Match Quality 300blk Brass - Make It or Buy It?

[j-dubya]

I’m finally going to get into loading for this caliber. Have plenty of Lake City brass and don’t mind taking the time to convert it. That said, most everyone on this site understands and values consistency. For those who have both made and bought brass, to get quality “match” style consistency, what’s your insights on making the brass? I’ve read both styles of “forming” then sizing, or just sizing. Is there one that leads to better initial consistency? I am looking to not have fireformed loads differing from initially sized ones. Ideally I’d like to make my own brass that’s close enough to fired and resized brass so I can replenish as necessary with one single load combination.

Going to be using a Mighty Armory sizing die and AMP annealer.

 

[Rathmatik]

Fired brass will always be different than new brass, there's no way around that. Do you mean you have LC brass for 300 BLK, or is it 223/5.56? I'd imagine that you could trim it as appropriate, then size with the MA die. I just got mine for 6.5 CM, and it even made my Hornady brass have a neck concentricity of <.001" (close to .0005" on average). The die is quite ridiculous honestly. It'll just require testing, but I'm sure you can get very good quality results even with that LC brass, while using the MA gold match sizing die.

 

[Deleted member 113831]

Exactly what is a "match" application for a 300blk?

The things typically shot with a 300blk, and the ranges at which they are shot, hardly require match accuracy.

 

[j-dubya]

Exactly what is a "match" application for a 300blk?

The things typically shot with a 300blk, and the ranges at which they are shot, hardly require match accuracy.

The “match” in quotes was said in humor, but to make the point I’m interested in consistency. Not just the simplest and easiest way to make a piece of brass for shooting into hillsides. I’d rather not be wondering about brass variance or conversion variance I caused when it comes to load development.

 

[Deleted member 113831]

The “match” in quotes was said in humor, but to make the point I’m interested in consistency. Not just the simplest and easiest way to make a piece of brass for shooting into hillsides. I’d rather not be wondering about brass variance or conversion variance I caused when it comes to load development.

My point was that the inhibition to accuracy in the 300blk isn't the die. It is with compromises made in the chamber and twist to shoot everything from 110 grain supers to 220 grain subs.

Use brass with all the same headstamp and you will accomplish all that is reasonably possible.

I don't weight sort and match prep my 30/30 brass either, and for the same reasons.

 

[FuhQ]

I've been making my my own .300 BLK from LC 5.56 brass for years. I also used to work in an ammo plant for a machine gun range, and we made our own there, as well. Except those machines used Dillon high-speed cutters/trimmers with forming dies, and my setup is MUCH more modest, but produces some high-quality brass, as well.

 

[kindabitey]

I started out making it. After the first few hundred, decided it wasn't worth the time. Hornady, Nosler, and Jageman are decent. And, there's always the Lapua factory option.

 

[Missalot]

I recently went on a quest to find new 300 BO brass and all I could find was Nosler at about $0.90 each. I'm way too cheap for that pricing.

Next I looked at converting 223. There are several methods but all of them seem very time consuming and the most popular involve using a mini chop saw one at a time. Most budget mini chop saws are junk. Plus, after cutting the brass, you then have to trim, maybe a lot, adding another step. I don't have time to convert 1000 rounds.

I needed to get started so I ordered some once fired from Top Brass and it arrived this week. I pulled out a handful and they are mostly LC (about 80%) converted brass and the rest were WMA. They are all very clean and the few I examined didn't need trimming. My only complaint was all the primer pockets were reamed roughly. That was just my thoughts based on a handful of brass.

 

[Deleted member 113831]

I recently went on a quest to find new 300 BO brass and all I could find was Nosler at about $0.90 each. I'm way too cheap for that pricing.

Next I looked at converting 223. There are several methods but all of them seem very time consuming and the most popular involve using a mini chop saw one at a time. Most budget mini chop saws are junk. Plus, after cutting the brass, you then have to trim, maybe a lot, adding another step. I don't have time to convert 1000 rounds.

I needed to get started so I ordered some once fired from Top Brass and it arrived this week. I pulled out a handful and they are mostly LC (about 80%) converted brass and the rest were WMA. They are all very clean and the few I examined didn't need trimming. My only complaint was all the primer pockets were reamed roughly. That was just my thoughts based on a handful of brass.

I need to load about 1500 pcs. I have loaded about 1,000 pcs using the chop saw from Harbor Freight. It kinda sucks but has paid for itself a few times over already.

Having said that, I just ordered all the stuff to use the Honeybadger brass trimmer system. It ain't cheap, all the stuff is costing me about $400, but when converted brass is going for $30 per 100 pcs it won't take many pieces to pay for itself. I'll break even on this 1500 pcs I need to make, and have the capability to do whatever with it in the future.

