Is Win brass really this bad?

[Skinny Shooter]

Picked up 2-50count bags of Winchester 308win brass last Sunday at Cabela's.
Uniformed the primer pockets and checked for runout before re-sizing them.
Runout was averaging .005 to .008.
Neither neck or FL sizing made a difference. When spinning them on the Sinclair concentricity gauge, the shoulders and mouths were uneven. Never saw it that bad before.
Purchased 100 Winchester 308win brass from Sinclair 2 years ago and that brass was good. Some of the cases had .003 runout before re-sizing and most were .002 or less.

The latest Win brass had numerous dents in the shoulders and bodies. Some of that also appeared in the first batch I bought but were blown out upon firing.
Thought about trying to fire some of them to see if the uneven shoulders would get blown out to factory spec but am not sure the excessive ruinout would be safe.
I'm wondering if this is just a bad lot.
Will be returning them to Cabela's. Might take my concentricity gauge along and check some of their other inventory.
Lapua brass keeps getting more and more attractive. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Centre Punch]

Skinny,
I bought the same but 300wsm ( Norma worked out at $1.75 each here in the UK so i did'nt have much choice) my aim was to get 50 good cases to go into case prep.
My normal visual inspection culled 58 cases!
Bad dings in the case mouth and what can only be described as gouges, not dents in the shoulder and case body.
I seriously considered dumping the whole lot and forking out for Norma, but i perservered and lowered my inspection criteria to get the desired quantity, picking the best out of the rejected 58.
I must admit that after carefull case prep these cases returned excellent accuracy out of my Winchester Stealth.

Ian.

"I mean't to shoot the pike but the duck got in the way"

 

[dcb]

I use a lot of win. brass for 243 308 and 22/250 and never had brass that bad. I picked up a 100 at cabalas in mich. last fall they were about a 2% cull rate.
I do not weigh or resize new brass only neck size. i will ramdom check for O.L. then I fire form. prep all my brass
Clean, if needed. always clean the inside neck, primer pockets, trim to length and chamfer the inside primer hole only slightly. Turn the necks to about 75% to 80%.
Then i batch weight the cases. resize neck only.load
then I fire for groups 300, 500 and 600yds.
All cases in the main group go togeather regardless of weight any that fall out side the main group are culled.
cases with defects should be discarded. most of the scratches are just superficial and dont think they cause a real problem.

 

[goodgrouper]

Skinny,

I wouldn't get too worried about that brass. It gets beat to H#$% in those ziploc bags in transit and that doesn't help anything!

I would match prep the brass as usual, trim, fire, size and then measure for runout. Anything that doesn't work, cull it out. Win 308 brass is often quite good once it gets a little TLC. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[kraky2]

Win brass for me has been better than rem brass. Although the last rem brass I bought came in 50 bags like the winchester and that was really nice brass. I'm real high on the lyman "m" die for working over new brass. It really irons out the neck problems and leaves the concentricity as good as it came from the factory. Plus if you want you can just ever so slightly bell the case mouth for easy seating of all bullets (not just lead bullets for which the m-die was designed). I'm prepping some brand new hornady brass in 300 wby for a hunt in alaska and expect most of my loaded runnout to be below .002 with virgin brass---plenty good for a wetherby rifle with freebore. The hornady brass i've been working with is flat out wonderful. I also noticed at the nosler pro shop they are starting to market "blem" nosler brand match grade brass at real good prices in .308.

 

[lerch]

I only use win brass, not becaue I just love it that much just, I can just get it real cheap so it makes sense. I have really liked it so far and it shoots great for me. I haven't ever measured neck concentricity or runout, I just inspect, size, trim and shoot. Out of my last batch of once fired though I noticed that about 6 out of 50 were nearly 10 thousands longer than the rest. I am not real sure what that would mean so I just set them aside and will shoot the rest tongiht.

Steve

 

[jb1000br]

Curious what you guys pay for win 308 brass?? cause you can save a lot o fhassle with lapua for 32-33$/100

YMMV,
JB

 

[Mysticplayer]

Any brass can get beat up during transit. Do your inspection after the cases have been fireformed. I bet you will feel much better about the quality.

Have used Win 308 brass for many years and it has always shot well.

Jerry

 

[Skinny Shooter]

Thanks guys. I agree about cases getting beat up but when I saw the shoulders being uneven that throws off the neck. Went to Cabela's last night with my Sinclair gauge and got a different lot #. One of the guys there shoots LR and suggested the same as you folks, shoot the brass and see how it works afterward. He was surprised how the shoulder moved back and forth when I spun them.
So I'm going to fire-form with 165gr Nosler BT's and ball powder. After seeing .008 runout and that neck or FL sizing didn't help I got worried. Btw, there were about 25 out of 100 that were satisfactory after neck-sizing.
How do you feel about using my VLS 308 for the fire-forming to save wear and tear on my new VSF? Am sure the reamers aren't the same but can there be much difference in factory chambers? Wait, maybe I don't want to know. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

Have also seen uneven case mouths on all my Win brass (222, 223 and 308) and must be a function of the brass forming process. A quick spin on the trimmer fixes that right up.

JB, I paid 8.99 per 50 count bag.

Allen

 

[Skinny Shooter]

[ QUOTE ]
How do you feel about using my VLS 308 for the fire-forming to save wear and tear on my new VSF?

[/ QUOTE ]


Any thoughts on this?
Thanks,
Allen

 

[kraky2]

Would you be willing to do an experiment?? Load up 5 of your best brass and 5 of your worst and shoot 5 shot groups with both and see how different they really are. I realize this isn't enough statistically but, I am very curious to see what the difference will be. Let us know if you do that. Tonight I'm loading up some 300 wby with a known accuracy load with 180 pars and will shoot them with three different case brands, hornady, wby, and rem to see if there is a difference in impact at 300 yds and will chrono results but this is gonna happen later this summer. 92 degrees and 300 wby's make for long barrel cooldowns.

 

[Skinny Shooter]

I don't mind doing that test but I'm fresh out of Wildcat bullets which constitutes the only load I have so far for the 308. It may be a bit till I can do it. I planned to fire-form my 100 cases of new brass with 165gr Nosler BT's first and then work up a load using 175gr SMK bullets.
I'll post the results later. Not knowing which load shoots best with the 175gr SMK may invalidate the test.

 

[bailey1474]

Which wildcats are you shooting?

I may have a couple of hundred 169.5s that I'd part with. That just proved to not be as effective as the wildcat 210s in my 300 rum.

You can email me if interested.

[email protected]

 

[Skinny Shooter]

Thanks Bill, email sent. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif