¡¿premium brass, once fired brass?!

Are there any real advantages/worthwhile brands? Is buying new brass better than reusing brass from factory ammo that you fired? What brands are best-why? Is bulk "once fired" worth it?

Pistol brass: probably doesn't matter. Rifle brass: depends on how much work you as the reloader want to do. If you're willing to anneal the brass to a known state, verify the internal volume, and consistently dimension the primer pockets, etc., you can probably get by with whatever brass that's not shot to the point of case separation. If you're not looking to do that and you want the pinnacle of accuracy, there are advantages to spending extra to get brass from manufacturers that do make efforts to keep these factors consistent (e.g., Lapua).

ETA: for buying pistol brass, Starline has long been held to be the gold standard, I suspect because of their product consistency and customer service. Now that they've started producing rifle brass, it will be interesting to see whether they achieve the same standard in that realm.

grobin said:

Are there any real advantages/worthwhile brands? Is buying new brass better than reusing brass from factory ammo that you fired? What brands are best-why? Is bulk "once fired" worth it?

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I always use the factory brass that I fire. I also separate the brass by brand and I keep track of how many times it has been loaded. I also buy cases from Starline and others. Hornady brass is very good but more expensive. Once fired brass??? not for me.

I was a bit disappointed with some Starline brass in .32-20 that I bought (new/500 rnds) several years ago because every case was shorter than the min. specs given in the reloading manuals. As far as premium brass is concerned, (I'm by FAR not a particular person with my reloading) and shoot range pick-up almost exclusively in my .223 woodchuck rifles. I always get at least 1" at 100 yds and very often get smaller groups than that. I do glass-bed my sporter rifles. Also, I do uniform primer pockets, deburr inside flash-holes, trim to length, and turn outside necks just because I'm retired and have nothing special that needs my attention (thank you God).
J

As noted above,, a lot depends upon what your desires are. Serious, dedicated shooters who want to squeeze out the best accuracy they can will use premium brass,,, and do many other steps to get a uniform load.
And I disagree that in pistol brass in that it may not matter. Long range handgunners,, (such as silhouette shooting, or serious handgun hunters,) prefer virgin brass to get the proper neck tension on a bullet.

Again,,, premium, uniform ammo will perform better across the board,,, IF,, IF,,, serious accuracy is desired.

I'm an average shooter that reloads a lot (in the last 20 years I have only purchased 3 boxes of handgun ammo and one box of 308 Win. Mostly because I needed some brass). For my shooting/reloading once fired "range" brass has worked quite well. I have purchased new brass from Starline, and got an excellent product, and I like using new brass, but in my reloads there has been no noticeable benefit over used (my best loads for 308 using LC (used) brass is 7/8" at 100). I don't mind cleaning processing and inspecting used brass. All my brass is well inspected prior to reloading and for my rifle cases I keep them separate by headstamp and number of times reloaded....

Once I shoot made ammo made with new brass, it appears to be once fired, then I shoot it again and it still appears to be once fired...what's up with that...

I reload to shoot with the grand kids and they don't seem to notice the difference between new and once/twice/thrice fired.

I bought some once fired Barrett 416 and it was better than some new. So I bought some no name and it was just range ammo run through a tumbler-not even decaped first!

Agree with all as previously stated. Depends on what kind of and how much shooting you do as to how significant it is how far down the brass food chain you start your own reloads. Also, firing from semi-auto tends to beat up brass worse than revolver, bolt or single-shot. Brass you've bought or fired from factory is best as you know the lineage and is much safer than unknown range pickups. Straight-walled pistol brass tends to run many reloads (I've heard many say they lose them before they break) and will function with just cursory cleaning. I'll add that I've heard that if you shoot certain Glocks with 'unsupported chambers' that brass from these barrels may have Glock 'smiles' that weaken the brass. I've never tested this.

With heavy factory loads I get a "Glock Smile" on some brass with my Glock 40 and don't reload them more than 4 times (full length resize). I reuse factory brass but no longer bother with range brass as it's more trouble than it's worth. I have yet to find any brand of "once fired" brass that's worth it except for Barrett.

For precision shooting, I use factory brass.

For everything else, I use range brass.

I have used range brass for years. Bought 5 5 gallon buckets from an estate sale and have been shooting it ever since. In pistols you can hardly go wrong. I think some of my brass will outlast me. For center fire hunting ammo, I stick to new or once fired. I also test every hunting round to make sure it chambers. Sure, if you are a branch rest competitorit matters, but for those of use who just want to shoot as cheaply as possible, used brass is just fine. Just inspect it carefully after cleaning and before resizing to make sure there are no splits or flaws. My Ruger 30-06 will shoot 1 inch groups with cases that have been loaded 5 or so times.