 

[j-dubya]

I need to load about 1500 pcs. I have loaded about 1,000 pcs using the chop saw from Harbor Freight. It kinda sucks but has paid for itself a few times over already.

Having said that, I just ordered all the stuff to use the Honeybadger brass trimmer system. It ain't cheap, all the stuff is costing me about $400, but when converted brass is going for $30 per 100 pcs it won't take many pieces to pay for itself. I'll break even on this 1500 pcs I need to make, and have the capability to do whatever with it in the future.

From making your brass and obviously you understand loading consistently, have you noticed any appreciable difference in loads from newly formed brass to after fire formed?

I’m going to look into that Honeybadger setup today. Thanks for that.

 

[Deleted member 113831]

From making your brass and obviously you understand loading consistently, have you noticed any appreciable difference in loads from newly formed brass to after fire formed?

I’m going to look into that Honeybadger setup today. Thanks for that.

I haven't, but you have to understand my setup. To evaluate loads I'm shooting paper out to 200 yards from an 8" AR with a 7 twist barrel. 200 yards is the max range I envision for this setup, hence my "match grade?" comments.

I'm getting consistent 2-2.5moa at that distance. It will group every single round into an 8" circle (size of a face) at that range. To ask more of it doesn't really get you anything you can actually use.

There are people who shoot it from a precision bolt gun and stretch it to 500-600 yards for a type of short range ELR. They might be able to see it, but to me those are impractical (but cheap and fun) academic exercises that pass the time and keep boredom away.

 

[j-dubya]

I haven't, but you have to understand my setup. To evaluate loads I'm shooting paper out to 200 yards from an 8" AR with a 7 twist barrel. 200 yards is the max range I envision for this setup, hence my "match grade?" comments.

I'm getting consistent 2-2.5moa at that distance. It will group every single round into an 8" circle (size of a face) at that range. To ask more of it doesn't really get you anything you can actually use.

There are people who shoot it from a precision bolt gun and stretch it to 500-600 yards for a type of short range ELR. They might be able to see it, but to me those are impractical (but cheap and fun) academic exercises that pass the time and keep boredom away.

Thanks. Yours is about the same use I’ll have for mine when it’s built. 11.5” barrel and just looking for good consistency with ES and such for up to 3-400m to toy with. But mostly it’s going to be a <200m application. Just wanting to make good brass from the get go since I have the capability to.

 

[Deleted member 113831]

Thanks. Yours is about the same use I’ll have for mine when it’s built. 11.5” barrel and just looking for good consistency with ES and such for up to 3-400m to toy with. But mostly it’s going to be a <200m application. Just wanting to make good brass from the get go since I have the capability to.

You will do fine. The only thing I've encountered is that some dies are capable of pushing the shoulder back too far. The geometry of this cartridge makes misfires much more likely if close attention isn't paid to shoulder position.

 

[GMZ]

If you want to take the brass (mostly) out if the equation buy Lapua and worry about something else.

For your application agree the LC brass will be just fine. LC brass i find to be excellent in its own right sorted by headstamp with a little prep.

 

[j-dubya]

If you want to take the brass (mostly) out if the equation buy Lapua and worry about something else.

For your application agree the LC brass will be just fine. LC brass i find to be excellent in its own right sorted by headstamp with a little prep.

Well, buying anything right now is going to be far fetched. I have plenty of LC and would rather build something tuned for consistency. That way I can easily replenish as needed. I would just like a good, sound process, especially since I have an AMP.

It’s been hard to filter out load data and processes since you can’t really tell the difference from someone who might process their brass like we would here, and the other guy who did the ‘fast and easy’ way to converting brass all while doing his load development with a red dot...

 

[alamo5000]

I’m finally going to get into loading for this caliber. Have plenty of Lake City brass and don’t mind taking the time to convert it. That said, most everyone on this site understands and values consistency. For those who have both made and bought brass, to get quality “match” style consistency, what’s your insights on making the brass? I’ve read both styles of “forming” then sizing, or just sizing. Is there one that leads to better initial consistency? I am looking to not have fireformed loads differing from initially sized ones. Ideally I’d like to make my own brass that’s close enough to fired and resized brass so I can replenish as necessary with one single load combination.

Going to be using a Mighty Armory sizing die and AMP annealer.

