Hornady 28 Nosler Brass - First Impressions

[Colin78]

Thanks, and here to hoping you have good weather and time to shoot more tomorrow.

 

[257Tony]

Tony,
I'm not trying to be smart here at all. I think I looked at that load and didn't think of it as a "barrel Burner". What constitutes a load that you feel would burn a barrel up more quickly and what would you consider a load that would generate only minimal to medium wear on a barrel? Again, I'm only asking because I'm not sure that I know. I always thought a Blazing fast bullet would be a barrel burner but some have indicated a heavy for caliber bullet going only 3000 Fps could also be a barrel burner.

Not talking about this ammo specifically, but the 28N in general. Lots of powder burned in a small diameter barrel contributes to shorter barrel life.

I'm also not a fan of buying loaded ammo and having to pull all the bullets, dispose of the powder, and re-prime them with my preferred primer. I'll pay a few dollars extra to have unloaded brass.

 

[Roughwater]

Not talking about this ammo specifically, but the 28N in general. Lots of powder burned in a small diameter barrel contributes to shorter barrel life.

I'm also not a fan of buying loaded ammo and having to pull all the bullets, dispose of the powder, and re-prime them with my preferred primer. I'll pay a few dollars extra to have unloaded brass.

I see, that makes a lot of sense looking at it that way. That has to cause a lot of heat. Especially with the higher volume slower burning powders that burn for a slightly longer duration.

 

[Dean2]

Sounds good, I wasn't sure what you meant by "pin". Then I realized you were talking about the depriming pin. So resize, do the test then deprime. Smart. Hope I didn't upset you on the Norma, Nosler thing. I have reloaded for years and used both Norma and Nosler and saw similarities but never heard nor relaized they may be made by the same company.

I never get upset about these kind of discussions, I look at it as a chance to pass on information that many will find useful. The internet is good in so many ways but it has also spawned a lot of internet legends that start to be believed because they get repeated so often. It is why I try to set the facts straight so that we can nip some of this in the bud.

There are many people that believe that because Norma brass is so darn expensive it just has to be better when in reality I still find Lapua and Peterson (well worth checking out, they are making some excellent brass) to be far superior, and not all that expensive. For the huge price difference I would shoot Selleir and Bellot, Privi, Winchester or Rem before Norma/Nosler. I find Norma/Nosler, and Federal to be overly soft with poor case life, especially if the loads are even a little on the hot side. I can afford to prep and weight sort a lot of brass before I come close to spending what they want for Norma brass.

 

[Roughwater]

I never get upset about these kind of discussions, I look at it as a chance to pass on information that many will find useful. The internet is good in so many ways but it has also spawned a lot of internet legends that start to be believed because they get repeated so often. It is why I try to set the facts straight so that we can nip some of this in the bud.

There are many people that believe that because Norma brass is so darn expensive it just has to be better when in reality I still find Lapua and Peterson (well worth checking out, they are making some excellent brass) to be far superior, and not all that expensive. For the huge price difference I would shoot Selleir and Bellot, Privi, Winchester or Rem before Norma/Nosler. I find Norma/Nosler, and Federal to be overly soft with poor case life, especially if the loads are even a little on the hot side. I can afford to prep and weight sort a lot of brass before I come close to spending what they want for Norma brass.

I totally agree about Norma and Nosler having softer brass. I can't speak for Federal as I haven't bought any Federal in a while but I imagine you are correct. Apparently a lot of folks had problems with Hornady brass in the past but so far my brief expeirence with it lately is positive especially compared to Nosler brass. In the 28N my Nosler brass sees ejector marks at lower velocities than expected and primer pockets are not holding up well. I may get out to shoot some today if it warms up a bit and do a quick check to see how the Hornady brass is holding up with being fired and maybe do some H2O tests with it since someone asked. I'd like to see Peterson start making brass for the 28N as well as anyone else that would make it for less money than what's on the market now.

 

[Roughwater]

Thanks, and here to hoping you have good weather and time to shoot more tomorrow.

Thanks Colin,

It didn't quite go as planned as I was spent more time at my local range than planned so didn't make it to the 500 yard range some 50 minutes away. But I did shoot 6 rounds of the Hornady so I took the time to do a H20 test of the 6 rounds. This actually took longer than I thought to really get it right as my scale seemed to be acting up a little. So I actually did it twice but I won't go into all of that. I did number each round so I wouldn't get confused and would be sure if I had to retest I was checking the correct one.
Here are my results:

Dry Wet Differance
1. 2.640 265.3 101.3
2. 263.4 364.3 100
3. 263.8 364.5 100.7
4.261.7 363.9 102.1
5.263.5 364.5 101
6.262.4 363.5 101.1

In doing this I don't know what is good and what is not. Number 4 looked a little out there but the rest seemed pretty close.
I was mostly using the Hornady 28N Cases I reloaded to get my scope set up shooting close to the bull at 200 yards along with a couple 28N Nosler cases . I had orignally set the gun

up to shoot a couple inches high at 100 but at the time was looking more at grouping that trying to get it on the bulls eye. I was suprised to see it hit 4 inches high at 200 with the first shot. But when I got near the bull at 200 I spent 3 rounds checking for accuracy and somehow managed to put 3 rounds In less than 3/4 inches at 200.

