Quality of Remington brass + new Packaging?

[Brithunter]

Hi All,

         Just picked up the 6mm Rem brass I ordered after some wait for it  now this second batch of 100 pieces came in two fancy green and clear plastic bags, 50 per bag, never seen them packed like this before  it this new? The last lot came in a clear plastic bag with a blue label inside deonoting what it was and the 100 was in one bag. The price has taken a hyke and this 100 pieces of brass cost me £45 ($83:25US)  now I know that metal prices have risen but this does seem a little excessive  .

          My first batch has not proven to be very long lived, I ordered new brass as have been getting neck splits  , and had to order Remington again as that's all that seems to be available in 6mm Rem  here at least. 6mm Rem is not very popular here in the UK and I ordered a couple of boxes of loaded ammo to try through the rifle but the importers didn't have any 6mm rem ammo in stock. Have managed to track down some Winchester loaded ammo but I don't know how old it is  but it will be a week or two before I can go down to collect it as it's over 100 miles away. Luckily I ahve to go to the shop to collect a Midland 2100 rifle I have brought from them and whilst arranging this I asked about the 6mm rem ammo and struck lucky.

  Now does anyone know if Remington have changed their brass recently? I ask because this seems to have a coppery hue to the necks but not discolouration liek from annealing  and I aslo wonder if I should anneal before using? although I have never had to do that before.

[Swampman]

The 6mm Rem is not very popular here in the US either.  The .243 Winchester pretty much killed it.  I've been buying a lot of new Remington ammo and the brass has worked fine.  I usually just buy loaded ammo and reuse the brass because Remington ammo is cheap.  The Winchester brass will probably be lighter(thinner).

[WyoStillhunter]

The packaging sounds like what we have been seeing here in the colonies for quite some time.  I have no experience with the 6mm but have pretty much decided to buy Remington brass for cartridges bearing the Remington name or reintroduced by Remington such as .35 Remington and 35 Whelen.

Otherwise, I find Winchester brass more available in retail stores.  I usually try to stick with one brand of brass for a given cartridge except for the really common stuff which I can pick up along the firing line as once-fired at the local range (30-30 and 30-06) during the Fall hunter sight-in days.  It's free for the trouble of bending over to pick it up.

[huntswithdogs]

Brit or anyone else...
Does anyone know what the parent case for the 6mm is? Might not be a bad idea to find out and reform some.

We had a wholesaler, locally at one time. I got to be in kinda tight with them and found some interesting facts. The brass that I'd been buying from them, whether it was Win or Rem, came in barrels from the manufacturer to them. They in turn bagged it in 50 or 100 packs and labeled accordingly. The green bags you got were probably bagged by "Big Green" themselves.

Most, if not all, cases I've bought new have that coppery finish at the necks.


HWD

[Swampman]

The parent is the .257 Roberts, which I believe is based on the 7X57.

[yooper77]

Not much different from your other post.
http://www.gboreloaded.com/forums/index.php/topic,152711.msg1098647706.html#msg1098647706

I second the 6mm Remington not being very popular, I shoot the 243 Winchester which is 95% as much.  Some people do use the 6mm Remington with good success.

Remington brass is very high quality and Yes, it’s been annealed, it’s part of the forming process.

All the Remington rifle brass I have bought in the old or new green bags have been 100 pieces per bag.  100 each 30-06 Springfield was $28.49 from Cabelas 3 months ago, now they are $31.99.  I have bought Remington brass in the past in the all clear bags, the change to the green bags are probably for attractive store displays and marketing.

coppery hue?  Brass is any alloy of copper and zinc.

If your prices are correct, I am glad to see Remington is actually collecting that kind of mark up in the UK.

In London last year, I paid $30.00 USD for 2 pint beers for my wife and me and 3 scoops of ice cream for my child at a restaurant.

yooper77

[Duckhunter39480]

I usually get my Remington brass in boxes that have been repacked by the distributor from their bulk shipments.  I have used a few hundred pieces of Remington brass in forming other cartridges over the past year and some of it had to be annealed before it was reformed.  Prior to annealing, I lost 18 to 20% in the reforming process and another 3 to 5% with neck splits on first firing.  If you anneal the brass before you load, I believe that most of your neck split problems will go away. 

I've used the 6mm since the late 70's and have reformed 6mm Rem brass from 30-06, 270 Win, 7x57;  I've even made cases from 7.62 NATO blanks.  I purchased a forming die from RCBS that came complete with a hand reamer for inside neck turning.  Most of the _X57 cases (to include 257 Roberts brass) can be used to form the 6mm Rem but the neck thickness may be a problem if you use anything over 7x57 to form you cases.

I came across a trader with some 244 Rem. brass last month; some Norma but mostly Rem.  It's mine now.  The 244 Rem. was Remington's first attempt to market this cartridge and it died.  Remington brought it back a few years later with a faster twist barrel and it was successful (for a while). If you happen onto a supply of 244 Rem. brass, get it.