First a word of caution. You have to be VERY careful when choosing what kind of brass (IE the brand name) that you will be converting. I had my first ever firearms related accident due to 300BLK brass. The single piece of brass that I guess slipped through had a neck wall thickness that was too thick. The bolt went home but was barely out of battery. It allowed for a good out of battery detonation which split my BCG open like a banana and blasted my mag out the bottom. It took me 4 hours to get everything apart. Fortunately the damage was very limited but it still scared the crap out of me.

Using Lake City brass is supposed to be OK so you are good there. Also don't use a Lee die for forming. The neck tension will be way off if you do. It seems as if you have both of those covered.

As far as getting 'match consistency'...my question would be 'why'? "Match" means so many things to so many people. Unless you are trying to shoot bullseye competitions at extended ranges it doesn't make a lot of sense. Again I am just stating that I don't understand your use (IE what type of shooting) you will be doing out of what type of gun. I also don't know your expectations for accuracy and at what ranges.

Nothing at all wrong with forming brass but if you get a thick neck you can either toss it or turn it.

 

[M5Pilot]

I started with 300blk a couple months ago. I have processed 2.5k of 223 range brass. I chopped them using a small saw and then bought the Henderson precision trimmer gen 3 to trim to final length. There are no rough edges and are perfect after using the trimmer. Some brass walls are going to be too thick and won't chamber properly. The best advice I got was to buy the Sheridan gauge to check each finished round. It has paid off because if it has the slightest problem going into the Sheridan, it will jam my Daniel Defense AR.

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I used a tube micrometer to measure the wall thickness at the neck and I'd say out of the 2.5k pieces, only about 100 were too thick. Anything over .013, I'd toss. With the .308 bullet, .013 wall x 2 = .334 which is the max size at the neck. Every piece that sticks it's due to the neck diameter being too large. Even after that a few of the finished rounds would stick in the Sheridan. Not knowing where the brass came from some other advice I got was to deprime them through a small base 223 die to set them all back to a known size. I'm using the Mighty Armory 300blk sizing die to form them. It's been fun and I'm loading for heavy subs.

 

[padom]

I use a Dillon RT1500 with a TiN cutter in a dedicated brass prep 300blk toolhead on my Dillon XL650. Literally dont touch LC 5.56 brass. I have the carbide FL sizing trim die setup to set the shoulder exactly where it needs to be and form the neck and trim the neck to length... It then gets ran into a 21st Century TiN mandrel. Brass shoots as good as anything you can buy. I anneal it after its 1x before sizing again...





In regards to accuracy and effective range. This very question is exactly what got me into 300BLK years ago. I had 2 buddies that had 300BLK SBR AR's that constantly said it was a short range fun gun.. Said its wasnt a precision cartridge. I set out to find out if that was true.

Test setup was a Aero upper and lower, Geissele SD3G trigger, Syrac AGB, DD MFR MLOK hanguard, Magpul CTR, Spikes Heavy buffer and JP spring and a WMD NiB BCG. At the time I was using a Vortex Razor Gen1 5-25 for load development and accuracy testing.

The first 2 barrels I shot were all over 1moa at 100yds not matter what powder or bullet combo I tried using H110 or LilGun. I finally decided to try one last barrel before giving up on 300blk being submoa consistently to 200yd. The 3rd and final barrel I bought was a Rainier Ultramatch Gen1 (Shilen Blank) 10.5" 1:8 300blk... This thing was a hammer right out the gates with ALL the combos I tested in the first 2 barrels. 125 SMK's and 125 TMK's are my favorite but 110 VMAX and 110 TTSX all shoot great too.

I do NOT shoot subsonic, so I have no data on that for you. I wanted rifle stopping power in this project, not 45acp power that a 300blk subsonic gives you..

After finding and confirming the below loads, I tested it out to distance on steel just to see how far could I consistently get hits with this load and rifle setup. On 12"x20" steel I went 5 for 5 at 200, 300, 400 and 500yd with my Leupold Mark4 MR/T 1.5-5-20 with CM-R2 reticle dialing for elevation shooting the 125 TMK load at 2150. I tested this multiple times, its good to go to 500yd with this combination.

With 300blk, the accuracy is all in the barrel.



Here is my target firing the first rounds out of the Ultramatch to break it in before starting load development.







Here is the 125 TMK OCW







Here is the 125 TMK 7x5 load confirmation test I shot at 100yd with the 18.6gr load







Here is the Rainier UltraMatch 300blk 10.5" Gen2 that Rainier sent me to review a few years back. I compared it directly to my Gen1.. It shot very very good and that barrel does not use the Shilen blanks anymore.

