What do you see with virgin vs. once fired.

[MagnumManiac]

I doubt very much that a comp shooter opens a new bag/box of brass, does nothing to that brass, and loads them up and goes shooting for record. I don't even do that for my hunting rifles. All brass gets neck sized, to my specs, then run through the mandrel. I chamfer case mouths, but I do not trim new brass, it all grows at different rates, so I fire it once and then check. If I deem it necessary, which is rare, I will skim cut new brass for a .001" cut just to see where it's at, but not on a production rifle, rarely any point doing so.
My new brass that will be formed into an improved chamber all gets annealed first before any steps in sizing are done.
I have learnt this is the most efficient way.

Cheers.

 

[Longtine88]

New Brass or Fired Brass????????? Any guess on this 5 shot group? 7saum if your wondering.

 

[kopcicle]

I have this one particular battle rattle that is wank off and guess with factory anything.
With once fired and shoulder bumped with a generous ( bit tattered and worn) die it's a MOA or better.
Which doesn't matter much because I'm not MOA or better.

My .270's don't get fed anything but what they've already eaten once so there I have no idea. I mean I do have to fire once for factory or new brass but money shots are all chamber specific reloads.

 

[RegionRat]

It's possible that it's not happening. That few if anyone are 'winning' with new brass.

https://precisionrifleblog.com/2023...ess-austin-buschman-shooter-spotlight-part-3/



I loved Phil's reaction to Austin's description of his load process and his brass philosophy.

 

[squawberryman]

This is like the book of Job.

 

[NW Hunter]

I am not a competition shooter, but there is another thing to consider developing a load with new brass.
If you are developing on a new barrel, you are going to see the barrel speed up at some point. Mine happened at 120 rounds on new brass. Now I have 2 different velocities on my developed powder charge.
I will be doing another OCW with 1x fired brass.
I still do not see doing load development on new brass as a waste. I'm fire forming brass and getting load development practice.

 

[Jud96]

I wanted to add, if this is a hunting rifle and you only plan to have ~100 pieces of brass for it, then I'd develop the load after it's once fired, as I previously said. However, if this is a competition rifle, colony Varmint rifle, or just something you have 300+ pieces of brass for, then I'd develop a load for the virgin brass then retune the load with fired brass. I just don't see the point in developing a load for virgin brass when you have 100 pieces or less. By the time you get done with load development you'll only have 50 or less pieces of virgin brass then you have to start all over again when it's all been fired. New brass can shoot very well and I by no means am saying you can't have a great load with virgin brass. I just prefer to do things the most efficient way I find with less headaches along the way.

 

[Beluebow]

It's possible that it's not happening. That few if anyone are 'winning' with new brass.
All I see is occasional bragging about how well new brass can shoot.

I wish I had known this before hand.....I just shipped 400 loaded rounds of new brass to England for the UK Long Range Nationals.

 

[Stokesrjsr]

We test all of our bullet runs using virgin brass and seldom see anything greater than 1/2 MOA at 300 meters and rarely any standard deviations in velocity over 8-9 fps on five groups of five shots each. On the rare occasions that we reload once fired brass, I typically see no statistically significant difference in velocity or velocity standard deviations. I do occasionally see differences in precision with harder to tune bullets like the VLDs. I believe this is due to the fact that by reloading we are effectively changing the bolt face to ogive distance because the cartridge loaded in virgin brass can be driven further forward before the shoulder of the chamber stops the forward motion of the case and ignition is achieved. When resizing the once fired brass we don't return the shoulder to SAAMI dimensions, instead only moving it back .003" from the fired dimension. Some times we will see groups around 1/2 MOA drop to 1/4 MOA and other times get worse.
I still think the better policy is to do serious load development with once fired, and annealed brass to be able to accurately make the belts decisions in your load development.

 

[john k]

New Brass or Fired Brass????????? Any guess on this 5 shot group? 7saum if your wondering.




View attachment 477691

OK, I give up! I want my 7saum to shoot like yours!

 

[Rosebud]

New Brass or Fired Brass????????? Any guess on this 5 shot group? 7saum if your wondering.




View attachment 477691

New brass

 

[Unionsparky46]

I am another one that fire forms, neck sizes for three go arounds, anneals and FL. I had some case issues not chambering correctly so I watched a very informative tutorial by Eric Cortina. That guy is my hero. Shows how to measure your neck, shoulders and case. Then, explained how to set up the FL die.

Just do yourself a favor and buy good dies. My Redding Comps have yet to fail me. I've never developed a load with virgin brass. I have personally seen fps swings and difficulty developing a load without fire forming. I would imagine that a rifle might shoot better seasoned than still "breaking in". I use that term loosely because some rifle just shoot better after 100 or so rounds.

Last rifle I helped out on my buddy dang near gave up on. We still have to go to the range to prove my theory. Sure like reading this stuff and various ideas y'all have. Makes each way better! Thank you all!

 

[Rosebud]

Come on Longtine tell me that is new brass, or once fired.

 

[john k]

We test all of our bullet runs using virgin brass and seldom see anything greater than 1/2 MOA at 300 meters and rarely any standard deviations in velocity over 8-9 fps on five groups of five shots each. On the rare occasions that we reload once fired brass, I typically see no statistically significant difference in velocity or velocity standard deviations. I do occasionally see differences in precision with harder to tune bullets like the VLDs. I believe this is due to the fact that by reloading we are effectively changing the bolt face to ogive distance because the cartridge loaded in virgin brass can be driven further forward before the shoulder of the chamber stops the forward motion of the case and ignition is achieved. When resizing the once fired brass we don't return the shoulder to SAAMI dimensions, instead only moving it back .003" from the fired dimension. Some times we will see groups around 1/2 MOA drop to 1/4 MOA and other times get worse.
I still think the better policy is to do serious load development with once fired, and annealed brass to be able to accurately make the belts decisions in your load development.

Definitely agree, especially with that last paragraph. I load specifically to hunt and practice shooting. No competitive or match shooting so I try not to drive myself crazy with too many processes, but who doesn't love accuracy and speed together with a lot of consistency on top! There is little difference in my loading virgin Lapua or Petersen brass vs 1x 2x 3x fired but I definitely load my hunting rounds with once or twice fired brass. Waiting on Longtine!