once fired or virgin brass

[clemens]

Have 22-250 and I have put about 80 rounds through it. 40rds we're rem 45grhp other 40 was win 55grhp. If I was to buy virgin win brass and weigh each case for consistency, can I mix the once fired win brass with them as long as I weigh them and FL resize? same question for rem brass.
I have a bunch if federal fusion brass for my .308 can one get new virgin bulk brass from federal? I know brass thickness can vary from lot to lot. So trying to decide cost wise if I should just buy couple hundred rounds of brass or buy a particular brand of factory and go from there.?

 

[Lefty7mmstw]

It is best to seperate your brass by make and # of times fired so when you start getting issues you can cull the box and not the whole batch. That said, for some of my standard rounds like my 270 win with blem pills I don't really bother to segregate my brass. For the spendier brass I can't find as range pick-ups I do segregate brass by batch ( 20, 50 or 100) though.

 

[clemens]

Would mixing the rem and win brass together as once fired not much of a issue. Then buy some brass of some kind which ever is better quality? I have federal and win .308 brass?

 

[Lefty7mmstw]

Would mixing the rem and win brass together as once fired not much of a issue. Then buy some brass of some kind which ever is better quality? I have federal and win .308 brass?

Load and shoot both with the same load to see. In my 270 it's no big deal, but some rifles may care. Most of my rifles only really have one or two makes of brass and have their dedicated loads for that brass.

 

[clemens]

Thanks for the info

 

[RT2506]

This is from my 30+ years of handloading. I have found that mixing makes of cases does make a difference in point of impact as well as group size.
If you want the best accuracy you can get, and that is why most people handload, you need to keep everything as close to the same as possible. Same lot numbers of everything etc.

I ran into this problem once. I had a new out of the box Rem. 700 stainless in 7mm Rem mag. Before I shoot a Rem. 700 I always free float the barrel and adjust the trigger to 2 1/2 pounds. I bought 100 new Remington cases and used the same lot numbers of powder primers and bullets. I FL sized my cases and started working up a load. I tried a bunch of loads and could not get that rifle to shoot better than 1 1/2 inch groups at 100 yards. I was shooting the new cases all the time. I decided to try once fired cases with the best load. I shot one round and hit the target. I fired the second round and looking through the spotting scope I still could only see one hole in the target. I thought great now I can't even hit the target. I fired the third shot and still only one hole in the target. I decided to walk down to the target and see what was going on. I found that all three bullets had went into almost the same hole. I went back and proceeded to put the last two rounds I had loaded up into virtually the same hole. I found that you could fill a part sized just bumping the shoulder, previously fired in that rifle fill the case up to where the neck started with AA3100 and cram any bullet from 139 gr Hornady up to 160 gr Sierra and they would go into almost the same hole at 100 yards. One of the most accurate rifles out of the box I have ever had. Moral of the story. You will never know unless you try it.

 

[Beluebow]

Generally speaking fire formed brass in your chamber will be more accurate.If it were my 22-250 id buy a box of Lapua brass and baby it,,,yes it costs more up front but lasts four times as long IMO.YMMV.

 

[clemens]

Guess I will use the once fired rem and win brass for a certain load then find a bulk pack of quality brass that way lot numbers stay the same. I will look up some Lapua brass. Buying box here n there just changes game to much unless you can buy note then one box. At 40.00 per 40rds I think bulk packs be cheaper. Then again could be wrong.