 

[j-dubya]

I use a Dillon RT1500 with a TiN cutter in a dedicated brass prep 300blk toolhead on my Dillon XL650. Literally dont touch LC 5.56 brass. I have the carbide FL sizing trim die setup to set the shoulder exactly where it needs to be and form the neck and trim the neck to length... It then gets ran into a 21st Century TiN mandrel. Brass shoots as good as anything you can buy. I anneal it after its 1x before sizing again...

Interesting. So you don’t do any annealing during the initial conversion?

Also, I keep seeing the Sheridan gauge. Is there any difference or advantage of that one over a Wilson gauge? That’s what I already have and just bought it because I have their gauges in other calibers.

 

[padom]

Interesting. So you don’t do any annealing during the initial conversion?

Also, I keep seeing the Sheridan gauge. Is there any difference or advantage of that one over a Wilson gauge? That’s what I already have and just bought it because I have their gauges in other calibers.

Nope. I used to when I did the chop saw method....but with this dillon RT1500 trim die it makes perfect brass. Then I anneal after firing 1x before sizing again


I dont use a gauge...your gun is your best gauge....fired brass in your chamber is the beat gauge for tight tolerances....my converted brass dies are setup to bump shoulder .003 from my fired case headspace. I have a Sheridan gauge..its really nice but your Wilson will work fine too

 

[j-dubya]

Nope. I used to when I did the chop saw method....but with this dillon RT1500 trim die it makes perfect brass. Then I anneal after firing 1x before sizing again


I dont use a gauge...your gun is your best gauge....fired brass in your chamber is the beat gauge for tight tolerances....my converted brass dies are setup to bump shoulder .003 from my fired case headspace. I have a Sheridan gauge..its really nice but your Wilson will work fine too

Forgive me if I’ve missed something, but what is the difference annealing makes as it applies to trimming? This is particularly important to me as I likely won’t be doing any rough cutting with the high end tools at the beginning.

Edit -autocorrect

 

[padom]

I don't know what your asking. Annealing has nothing to do with trimming

 

[j-dubya]

I don't know what your asking. Annealing has nothing to do with trimming

When I was confirming you didn’t do any annealing during the initial processing, you replied with:

Nope. I used to when I did the chop saw method....but with this dillon RT1500 trim die it makes perfect brass. Then I anneal after firing 1x before sizing again

 

[padom]

When I was confirming you didn’t do any annealing during the initial processing, you replied with:

Yea I used to anneal the top portion of the chopped off case (part of case going to be formed into the neck and shoulder) when I used the brutally slow chop saw method....

Ever since going to the RT1500 trim die conversion method I dont anneal as I stated above...

 

[j-dubya]

Yea I used to anneal the top portion of the chopped off case (part of case going to be formed into the neck and shoulder) when I used the brutally slow chop saw method....

Ever since going to the RT1500 trim die conversion method I dont anneal as I stated above...

No, I got that. I was just curious if there was a performance variable or something. Whenever your sharing reloading knowledge and variables, I’m listening... just the way I read it I guess.

 

[padom]

No, I got that. I was just curious if there was a performance variable or something. Whenever your sharing reloading knowledge and variables, I’m listening... just the way I read it I guess.

Nope, the RT1500 with the carbide trim die works so well I have no need to anneal to get perfectly made 300blk cases. Thats it. No other reason.

 

[j-dubya]

Nope, the RT1500 with the carbide trim die works so well I have no need to anneal to get perfectly made 300blk cases. Thats it. No other reason.

Okay, I must admit I’m not well versed in the Dillon stuff... I did not realize that the trim die is also doing the sizing during the trim operation. Just finished reading on that. Before I was thinking the trim die was simply aligning the brass for a good, square cut...

That said, would you still recommend annealing if I’m going to be doing the initial trim with either the chop saw or table saw methods? Going into a Mighty Armory die after trim.

 

[padom]

Okay, I must admit I’m not well versed in the Dillon stuff... I did not realize that the trim die is also doing the sizing during the trim operation. Just finished reading on that. Before I was thinking the trim die was simply aligning the brass for a good, square cut...

That said, would you still recommend annealing if I’m going to be doing the initial trim with either the chop saw or table saw methods? Going into a Mighty Armory die after trim.

Yea sure why not if you are chopping off the 223 neck... annealing always makes the forming easier. It's just a non issue on the Dillon...

When using the Dillon RT1500 trimmer with a trim die....that trim die is a FL sizing die...you set it up for your shoulder bump just like your MA FL sizing die....then lock it down...then you install the RT1500 trimmer on top and adjust for trim length.... after that's done...dump all your lubed brass in the case feeder and just pull the handle.

The only thing I don't like about the trim die is it gives a bit too much neck tension so I have a 21st Century TiN 308 mandrel in the last station to set final neck tension...