In past we have discussed the controversy of virgin Brass vs. once fired brass and how the internal capacity changed and now we are going to see if all this is important. We did a lot of range time here to test fire the same 4 calibers we compared last month.

To be sure everything was as fair as possible, every precaution was taken to be sure the barrels were of equal cleanliness, and temperature for each group uniform.

First, all the virgin brass was fired for the tests and then the same fired brass was loaded and used for the once fired case tests.

All virgin brass was resized to uniform the case neck tension. Nothing really special was done to prep the fired cases, just cleaned primer pockets, full length resized them, and cleaned in walnut media after sizing to get all lube off the cases. Tests were shot on days that were of quite identical and uniform conditions.

There is a lot of data here to follow and absorb, but will my best to KISS it.

7mm Remington Magnum

24” