What blend of brass do companies use?

[Lee Whitsel]

I've been threw the Hornady factory of operations to see it twice. It's amazing to see all the machines at work in the back of the plant they have like big tubs of lead for different blends for different uses.. I am thinking is all Remington brass the same blend to make their cases for all say rifle cases? Or are 300 WM case blended different than their 222 cases? and what about Winchester or Federal? do they change brass blends for different cases? Food for thought.

 

[DocBII]

Lee,

Well, it's all some form of plumbers brass with add-ins. The add-ins cost money, so you get what you pay for.

HTH,
DocBII

 

[rijndael]

Cartridge Brass Alloys Revealed by X-Ray Spectrometers « Daily Bulletin

Are there significant metallurgical differences in the alloys used in various brands of cartridge brass? The answer is yes, and we have proof. Using a state-of-the-art X-Ray Fluorescence Spectrometer, some tech-savy Wisconsin shooters recently analyzed the alloys in seven different types of...

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[Lee Whitsel]

I've been threw the Hornady factory of operations to see it twice. It's amazing to see all the machines at work in the back of the plant they have like big tubs of lead for different blends for different uses.. I am thinking is all Remington brass the same blend to make their cases for all say rifle cases? Or are 300 WM case blended different than their 222 cases? and what about Winchester or Federal? do they change brass blends for different cases? Food for thought.

I called Hornady today. The man said they order a certain blend of materials from suppliers for their brass cases and use it for making all their cases from the same material....

 

[Doom]

C240 and C260 are the most likely to be used. At any time I suspect that the cost of copper will drive a brass fabricator to switch between the two. Both can be made essentially equal in strength and hardness with slightly different heat treatment.