of stock'). The high quality has surprised me: very uniform neck wall thickness, perfectly centered primer flash holes, and after the first firing, loaded bullet runout is averaging around .002'. Also found Nosler, bought several years ago when it first became available, to be very high quality. For my 223 bolt guns, Lapua is easily the first choice, Winchester and Lake City for the ARs. Overall, have not had good results with the 'Big Green'.
Not specifically dealing with 22-250, but in general, I'll use Lapua, Norma, Winchester, Lake City, Remington or Federal depending on what's available in the caliber needed without too much concern. Any of them can,if needed) be neck turned to an acceptable level of variance, a bit of sorting takes out the oddball cases,which they all have) and if you aren't going over SAAMI max pressure,which I realize many people do) then they will all give good service.
As a small example, because brass was a topic of conversation at our club recently, I went to our storage shed where we keep scrap brass from hunter sight-in days. I picked out 75 pieces of Winchester 30-06 brass and an equal number of Remington and Federal. This is brass from dozens of hunters' rifles, from widley varying lots,and it shows).
Once I got home, I went through the Winchester and picked 70 cases,from the 75) that were reasonably close in weight. I filed the big burrs off the rims from the hunter rifles and M1's. I then loaded them with a normal load, nothing fancy,Win. primers, H4831sc, Western 197 and Sierra 200) and in three weeks shot them in three matches at 500 yards,prone, iron sights). The scores were 598-30X, 594-32X and 596-32X,all from a possible 600 points). That's as good as that rifle and I normally do with Lapua or Lake City brass. I'll try the same thing with the Remington and Federal brass over the next few months.
I should say that the primer pockets remain perfectly tight on the Winchester and on 20 pieces of the Federal which I've fired 5 times as a practice load. My load isn't super hot, nor are any of my loads, so that's a factor. My main point is, that with some attention to detail and a bit of prudence on your loads, I think any brass from the well known makers will do the job for applications other than competitive Benchrest. Since the original question was about 22-250, I will assume that Benchrest shooting was not the objective.
As a small example, because brass was a topic of conversation at our club recently, I went to our storage shed where we keep scrap brass from hunter sight-in days. I picked out 75 pieces of Winchester 30-06 brass and an equal number of Remington and Federal. This is brass from dozens of hunters' rifles, from widley varying lots,and it shows).
Once I got home, I went through the Winchester and picked 70 cases,from the 75) that were reasonably close in weight. I filed the big burrs off the rims from the hunter rifles and M1's. I then loaded them with a normal load, nothing fancy,Win. primers, H4831sc, Western 197 and Sierra 200) and in three weeks shot them in three matches at 500 yards,prone, iron sights). The scores were 598-30X, 594-32X and 596-32X,all from a possible 600 points). That's as good as that rifle and I normally do with Lapua or Lake City brass. I'll try the same thing with the Remington and Federal brass over the next few months.
I should say that the primer pockets remain perfectly tight on the Winchester and on 20 pieces of the Federal which I've fired 5 times as a practice load. My load isn't super hot, nor are any of my loads, so that's a factor. My main point is, that with some attention to detail and a bit of prudence on your loads, I think any brass from the well known makers will do the job for applications other than competitive Benchrest. Since the original question was about 22-250, I will assume that Benchrest shooting was not the objective.
My preference for brass is in the same order that Mr. Salazar listed. That said, this is an experiance that I had. My first accurate rifle was a Rem-700, PSS, in .223 rem. I did not have a load prepared when I recieved the rifle so I shot several groups with some ammo that I had loaded on my Dillon for use in my AR-15 using miss-matched mil brass,to be shot in places where I can't recover most of it. Long story short, I fired mostly 5/8 to 3/4 inch groups. Carefully prepared Lapua brass will only beat this by 1/8 in or so, although with fewer fliers. Truth is, it takes a really accurate rifle to see a difference in preminum brass.I shoot Lapua in my custom rifles as it IS made to tighter tolerance and more consistant,but I don't see much improvement in factory rifles. JMHO Pete
i have never had problems w/ lapua, winchester and federal brass using cci primers. the one time i reloaded w/ once fired remington brass which was .223 umc. i had problems seating primers with several out of 50. i used some remington br primers i had laying around; which i had bought and never loaded before. anyways one of the primers blew a pin size hole out the back which also blew some powder back in my face. needless to say i'm not very happy with remington.
