Bringing this thread back to report on my own limited, but I think, significant experience with Norma brass. So far I have not loaded any or tested any loads.
I bought 100 pieces of Norma 300 Win Mag brass and compared it carefully to 100 pieces of new Remington brass:
1. The Norma brass is beautiful stuff--looks like the Crown Jewels of Europe!
2. As already reported, flash holes are perfectly centered (not that the Remington brass is not), and they are clearly drilled--not punched.
3. A look inside shows no flash hole burrs, but rather a perfectly chamfered cone on the base.
4. Back outside, the primer pockets appear to be uniform in depth and are definitely square on the bottom. So I worked forever on the Remington cases, deburring and uniforming. On the Norma cases--nothing left to do.
5. I do not have the tools or skills to measure concentricity or case neck uniformity.
6. I carefully weighed all 100 pieces of each brand. As expected, the Norma cases were somewhat closer in weight uniformity than were the Remington cases--but not hugely so. Statistics makes my eyes bulge out so I did not try to find standard deviation. Four Remington cases were more than 3 percent off the Average and I rejected those. All 100 Norma cases were within plus or minus 1 grain of the average.
7. Here was the surprise--for me at least: the average weight of the Norma cases was 216.9 grains. The Remington average was 238 grains--a difference of 21 grains. The Rem cases were literally 10 percent heavier than the Norma!
8. The case length of a random sample of 10 Rem cases was anywhere from 2.610 to 2.616. The Norma cases were all right on the Trim length if 2.610.