The last round I shot was a hornady and is touching the top of the bull. The previous shot a little high and left was from a nosler case and was a little off and me adjusting the scope. The holes just above and right of the 6 was 3 rounds of Hornady brass. The other shots was me adjusting the scope prior to the 3 shot group. I had to go to sight in a scope I put on my 300 WM at 100 yards after that. I'll probably work on getting the WM set up tomorrow at 200 yards while checking velocities of the new load for it as it will be my back up rifle for Elk hunting.

 

[Roughwater]

A local friend of mine who was and still is looking for some Norma brass in 7 MM Remington Magnum that can't seem to be found right now. I tried to encourage him to check out the Hornady brass as there is some for sale and pretty cheap. He was concerned about weight differance between pieces and said from his research Norma brass was generally within 3 grains of each other. So I did my own little bit of research on a box of 20 new brass I just got from Hornady. Here are my results:

I numbered each piece of the 20 box of brass and weighed each of the 20 added them all up and divided by 20 to get an average weight. The average weight came out to 257.8 gn. Then I figured the differance from the average weight and listed it below. Not sure that's the best way but never having done this before I wasn't sure how exactly to do it but this seemed to me to be a reasonable way.

1. 
   
2. Here are the weights per: Differance from averate of 257.8 in grains:
3. 1. 256.1 1. 1.7
4. 2 .256.4 2. 1.4
5. 3. 257.1 3. .7
6. 4. 257.5 4. .3
7. 5. 269.8 5. 2
8. 6. 259.1 6. 1.3
9. 7. 258.2 7. .4
10. 8. 257.4 8. .4
11. 9. 257.7 9. .1
12. 10. 258.4 10. .6
13. 11. 257.3 11. .5
14. 12. 257.8 12. 0
15. 13. 255.2 13. 2.6
16. 14. 257.9 14. .1
17. 15. 260 15. 2.2
18. 16. 258.8 16. 1
19. 17. 258.4 17. .6
20. 18. 258.5 18. .7
21. 19. 256.8 19. 1
22. 20. 257.1 20. .7

If you wanted to be pretty picky you could throw out 1, 13 and 15 and it would still be a very good deal. Not saying these are as good as Norma's but they don't look all that bad either. Of course this was 28 Nosler and not 7mm Rem Magnum but to me the numbers didn't look all that bad.
Had to edit here. Once I pasted to the thread from my computer it was all compressed together so I made corrections so to be readable.

Tried several ways to edit this so the rows would be seperated but none worked. If you want to view it better go to the link below as it let me edit it so it would be more readable at the site below.

Read more: http://hammerbullets.boards.net/thr...ion-hornady-nosler-brass?page=1#ixzz5fZakJX3q

 

[Deleted member 25294]

I totally agree about Norma and Nosler having softer brass. I can't speak for Federal as I haven't bought any Federal in a while but I imagine you are correct. Apparently a lot of folks had problems with Hornady brass in the past but so far my brief expeirence with it lately is positive especially compared to Nosler brass. In the 28N my Nosler brass sees ejector marks at lower velocities than expected and primer pockets are not holding up well. I may get out to shoot some today if it warms up a bit and do a quick check to see how the Hornady brass is holding up with being fired and maybe do some H2O tests with it since someone asked. I'd like to see Peterson start making brass for the 28N as well as anyone else that would make it for less money than what's on the market now.

I'm looking into 7mm WSM Hornady brass and can't seem to get any feedback.
Could you give us an update on how your primer pockets are holding up with Hornady 28 Nos brass.
I'm hoping you took a few cases and fired them over and over to determine brass life.
Thanks

 

[Roughwater]

I'm looking into 7mm WSM Hornady brass and can't seem to get any feedback.
Could you give us an update on how your primer pockets are holding up with Hornady 28 Nos brass.
I'm hoping you took a few cases and fired them over and over to determine brass life.
Thanks

I haven't done that yet. I have fired a couple cases a couple times and they seemed fine so far. I haven't had the best expereince with Nosler 28 brass holding up well so I don't think it could be worse than Nosler.

 

[josef]

@Roughwater I have heard in the past that nosler also has thicker necks on their 28N brass that can cause pressure spikes which in turn cause the ejector marks you've seen. Maybe that would be something to look at.

 

[Roughwater]

That may be a part of it, they do seem to have thick necks on the 28 Nosler brass. I have since though dropped down in powder grains to where I don't see any marks. I did buy a couple boxes of 26 and size it up and after doing so I noticed the brass was thinner on the necks due in part to upsizing. Maybe I should bump up the volume so to speak on one of the 26 brass and see if I still see marks at slightly higher grain levels?