brass for 300 winmag

[Jimm]

about to buy new brass for my 3oo.in the past i have used both rem and win brass,however i'm wanting to improve my handloading/group size.this is a factory rem rifle,so if cost is no object what brass? another thing is will i be likely to see an improvement in this gun by purchasing better brass and improving my case prep i.e. weighing,flash hole cleaning,necking turning etc. many thanks for your input,jimm

 

[Jim Hundley]

Jimm,
I to shoot the .300 WM in a custom MD.70.I can't guarantee this will help but this is my routine:
1.I use either Norma or Lapua brass (currently Lapua)
2.Check brass for defects
3.weigh brass to +/- one half grain
4.Mic necks to get an average thickness
5.turn necks to within.0002" usually about 70-80%-to make neck wall thickness pretty even leaving it as thick as possible while uniforming.
6.After expansion trim to even length
7.deburr and chamfor necks
8.deburr and uniform flash hole
9.Uniform primer pocket
10.Hope that all of this prep is not a waste of time!!!
I essentially prepair the brass to benchrest standards,because it makes me feel that I have the best possible ammo in the rifle chamber.Then if I shoot a bad group,I can't blame the ammo.
Almost forgot,I check the seated bullet for run-out,not to exceed .0015"to .002",hopefully less.
After posting this,let me say that my smallest 3 shot group was from a Hornady H.M.180gr.factory load:.061".This is what I do in the way of brass prep.I enjoy it.Hope this helps.
Jimmy /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[3sixbits]

It's winter time. I can always tell when we have to much indoor time and not enough time at the range. Neck turning won't gain you anything in a factory chamber! Unless the reamer was at the limit of it's life and cut to the vary small side of SAMMI specs.. What is the purpose of neck turning in the first place? We are turning necks to achive a clearnce fit. How much clearnce do we want? One thing that you need to know is what is the dia. of the chamber's neck. If you take off materal around the necks of your case that you will fire in the SAMMI spec chamber, it is going to make the necks a sloopy fit. Unless you are prepaired to spend a bunch of dollars in tools for this job don't waste your dollars. I might add that goes hand in hand with a pile of dollars in rifle work. A tight neck chamber means good by to ever shooting another factor load in that barrel. If You think nobody looses ammo going on a hunting trip and doesn't have to get ammo along the way, well just tain't so. The guys that want to tell you about the one,two or three small groups they shot doing this or that are only fooling themselves. You want to know what they will do in the aggargate (five shots on each of five targarets) On what kind of day did small group happen. what where the conditions? If you are new to all of this then a trip to a long range match or to a benchrest match would be worth more than I could write in the next year. There is all kinds of accuracy persuits out their. Longe range hunting, the best advice is to buy a case of your favorite powder (four eight pound kegs) a case of bullets (2000) a case of primers (5000). Get what ever brass you like and can afford and burn up that barrel with practice. One tool that can help you, is a tool to help you find that good brass. That tool is a case concetricty gauge such as the one NECO sells. This will help you find cases that have bad necks (which means that part of the case is thicker all the way on one side)way out of range compaired to others. If you can find a place to shoot all of these long ranges we see in print and burn up that barrel doing it, you will be well ahead of the rest of us guys that spend our time writting about shooting! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif P.S. I've found good and bad lots of brass in all the above name brands. The name don't make for good!

 

[Jimm]

domo,domo arigato!, jimm

 

[shilen30]

Hey now, with some of the cheaper brass you can get lots with brass that is slightly thicker on one side than another, and neck turning will make it so at least your neck is concentric. Of course, when you shoot and size again, you start all over with lopsided necks (at least at the base of the neck).

 

[3sixbits]