[Brithunter]

Thank you for the comments. However due to the scareity of 6mm Rem brass I doubt I will ever see any 244 Rem brass so far I have seen three rifles chambered for 6mm Rem over all the years. One was a Ruger No1B the other I believe a Remington, hmmm must have been as the description espaces me so I would guess it was a Rem 700 and this P-H 1200V I have. In fact I have seen and handled more rifles chambered in 404 Jeffries than 6mm remington.

I have not been shooting it for a while as I finally got around to stripping off the chipped stock finish and have been re-doing it.

[yooper77]

I have used free once fired range 224/6mm Remington brass for my 243 Winchester, since I didn't have the 6mm Remington.  I also used 7x57 Mauser brass for 243 Winchester also, since it was free and didint have a 7x57 Mauser.



yooper77

[Brithunter]

OK All,

     Have been playing with other rifles for a while but this evening I loaded up 25 of the new Remington 6mm cases. I first chamfered the outside and inside of the necks then sized them. After sizing I checked the lengths and must say I was impressed  all though I didn't check every one of the 25 I did check a fair few and the lengths came out within 0.001" on one another and they did not need trimming. That is good QC  indeed. Let's hope the rest is the same and I can see no reason why it should not be going on this half bag. Will let you know how it does at the range.

[jvs]

In 45+ yrs of shooting all types of firearms, I have never seen a piece of New Remington Brass split on the first firing.  I am not saying that it can't happen, but I am saying that out of thousands of rounds fired, I have never seen it.   However, I have seen it on reloads... like the 4th or 5th reload.  I suspect you may have gotten some previously fired brass.  That would be regardless of what you may have thought you bought.

IMO, Remington Brass is probably the finest brass you can buy for the price, at least in this country.  I think I died and went to heaven when I find once fired Remington brass laying on the ground at the range.

As for the packaging, every 100 package I have seen that came directly from the Factory, came in a 'green bag'.  Remington has been using Green colored packaging for their brass for yrs.  Repackaged Brass can come in just about any package.

And FYI, I saw two boxes of 6mm Remington Core-Lokt Ammo at Walmarts last weekend for $23.97 per box.  It originally caught my eye because at first I thought it was 6mm Rem Mag, which would have been a real good price for 6mm Rem mag loads.  That is a little pricey 6mm considering that Federal 308, 30-06 and 270 were $12.97 and Federal 30-30 was $10.97.

The fact that you are paying $83.25 for 100 empty 6mm remington brass casings is just more proof that there is too many fingers in the till when it comes to firearms in the UK.  Admittedly, the fact that you probably have to go through two seperate Postal Services (and who know what else) in order to get them, the cost involved can only go up.

[Brithunter]

Hi There,

       Well these loads in the new cases using Reloader 15 at least seemed to be consistant and show promise all grouped under MOA and an Eight shot group, the first fired with this load on Sunday made a group of 0.785". The reason the group was eight shots was that the last time I shot this rifle a few weeks ago I tried some Winchester 100 Grn ammunition so the first two shots were left of the mark. It took me two shots to get it on centre then the another eight were fired at the mark. Five of which made one ragged hole so it shows promise  .

      I fired the remaining fifteen rounds into three groups the largest of which measured 0.977". I shall work with these 25 cases and just these and keep a note of the number of reloads I get from them before signs of stress shows itself. The original 100 cases I brought have now had 4 with split necks and the primer pockets are getting a little slack.

   As for the price  as they had to be ordered from the Remington importer I don't know if they came by post or in a bulk order and by container but if they had been available I could have brought Lapua cases cheaper  but Lapua don't offer 6mm Rem that I know of. My next purchase of cases will more than likely be Lapua cases as I need some new 7x57mm ones and I do believe that Lapua offer them.

[saltydog]

Remington updated their packaging to look more modern. A recent magazine did an extensive test of brass and Remington performed well. I have alot of older 6 mm REM brass that I have shot several times and never had a problem. Perhaps your chamber is not within correct specs.

[Brithunter]

Well whilst I agree it would be possible I am afriad it's highly unlikely for a couple of reasons:-

1) The rifle has to be proofed which is done at the Birmingham proof house and a chamber out of spec should be spotted

2)  An out of spec chamber of course would require more sizing. Which was not the case here.

    Now a load that showed most potential with Varget is actually above that recomended by Hodgdons but showed no excessive pressure in this rifle. Now some of that first batch of cases have not been loaded so many times so some may still be OK but some those that got used more have showed signs of stress.

    With this new batch as I said I am just using 25 of them and noting how many times they are re-loaded. before loading them last night I checked the lengths before sizing and after sizing and the cases had grown in length between 0.002" & 0.004" before being sized and between 0.004" & 0.007" after sizing. The load is not so hot being taken from Hodgdons #26 manual and utilising Reloader 15 powder. Sizing is being down full length so measurements of the expansion ring can be assessed similar to Ken Waters did in load developments. Later I intend to acquire a Lee Collet die for use with this rifle to minimize working the brass.


Edit:-

Whoops I forgot to mention that I just added up the loads I have used so far with that first batch of cases and it came to 590 rounds and seeing as how I didn't use all the cases the same amount of time some cases have been re-loaded more than 5 times other a lot less.