brass life and componenet changing for accuracy

[LDBennett]

copied from ealier post:

Brass life and component changes impact on accuracy

The most recent Handloader magazine (Dec 2008) has an article on reloading 308 for accuracy. The guy tested every possible combination of components. The article is huge and hard to get through but he did a brass endurance test on 10 different brands and/or types of brass. Here's some of the results:

Manufacturer/ reloads to failure (head seperation)
Noseler/11
Federal military/11
Hornady/12
Federal plain/13
Federal plated/13
Winchester/14
Lapua/15
Remingtom plain/20
Remington plated/22
Norma/24

The best deal going, according to this testing, is Remington brass! Norma, which some claim last much longer than anyone elses brass, is good, but Remington is nearly as good at a huge discount in the price.

There is all kinds of component testing done and you have to read the article to appreciate it. For instances, the custom bullets by Berger showed the best accuracy but the Sierra Matchkings were very close behind as were the Hornady Interbonds and A-Max. Considereing the cost differentials the Sierras seem to be the way to go, according to this testing.

His conclusions were:

Powder changes can impact the group size by 150%
Changing primers can impact the groups size by 60%
Changing brass can impact the groups size by 50%
Changing brands and types of bullets can impact the group size by 400%
Solid bullets are super sensitive to seating depth and those changes can impact group size by 300%

LDBennett

[JLA]

spot on LD, I use remington when i can find it for what im shooting. They sure seem to handle pressure and stretching better. Perhaps the ultimate test is reloading for an Enfield. They eat up brass faster than anything out there due to excessive stretching in the web area, and i can generally get 8 to 10 reloads from the remington stuff whereas i get 5 or 6 from winchester and 4 from federal.

Good post!

[USMC-03]

Thanks for the heads up on the article, LD. I'm going to try to find this issue this weekend and read it.

I am a bit surprised by the results of the brass failure test. I've been using Remington brass for a long time, though by no means no exclusively, and have found it to have very good accuracy potential. I didn't think that case life was that good however; never really tested it like this.

The conclusions on changing components do fall right in line with my experience; bullets make the biggest difference, followed by powder and then either primers or case.

[Shellback]

Great post Ld good info. Thanks
Tim