Yes sir, The neck being thicker in one spot is really telling you that the rest of the case has a thicker area the full run of its length. Try this when you find a case thats out in the neck, cut the case length wise and use a ball mic to measure the case walls. In some of my barrels I shoot fitted necks, with the bullet seated I want a clearence of .001 for a total. thats .0005 on the sides. The reason I want this type of fit in these barrels is the chambers have under size necks and this fit gets them as close as possible to the center of the bore. Before I cut these neck I spin the cases and only select necks with vary small amout of TIR. These barrels are not hunting barrels but match barrels. You are correct, you can not shoot the lopsideness out of the brass. By the way when cases that are really well fit in a well chambered barrel cut with a vary well made reamer, you can load the heck out of them and they really last a long time. of course for the most part at this stage of the game you are sizeing in a die made by a resize reamer made by the same people that made your chamber reamer. They have figured the spring back of the case after firing and know how much you need to pull the case walls back to get a close fit after resizing. This die will of course contain a provision for using neck sizing bushing, these will alow you to adjust the neck tension for what ever bullet dia. you will be using. Now this changes (the Dia of the bullet) with each lot of bullets. this measurement is made at the heel at the pressure ring. When you buy custom (non machine made)bullets the maker will mark on the box the pressure ring number for that die with that lot of jacketts and cores. The problem you get from mass produced bullets is that the machines have a number of different dies produceing the same bullet all going into a common area and are picked up and marked as a lot. (see the problem) not all dies are created equal. This is why when you see differences in ojives we scratch our heads and wonder. That run or lot is not all comeing out of just one point die. A talk on the phone with a custom bullet maker can be a dime well spent. Or better yet invest the 1000's to make your own and find the true meaning of being taken for a ride by the jackett makers. Good books are available on bullet making and these are a great help in understanding just how much is involved in tring to put all five in the same hole. Do we really need all of this in longrange hunting? I leave that answer in your hands! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[shilen30]

Good wisdom in your post I doubt a lot of people have stopped to think about.

 

[BountyHunter]

If money is no object and you want the best brass get RWS. Very uniform, absolute top quality. 50 pieces will outlast the barrel. Dave Tooley at Tooley custom rifles (BR central) also stocks RWS.

"Randy in VA" on this site and BR central is shipping it in to the US and selling it. Cost is around a $1 a piece.

No need to turn the RWS.

Suggest you send your FL die to Jim Carstenson at JLC precision ([email protected])and have him convert it to bushings for $48. I like the converted Forester BR dies with micro seater.

By using bushing die you can limit work hardening the neck by overworking the brass.

BH

 

[Jimm]

i think we must start calling you 3dollar. thanks for the thinking material.btw around here we dont have to wait for it to stop raining or snowing to shoot . i've scattered 12"x12" channel iron targets all over a 4& a half mile long area and we drive around and shoot from our vehicle with home made window mounts.course very windy days you have to wait for a lull as even my 8000 lb. crew cab rocks too much for shots over 300 or so. is rws brass used by many benchrest folks? see ya , jimm

 

[3sixbits]

Only by shooters that are lucky enough to find it. Most everybody shoots LAP-OOH-WA. I know that RWS has in the past produced vary fine brass. Some other makes of brass out of the EU we are not as familar with here in the states makes us want to slap the U.S. manufactors. I'am afaird that there is no benchrest comp in ALASKA. This State does not even support a 1000yds range open to the public. I think the longest KD range is in the hands of the Goverment and it maybe only a six hundred yard range (don't know)So for now when you want to shoot longe range on KD courses it means a trip outside of the state. I sure envy your drive around range JIMM, I know it has to be loads of fun! Like everything in life there is a trade off. I don't have any good ranges to shoot on here. I traded all that for a herd of caribou numbering in the 100's of 1000's. After a number of years shooting competively I wanted to trade that for the love of making it all of it work for me. Their is an old saying amongst benchrest rest shooters that states it preety well I think. "100 yards tests the equipment and two hundred yards tests the shooter" Thats why I am a believer in in lots of shooting at all kinds of ranges. I don't believe I have ever ment a hunting guide that would'nt prefer a hunter showing up with a rifle that the hunter has shot all his life, than the brand new mangle-um mag that he has only put a box thru to site it in. The finest game shot I ever saw in my life shoots his old model 70 30-06(less than 2" of rifling left in the bore)like I shoot a .22 rifle at tin cans. When he got that old pre-war rifle just after WW2 he bought 10,000 rds of ball ammo through the DCM and "went to work shooting it all up for the brass". Now for the life of me, I have never seen a finer live game shot in my life. This past year his son told me of a shot he made on a runing Muley at well over 400 yards and broke him down with one shot. ( he just had his eighty-th birthday not long ago). This is why I preach more powder burning over more gear. How accurate do you think that last two inches of rifleing makes that 1939 model 70? It truly is a marvel to look down his bore with my Hawkeye bore scope, and know how well he shoots it! I've offered to rebarrel it at no cost to him and got turned down rather promtly! So I believe that puting your money in componets and shooting is better than spending it on more gear. As always, just my two cents! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif