300 WSM brass

[Tim300wsm]

im going to be starting reloading for my 300 WSM and was hoping to get some input on what brass is going to work best for me. i am looking for an alternitive for winchester brass

[EFBell]

I use remington brass mostly. It lasts for 3 or 4 loadings usually but I really push them hard. Winchester brass has not lasted as long for me. But with anything reloading thats just my experience.

[wbm]

Ditto! Remington brass has been the best for me also. I was not impressed in the least with the Winchester stuff. I neck size and only do a full length resize when the necks get a bit too snug. H4895 and the 168g Hornady A-Max really shoot in my WSM. I don't use a magnum primer with the 4895. Another bullet I had really great results with is the 155g Berger VLD/Hunting.

[EFBell]

I use the Swift Scirroco 180 in my 300 WSM with RL 19 and non magnum primers (CCI-200).

[Tim300wsm]

i was planing on running 190 smk and 168 berger vld

[Tim300wsm]

anyone have experiance with the norma brass

[Elkbane]

sorry - your post came in when I hit the "post" button.....If I was starting all over again with the WSM's, I'd pay up and buy Norma brass - especially if I was going to shoot it alot. Buy once, cry once - they run about $64for 50.

The Winchester brass is really hard and I have to anneal after every 2 firings, but the primer pockets are holding up fine. My problem with them is the necks - a fair amount of neck wall thickness variation - enough that I couldn't even it out with neck turning - had to pitch quite a few cases on the last batch. After full prep with turning, I did get a viable set of fairly uniform cases - enough for my use on hunting guns.

Have not used the Rem's in 300WSM, but I usually find pretty high variation in case weights on other calibers I load for (260 and 7-08) and a moderate amount of neck wall variation.
ELkbane

[358Hammer]

Though I am not using the 300WSM brass in a 300WSM chamber (338WSM) I have not had any problems with any of it.
I have picked up several hundred pieces of 300WSM brass at the range and the vast majority of it is made by Federal. Of my first lot of fifty, I have loaded it (Winchester) 6 times. The primer pockets are still as tight as the first loading and the neck thickness has thickened by .001. Off my second batch of 50 (Federal),
they were much easier to expand to 338 diameter. The first lot using Winchester brass were to tough(hard) for easy expansion so used my expanding die. These Federals expanded nicely with the 338WSM sizing die.

Yesterday I decided to expand some (seconds) nickel Winchester 300WSM brass and it surprised me and also expanded easily with the sizing die and at this point have never split a neck. I have yet to measure the nickel brass for consistency.

FYI

Neal

[Forester]

I have been spending the last few weeks prepping brass for a new 7-300WSM build of mine and I went with Norma Brass, I have done some sorting and am pretty happy with the quality so far.

Out of 150 pieces:

10 had greater than .001" neck thickness variation, most ran about .0015" I culled these and will use for setting up dies, sighters etc.
40 had between .0005" and .0009" neck thickness variation.
100 had less than .0005" neck thickness variation.

I have since necked them down to 7mm, expanded them so that they can be neck turned and neck turned about 80 of them down to .0141-.0143"

When I'm done turning I will anneal, and trim them all to length and weight sort.

With regular annealing, I figure these 150 will last about as long as the barrel, then I guess I will start over.

[Tim300wsm]

midway has the norma brass priced at $109 for 100 i was going to order that and get the rcbs dies and a new manual ;D

[BrentWin]

Be sure and get FL RCBS dies and some Imperial sizing wax. WSM's run high pressure and will need to be FL resized everytime. At least that has been my experience.

[EFBell]

Be sure and get FL RCBS dies and some Imperial sizing wax. WSM's run high pressure and will need to be FL resized everytime. At least that has been my experience.


Mine too, but as mentioned I push them to the max.

[Forester]

midway has the norma brass priced at $109 for 100 i was going to order that and get the rcbs dies and a new manual ;D


Your money of course, but if I was buying in the RCBS-Hornady_Lee class of dies I would absolutely go for the Hornadys. Better finish inside in the several sets I have used, and the option for a micrometer add on to your seater, in my opinion a better die for about the same or less money.

[bigngreen]

I'm rolln a 270WSM but I have ran Rem, Win and Norma and it was very evident the best brass was Rem. I don't sort by weight, but the Rem and Win both needed the necks cleaned up the Norma was super even so I didn't turn the necks.
All three makes were fired at max levels, no easy going. The Rem went 20ish rounds then retired with .002 thinning, the Win failed at 8 with .012 thinning and the Norma went 1 fire forming and then 2 firings and pooched a huge doughnut and had thinned .005 near the base of the case.
I experimented with the Rems and annealed half every five and ran half, found no difference in thinning or neck tention between the two groups. The Rem brass was way forgiving and shot real consistent the Win was OK but the pockets had to be reamed to get the primer down, accuracy was more tempermental. The Norma was a huge disappointment, I really like it but it will in no way handle what the other two will, flash holes were not centered, accuracy was great till it was doughnut time.
In short, ordering 500 Rem cases next time. Just what I've had go down.