SmallCaliberCentral

The dealer who sold me my 527 Varmint called and said he had some .204 brass to give me, if I wanted it. I stopped by, and he handed me 140 pieces of once-fired Hornady brass, gratis. I've bought a number of rifles and handguns from him over the years, because he's great to deal with, and he's shown it once again!
I know nothing about the quality of this brass, relative to Remington or Winchester. Is it about the same, or better?

I have some Hornady brass that will have made it's 22nd firing this coming weekend. It started as factory ammo and has been reloaded 21 times.

How often do you anneal the necks?

I anneal all new WW, Hornady and RP brass right out of the box or bag. I used to have a problem with WW cases splitting on the first firing but, I haven't had that problem since I started annealing them. After I anneal them the first time, I anneal them again when they need the shoulders set back. Needing to set the shoulders back is a pretty good sign that the brass is work hardened enough to warrant annealing. I'm sure you will find that well cared for brass will last a really long time. Just be sure to keep a close eye on signs of case head separation.

I rate brass by how much effort I have to spend in case preparation. All brass needs preparation of some sort but, Norma and Nosler need very little. Of course they cost more but quality brass usually does. If I'm not buying Norma or Nosler I pick up whichever is the cheapest and most readily available. Usually that's WW here in Houston.

I'm curious how you guys are getting the Hornady primer pockets uniformed? Every time I try it my tool bites in and binds so hard that I usually wreck the brass using a plier to spin it back off...

Wonder if your tool is dull.

It's done a couple thousand brass, but works well on all but the Hornady stuff. It just cuts too big a chip to hold back.

on uniforming hornady brass i have found that a pocket uniformer for lapua brass works great
http://shooters-supply.com/

Try putting a little dab of oil on your cutting tool someone here sujested this to me and it has worked great.

TD-Max--The primer pocket on certain lot numbers of the Hornady brass are too tight for my K&M and other brands of primer pocket uniforming tools. I purchased 15 boxes of factory 32 gr. V-Max Hornady ammo back in June of 2004. The casings in ten of those boxes were from Lot #3040148 and the primer pockets are just fine. Five of those boxes were from Lot #3040216 and the primer pocket uniformer is too big in diameter to fit into the pocket. I received a couple of boxes of empty casings from a fellow and the primer pockets on those were too small for the primer pocket uniformer to fit in them. They are from Lot #3040334. I have not had that problem with any of the WW brass I have used.

The Hornady brass that I have has been just GREAT. I have fired most of the casings 3 or 4 times and some of it as many as 8 times without any problems. I have not annealed any of those casings yet. The WW brass I have used is GREAT too. For the money, I think the WW brass is a good buy. I purchased some .204 Ruger Nosler seconds brass and will be trying that this coming spring. It is already trimmed, chamferred and deburred. All the casings are well under the trim-to length of 1.840" though. The Nosler brass is very uniform in weight and neck thickness too. But it is EXPENSIVE.

Where does one find the lot# on Hornady ammo?

Kind of strange the different experiences with varying brass everybody has had.

For me, Hornady has been the worst. After the 1st reload (2nd firing), you can see the brass starting to seperate at the case head. Tried two different factory loads, sorry, did not write down the lot numbers.

Win - ok, but expect to lose 5-10% on every reload.

Rem - does not get any better than this stuff. Have bought a couple hundred every 4-6 months from different places and all have performed perfectly.....so far...up to the #5/6/7/8/9 reload.

TD-Max --To find the Lot # on the .204 Ruger Hornady cartridge boxes I have, you turn them over to the backside and then if you look under where it says Lot # you'll find the number right there as in the illustration below:

Acloco, I have not experienced a loss with WW brass like you have. What are the nature of the failures? I have culled out a few right out of the bag, and had a couple out of 1600 that just will not spin up to snuff on the concentricity gauge after thy have been fire formed. Other than that I have not lost one case to a split neck or a loose primer pocket. I have fully prepped all my cases including a light neck clean-up and anneal after 5 firings.

My experience with WW brass mirrors Whistlepig's, I've got 600 cases, some have been shot six times, and so far, not a single split neck, and no annealing to date. All cases are fully prepped prior to their first firing.

I gave up on Hornady brass for the primer pocket issue. Too tight to fit my pocket uniformer, and not worth the extra effort and hassle when Winchester brass is inexpensive, plentiful, and performs perfectly for my application.

My wife is bringing home a few hundred Nosler 204 cases soon, and I plan to use that stuff in my 2nd 204 being built now; guess I'll see if it's worth the price. I think who ever is producing the Hornady brass needs to look at their tooling. I'd believe that their primer punches come from at least two different tooling suppliers.