SmallCaliberCentral

Folks.....I'm an experienced reloader, but new to reloading the .204. I was cleaning and uniforming primer pockets of once fired Hornady brass and found that about every third case had issues. Lose pockets, tight pockets, pockets with excessive depths.....my Sinclair uniformer wouldn't even bottom out or clean some of the pockets.

Is this normal quality Hornady brass? Oh yeah, the brass is from Hornady factory loaded rounds.

Thanks for listening,
T

I'm finding simular issues with Hornady brass from factory rounds fired in my guns.I use a Lee hand priming toll for all my rifle priming,and about one of ten hornady cases will not go into the case holder,while others are so loose,you think you have an oversized shell holder.I've settled on Winchester brass in the 204.The prep only requires the flash hole deburring and champher the inside of the neck.

I've found the Hornady brass to have excessively tight primer pockets.

Thanks guys for confirming what I was seeing.
I have (5) 100 ct bags of Winchester brass to load for a prairie dog trip, just being a tightwad trying to recycle the Hornady brass.
Speaking of .204 Win brass, the stuff looks good.....uniform weights, centered and clean flash holes. Impressed.

T

T, Yup the answer is Hornaday is problematic, use Winchester, Remington, or if you can afford it go with Nosler. Gary

Hornady brass has been inconsistent in the past, with split necks and dented or folded necks and shoulders. I bought one lot that was perfect, and every primer pocket cleaned up normally with the Sinclair tool. Winchester brass also has a few rejects in every lot, split necks folds and creases. Winchester also is prone to huge flash hole burrs that defy easy removal. Whatever the cause, the .204 Ruger seems to suffer a greater reject rate than some larger calibers. A 2-5% reject rate is about normal. Inspecting these cases at manufacture must be a bear of a job. Nosler brass has been less prone to rejects, but then the higher cost is likely reflected in quality control - the difference may not offset the cost of rejecting a few bad cases with less expensive brands.

Although I have never used Hornady brass, I do use R-P brass for my 204. After going thru over 1000 R-P brass, 204, the defects have been very, very few. When I did find a bad case, there was an extra one or 2 pieces of brass in the bag. I started using R-P brass because I had some very aggravating problems with WW brass, some of which may have been caused by myself. I am the 1st to admit that, but after switching to R-P brass, my problems were no more. For the extra $1.00 or $2 more than WW brass, I now use only R-P brass in my 204. Just my experience and my 2 cents

The Hornady brass I bought back in June of 2004 was in the form of 32 gr. Hornady V-Max factory ammunition. I bought 15 boxes of it. Ten of those boxes were from Lot #3040148 and the primer pockets on that brass were just fine. I did not get any split necks, no stretched primer pockets except on a few rounds that I had waaaay too much powder in. I have fired some of those casings at least 8 times.

Then there were the other 5 boxes of factory 32 gr. Hornaday V-Max loads. They were from Lot# 3040216 and I could not get my primer pocket depth uniforming tool in the pockets. They were too tight. That was my only complaint on those casings and I never had any split necks, and no stretched primer pockets either.

I cannot vouch for any of the brass from Hornady except for those two lots I purchased back in 2004. I have not had any problems with the WW brass I have purchased and used for reloading.

Same experience here with 100 cases of the Hornady from 1x fired 32gr VMax factory rounds. Can't get the sinclair uniformer in the primer pocket. Neck wall thickness was not consistent at all, some varied greatly.

Perhaps their boxed brass is better? I'll say this, the Nosler brass is beautiful for neck wall thickness consistancy. Federal brass from 1x fired was as consistant in that regard as the Nosler.

Numbers and a pic are on page 5 of the thread "request: advice for best concentricity".

The problem with the Winchester brass is that the primer pockets are cupped and need to be uniformed before using them (new brass). Nosler has the most uniform neck/body thickness and you pay for that consistency (although the flash holes are smaller in diameter than Winchester's flash holes). If you dont want to neck turn than buy Nosler brass. It has been said that Norma is making .204 brass for Nosler.

Same for me....mine were all factory load brass and after only a few firings the primer pockets are all bored out. Assembled a last batch of ammo for summer shooting and when the get fired....to the trash they go! Have lots of WW and RP in the house!

I have just over 1000 that came from factory loads over the past 5 years, various lots (no more than 4 boxes purchased at any one time)

Did find a few with tight primer pockets but with my primer pocket uniformer and a drop of oil they are all exactly the same now. As for neck thickness's I did have to discard a few but less than 1% of the total. I uniformed the neck thickness to 0.012" and most showed 25%-50% material removed.

Never tried Norma brass because here in Canada the new unprimed brass costs the same as loaded Hornady rounds, but I have heard good things about it.

I have been very happy myself but then I am not nearly as experienced with precision reloading as many others on this forum are.



Heck I have only wore out one centerfire barrel so far in my life so compared to many others I am just getting started.

When I first got the 204 I had some Hornady factory ammo, and all of them had very tight primer pockets, not so with Remington.

Watch the case mouth for cracks on the very early factory rds. You should get 2-3 loads before they split tho. But that's not a guarantee.