My durthers are Remington brass for general usage. For Specific accuracy usage Hornady and Lapua are top-notch. Where does this leave Winchester Brass . . . far behind most others, qualitywise. Even,Korean) PMC brass is superior regarding Winnie Pooh brass regarding my savage usage of .243 Winchester brass in general. If Winchester brass is American-Made, I shutter to think . . . cliffy
I use Winchester brass for almost everything.
If you want the best Lapua is the only way to go. Winchester brass is not bad at all. Granted every once in a while they do make some lemons. Heck I guess everyone does. I like the splat effect on PD so running near max loads is what I like to do and RP can not haing.
If you want the best Lapua is the only way to go. Winchester brass is not bad at all. Granted every once in a while they do make some lemons. Heck I guess everyone does. I like the splat effect on PD so running near max loads is what I like to do and RP can not haing.
Current NOSLER Brass is too weak in the primer pocket, regarding premium brass. Remington brass holds primers very well, yet Lapua brass best's ALL in all aspects, except price. Norma brass may be GREAT, but priced out of my price range by TOO far. These are my findings from many reloading attempts. Lapua rules regarding reloading, but Remington comes in a close second! Winchester brass barely breathes a dull LAST, qualitywise. Hornady brass is betwixt Lapua and Remington reloadingwise, yet Hornady is GOOD stuff. These are my findings, seriously. cliffy
Jeez, cliffy, gimme a break - I've shot a lot of both R-P & W-W brass, and W-W is every bit as good as R-P, plus it's considerably tougher when it comes to keeping primer pockets tight with warm loads. The most recent projects where I've used W-W were 6XC formed from 22-250, 250 Ackley, and 6.5x55 Ackley. In all three instances, formed cases had very little runout in the necks after fireforming & sizing, and accuracy with W-W in all three rifles has been fine.
I use a lot of Lapua in 223, BRs, Dashers, 6 & 6.5x47s, and 6.5x55, and really appreciate how uniform it is. Also have been using Norma 6XC from Tubb, and have no complaints with it, as it's at least as uniform as Lapua. It's great to have the large selection of brass that's available today - sure beats the choices we had back in 1968 when I started reloading.
I use a lot of Lapua in 223, BRs, Dashers, 6 & 6.5x47s, and 6.5x55, and really appreciate how uniform it is. Also have been using Norma 6XC from Tubb, and have no complaints with it, as it's at least as uniform as Lapua. It's great to have the large selection of brass that's available today - sure beats the choices we had back in 1968 when I started reloading.
I think 62 yearsof reloading gives me some history to workfrom,all brass varies by weight ww,rp,norma,Gi, etc. in a given caliber. bulk sellers often by barrels of thousands of cases sold by rp, ww, etc. they are generally mixed lots and odd lots dumped into a barrel and sold off.
Thus the only way to compare quality is to buy the brand packaging or bulk then sort by weight, generally loosing 50%.
having done this i find RP heavier than ww, thus lower in water volume thus as Gi higher in pressure than ww. Norma is softer, Lap great consistance but very expensive.
When loads are adjusted to the case water volume the results are more consistant between WW and RP with Rp winning out. I find lots vary as much as 5% in weight with WW and 2-3%in weight in Rp, -- loads adjusted for these weight variations bring the brass into true comparison. when done, Rp wins hands down.
bheadboy
Thus the only way to compare quality is to buy the brand packaging or bulk then sort by weight, generally loosing 50%.
having done this i find RP heavier than ww, thus lower in water volume thus as Gi higher in pressure than ww. Norma is softer, Lap great consistance but very expensive.
When loads are adjusted to the case water volume the results are more consistant between WW and RP with Rp winning out. I find lots vary as much as 5% in weight with WW and 2-3%in weight in Rp, -- loads adjusted for these weight variations bring the brass into true comparison. when done, Rp wins hands down.
bheadboy
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