Recommendations for .45 brass?

Hello,

I've done a ton of reloading for IPSC and never gave the manufacturer too much thought as long as it was durable stuff. However, for bullseye I'm wondering if there is a particular brand that is both durable and consistent. My thinking being, the tighter the tolerances in case capacity, etc., the more accurate the load will be. Perhaps I'm wrong about that, or maybe it doesn't make that big of difference given the task. Anyway, I'm looking to purchase brass for this purpose and was hoping folks could provide some insight and recommendations. BTW, I'll be shooting .45 service pistol.

Thanks!

Grunt

I am sure you will get differing opinions but I used mixed brass for all my shooting. The only time I use a particular head stamp is to identify a batch of weighed cast bullets when I feel like doing it. Most of the time I do not. Rereading your post I see you said service pistol. I do use Federal cases for my 50 yard hardball loads and mixed for my short line loads again only so I can tell them apart.

Starline makes nice brass and the supply is consistent as well as the quality.

Starline is best imo, however what ever you use it is best due to varying sizes these days of the flash holes to use all the same.Using Mixed headstamps once was a ok practice but if you want consistant loads you just cant do it anymore. Even flash holes in the same headstamp can be very different, federal these days has 3 different 45 cases, older federal has the old standard smaller flash hole, new federal with large primer has a large flash hole because they use lead free primers and they need the bigger flash hole and now they even have a 45 case with a small pistol primer. Winchester also has large and smaller flash hole cases.

Wall thickness varies among different brands of brass. R-P is about the thinnest and federal is among the thickest.

If you load both Fed and R-P you can expect crimp to vary. This can have a difference in 50 yard SF groups. I recommend shooting Fed for SF and anything else on the short-line.

I found that if I used mixed headstamp brass, I would have inconsistent seating depths and crimps with my Lee Progressive press.

As others have mentioned, different manufacturers have different case widths that lead to this issue. So I've junked out the Remington and Speer cases that all gave me issues.

IMHO, until we hit master, just stick with one manufacturer of brass (or at least for the long line).

For me, I use once-fired (or very few reloadings) Federal military match brass for my long line, mixed-age Federal brass for my short line, and Winchester for all my practice rounds (only because I have a lot of them). Also, this makes it easy for me to know which rounds are which if I ever take them out of the ammo box.

Nothing wrong with shelling out the dough for pristine Starline brass if that puts your mind at ease..., but shouldn't be necessary for non-masters.

Joe Fobes wrote:Starline makes nice brass and the supply is consistent as well as the quality.

If you are using a Dillon press then you may have to modify your powder funnel to use Starline. They will do it for free but just something else to keep in mind.

http://www.starlinebrass.com/faqs.php?osCsid=de81ccb649d914fb652d060384207f0e

Thank you everyone, especially moneypit for that tip on SL brass and Dillion.

Grunt

ive owned a 1050 and a 550 and loaded thousands of starline with no problems and have friends with the square deal that have had none of the listed issues. I would try it first before worrying about it.

I found that when I used Federal brass on my Series 70 NM Gold Cup I got tighter groups then with any other brass consistenly. So I just loaded up other brass for practice. Now keep in mind that different guns like different brass. You just need to load different brass and shoot the same make of brass together to see how your gun reacts to the brass. I would recomend bench resting the gun to get tighter groups and keep notes and measurement of group sizes and make up your mind on which brass your gun likes. Also keep in mind that you want to make sure that you dont have FTF and FTE. Keep track of that also while testing, write it all down and dont trust your memory to the results. It will take time to find out what your gun likes.

Good Luck

BionicDad

I have found that Federal also shoots the best out of my BE gun. I tried Starline and really like it but hands down Federal gave me my tightest groups with .45ACP.



Virgil

Little know fact, did you know Federal has 3 different kinds of 45 acp brass and all will shoot different? The old stuff, pre 2004 has a large primer and standard flash hole and straight wall to flat bottom,( same as starline) later made federal has a large primer, a large flash hole and a rounded bevel base to the wall and the latest federal has a small pistol primer and a large flash hole. These all look and are marked the same of course the ones with small primers are easily spotted but the other two can give you different points of impact because they will have different pressures due to the flash holes and case design.

DavidR wrote:Little know fact, did you know Federal has 3 different kinds of 45 acp brass and all will shoot different? The old stuff, pre 2004 has a large primer and standard flash hole and straight wall to flat bottom,( same as starline) later made federal has a large primer, a large flash hole and a rounded bevel base to the wall and the latest federal has a small pistol primer and a large flash hole. These all look and are marked the same of course the ones with small primers are easily spotted but the other two can give you different points of impact because they will have different pressures due to the flash holes and case design.

It's easy to spot the large and larger flash holes on the large pistol primer size cases. The one is nice and round looks like it was drilled through while the other hole looks like it was punched through with a square punch. I sort them by the flash hole size. The last batch I purchased were all the larger squarish flash hole size. I toss the small pistol primer ones but then I've only had two of these in the last batch of once fired cases I bought. Maybe it'll be different in the future.



Virgil



Virgil

For accuracy purposes, the "experts" say that the brand of case doesn't matter, and I know alot of bullseye shooters who use mixed brass. What can have an effect is the case length. 45ACP cases don't stretch out, but actually get shorter with repeated firings. This is because of the case headspaces on the case mouth, and repeated slamming into the chamber causes the length to shorten a bit. So don't waste your money on a 45ACP case trimmer. However, I use only military WCC brass because it is very durable. I only bother to measure the case length if I'm going to shoot a very important match were you need to squeeze out every point you can. But then, I'm weighing bullets, hand seating each primer, weighing each powder charge also.

Shooting the mixed brands of today's brass is a mistake if accuracy and consistency is your goal. Mixed brass only works if they have the same flash hole size and basic dimensions otherwise they will have different points of impact due to to pressures variances.

Another vote for Starline. I started out using anything I could get or scrounge. Over the years have gradually gone to Starline for every thing. I just wish they would start making 327 brass (my most fun gun). - gene