I've got a general question about reloading and brass quality. After our club finale next month, I'll have 350+ pieces of Hornady Match .260 brass, and I have around 180 pieces of Prime Brass. I know Lapua and Alpha are better, but to start learning, which is better to go with? I'll likely stick to one or the other and sell the rest. Once I have a solid process I'll get better brass. TIA.
-
Having trouble using the site?
Contact support
New to Reloading: Brass Quality Question
- Thread starter Tunnuh
- Start date
Based on my experience get some brass that you’re willing to sacrifice and separate it into lots of 50. Load a single lot several times until you’re comfortsble producing consistent shoulder and neck sizing and determine if and how you’re going to approach annealing. Once you’re comfortable with your loading practice, upgrade to Lapua brass. It sucks messing up a batch of expensive brass learning ones brass game. Ultimately, consistency of ones practice is far more important than a headstamp name.
I agree with you. This is why I was thinking I'd learn on what I have first. Just didn't know which of the two brands are more forgiving and higher quality.
I think that's the key...weighing the brass for variation. The prime is 1 lot, and Hornady is 3. I usually buy 100 to 200 rounds at a time, so not a ton of variance.
I think you just answered your question then, I would be willing to bet you will have far less variation with the Prime than the Hornady considering the Hornady spans three separate lots. But I would still weigh them to verify.
That's one of the benefits of buying high end brass is less variation but most including myself end up weighing and sorting it all anyways either that or I'm just strange.
I’ve had good luck with several people and several calibers with starting with Hornady. It tends to be pretty consistent new and shows issues after 3-4 firings. If you can get 6-8 firings from a lot you’re ready to step up to “better”.
That would be ideal...now to look for the sales on some forster dies this week!
Think there would be an appreciable difference in performance if all other components are the same?
Performance? Idk, you can tune anything to be pretty good accuracy wise. I would expect the longevity of the prime would get you twice as many firings though. But you have half as much so conservatively you’ll still be doing load development again at the end of either in the same number of totals loadings or there abouts.
It can be hard to say on brass. Some is made by subcontractors who stamp a major maker's name on it for the maker. Some is great, some not so much. Prime is supposed to be a major european maker. I have used Hornady in the 6.5 before. It was good brass. The Win and Federal I used all had neck thickness variations that I had to turn out to make consistent. The Hornady was less so in the necks, but some did require it. I have switched to Lapua brass with the small primer pockets. It's been great and I get a lot of loadings before I disgard it for the primer pocket wears out. I have a friend that uses Starline small pocket brass and loves it. I decap, clean, anneal, measure and trim (if needed) every time I load. Lapua lasts longer in my case, which makes it more economical. I do have a bunch of Norma I bought for a 338 Lapua and we'll see how it performs against my 338 Lapua made brass.
@801_Tactical 801I appreciate the input. That's basically what I wanted to know. How do they perform "in general". I know it's anecdotal, but consensus works in this case.
Personally I have been using Hornady brass. My reason is cost. I shoot PRS and in a lot of the matches I shoot I rarely recover all my brass. A lot of times if I do it is caked in mud. If I lose 15-20 pieces of Hornady brass that I got for $0.20 a piece I’m not too upset. If it were Lapua however it starts to get pretty expensive. I may be able to develope a more accurate load with Lapua Brass but honestly in a PRS match I don’t see it making a significant difference for me. Getting a stable position and practice arewhat matters with positional shooting. Being lable to print a group that is .25 MOA smaller doesn’t make that big of a difference at my level. Now if I was shooting f class where the .25moa makes a huge difference and I knew I would recover all my brass it would be a different story. I would probably just keep all your brass. Load the Hornady with a 140 grain bullet and load of choice and use the prime to try out some lighter bullets and see what your rifle likes better. I have about 100 pieces of Peterson brass also. I have been using those to load reduced loads with 123 grain bullets for my son. No reason you couldn’t do the same to experiment a little and see what your rifle likes.
You make a damn good point on cost vs need for competition. I shoot local PRS style matches here, so your rationale is good to go. I'll keep both and try a 130 vs. 140. Thanks!
No problem. Shooting can be expensive and I need to save where I can so I can afford to compete. If you are interested I have a source that sells once fired Hornady 6.5 creedmoor brass for $25 per 100. I bought about 1000 pieces of brass from them and have been happy with everything I have got so far and you can’t beat the price.
Don't waste you time weighing all that brass just dial in your process first... Hornady is all over the place with case capacity (in my findings)
I would check out Peterson when you want to get some high quality brass
I would check out Peterson when you want to get some high quality brass
Similar threads
