Lapua or Nosler

according to the benchrest boyz, Lapau is the best because it is more uniform in wall thickness and weight and concentricity despite its unnecessary thickness. Nosler is made by Norma and the primer pockets are drilled not punched and the brass is very true (uniform). Factually winchester has the best brass (material)...they have a proprietary annealling process coveted worldwide...and never copied. Their cartridge brass however is not very precise....requires sorting by weight (very boring). That brass also has more capacity than lapau or nosler or norma and better yield and resiliency....takes longer to work harden. .................so I'm told

Ditto on Winchester brass comments. They are durable. I have 200 currently in service that have been fired 22 times each with my mild CPT load. They have been fired from tight chambered guns and show no signs of failure yet. They have been only neck sized with a light shoulder bump, minimal trimming and the primer pockets remain tight. No other care has been done such as annealing, weighing or neck turning. I use em right out of the bag as is, just a an ID neck deburring. I recently sectioned two at random and saw no thinning ahead of the web, so they got loaded for the 23rd firing. I will continue to fire them till failure signs become visible, why not. My heavier ram load shows head failure signs at 14-15 firings.

So when you ask.. Better Brass...you know my answer.

thanks for the info. So i just looked at winchester brass at powder valley and from what I can tell is I have to buy either 243 and neck up or god forbid 7-08 and neck down cause winchester dont make 260, am I correct?

You are correct, no .260 from Winchester. Necking up .243 is a feasible option which may require ID neck reaming and or OD neck turning if you have a tight neck chamber. Sticking with preformed .260 brass is the way to go if you don't want to mess around with brass reworking.

Hey..don't you dare trash sacred Winchester 7-08 brass for the sake of making .260 corks.

AHHH the truth comes out. Bob would shoot a 6.5 if winchester would make 260 brass. Its ok to admit your a closet 6.5 fanatic Bob nobody will judge you on this forum .

Matt, you will up grade to 7-08 long before I settle for a 6.5 anything. And no one will judge me? What about that cute poem?? I love that poem.

A closet 6.5 guy ? That is absurd. Have a nice day 'ol buddy.

don't take much to make .260 brass from .243 or 7-08 of which both are made from win. that you would have top notch .260 brass !! hard now to think that anyone would hold anyone back from building a good .260??

Now Larry, don’t get your feathers all ruffled. That is just me and Shakes busting each others balls a little.

The .260 Rem. and all the other 6.5 flavors are damn fine silhouette rounds. There is no denying it. As a matter of fact, I almost put one together for my self last month. I was tempted by the fruit of another. That #9 Classic almost became a hunter class .260

A good friend of mine offered me a decent barrel in exchange for some machine work. It was a low round count KP .260 Rem. 24” #4 contour in stainless. The problem was it was threaded .020 over factory. No problem to cut back to factory spec, but it also was a .290 tight neck requiring neck turned brass right out of the starting gate. That was a deal breaker for me, I didn’t want to mess with neck turning for this off hand game. Then I would have needed bushing dies, another spindle for my Sinclair turner, bullets, brass, load develop, range time, etc..etc..blah blah. I am too heavily involved with the 7-08 to switch to another round. Nothing to be gained for me. Had the .260 been available as is back in the day, maybe I would have been a 6.5 guy instead.

Now don’t let the Snake know I was tempted to go for a .264, I’ll never hear the end of it.

Another thing on brass. Hornady brass was brought up on another post as a quality source. They manufacture most of their offerings at the same Nebraska bullet plant. Only their large volume African big game brass is made for them by some one else. Their web site boasts of close tolerance uniform manufacturing practices. They do not offer .260 or 7-08 reloading brass, but do offer .243 for up sizing to .260.

I can vouch for the quality of the .308 Match brass they sell. A few years ago some SWAT guys from the county sheriffs dept. were using the silhouette range for training. They each had M700 police tactical rifles and were firing Hornady factory match ammo. They had piled up 250 empties on a tarp. They gave them to me as they were packing up. I turned them all into 7-08's. Measurements were uniform through out. All have 6 to 8 firings on them now and still look good.

http://www.hornady.com/store/243-Win-c-1077/

sinclair,international stocks 260 and 7-08 brass in winchester (7-08) Remington (260) Norma (7-08 & 260). Necks are shorter on 243 brass going up to 7 and probably a little short going up to 260 (.243 to .264 is up) In fact using Lapau 308 and going down to 7 (308 to.284 is down) still results in a slightly short neck. short necks produce a carbon ring at the leade and produces an annoyance that eventually affects accuracy. McAlice knows all about things short....Remember when sizing up necks shorten and thin and swaging down generally lengthens and thickens
The thickening part can cause a pressure issue. That's why when sizing down neck turning is a good idea.

Oops....Sinclair also carries lapau and hornady....McAlice may be right but i believe Norma makes Hornady's non-african brass. Just to make sure ya'll understand...there ain't no particular advantage in 260 except to make a fella feel good and delude himself into believing that he'll do better with 260 ...if ye believe then it helps. I am an UNBELIEVER...no worship for me at the altar of 264. If it works for you then go after it........they still suck

Oh Great Serpent of St.Louis, a simple call to the production department at Hornady confirmed my statements. The lovely voice on the other end verified all sub African brass cartridge cases are indeed produced at the Grand Island, Nebraska plant.

Maybe I should have been a lawyer, I did my homework.

No McAlice you and I made statements and then you researched to back yours up. nevertheless you are dumb enough to be a lawyer right now Not a good lawyer but a lawyer I bet just because you are good at pickin' your nose you think you should have been a doctor too

McAlice, as I told my business law prof several years ago when she suggested I sit the LSAT..."I can't lie with a straight enough face to be a lawyer"...neither can you. Needless to say that comment didn't win me any brownie points towards my grade....
Innocent