Hornady 204 Brass

[gity]

Are there any problems reloading .204 Hornady Brass?? Thanks Gity

[huntsman22]

Some batches have tight primer pockets. But it has been real consistant for me. Prefer it over the WW......

[gity]

Thanks for the reply Huntsman!!

[Silverfox]

Just like huntsman22, I have about 7 boxes of Hornady factory ammo brass that has primer pockets that are so tight I cannot get my primer pocket uniformer in them. I can seat primers alright and have to use something other than my uniformer to clean out the primer pockets. The brass still works great other than that. The other 10 boxes of 32 gr. V-Max ammo I bought is from another lot and those primer pockets are just fine.

I use the Hornady brass for my extremely HOT LOADS I use for the 35 gr. FB HP Berger coyote load I worked up. I am on the fourth reloading of some of that brass with the hot loads and the primer pockets are still tight.

I also used that brass for my 32 gr. V-Max reloads, which were fairly hot too. Some of that brass has been fired as many as 8 times and primer pockets are still tight. I think out of the original 280 Hornady factory loads I bought, only one neck has cracked. All the other brass that I didn't lose down a prairie dog hole or out in the snow during a coyote calling session is still going strong.

I currently use WW brass for my 39 gr. Sierra and 40 gr. Nosler BT prairie dog loads.

[Wrangler John]

I purchased 100 Hornady cases for barrel break-in as it was all that was available. Normally Hornady cases are excellent and I use them frequently (.223, 6.5x284). However the batch I purchased had numerous defects which included, burrs around the flash hole that partially blocked the hole, 10% had shoulder dents or wrinkles from the forming process, one case was unusable due to a shoulder defect and split neck. I notified Hornady and they asked return of the defective cases for replacement. This is probably an isolated incident involving production after tooling setup, or toward end of run where dies were dirty.

Last week I received a single lot of 500 Winchester cases. A preliminary inspection has been quite revealing. None of the cases have any shoulder or neck defects. Flash holes are round and very clean, needing little uniforming. Case length measured within +/- .001" over a twenty case sample. Most surprisingly, case weight varied by less than a grain between the samples and most were inside of .5 grain. This week I'll process a larger sample and measure neck thickness. This fairly well matches an article I read recently about .308 brass where Winchester proved to be longer lived (24 firings before failure) than the premium brands such as Lapua, Norma, Federal, Hornady and Nosler. Its consistency was also as good or nearly as good as the premium brands. It costs about half as much as the others. In that Test Remington also performed well at half the cost. Cheap and good, wow!

[jo191145]

Wrangler

I think Win brass is making a turn around lately. When I first started loading for the 204 and 223 it was horrible. I did not try it for some years after some bad lots. Neck variations of .004 in three different lots with all sorts of dents and splits in the bags.
When a Cabelas opened near me lately I went on a shopping spree. Took home some Win brass in both 204 and 223. VERY uniform necks. They mic out slightly better than my Lapua 6BR brass.

Headspace is set way back according to saami specs though. Can't have it all I quess.

[Wrangler John]

jo191145:

Glad to hear your experience, it may indicate that Winchester has improved. A few years ago I expected to find defective cases in both Winchester and Remington brass, it was just the way things were. My last batches of Winchester .22-250 and .257 Roberts were just as good as the .204 Ruger, so now my expectations have been raised. Maybe the influx of military orders resulted in reinvestment in new tooling.

I built my rifle on a Savage PTA action so if the headspace becomes a problem, I'll readjust the barrel to match the final sized brass. On many wildcats I'd neck 'em up one or two calibers, then back down shorter leaving a double shoulder that the bolt would just close on. Too much hassle though, I'll probably just shoot them and neck size until they need partial full length sizing.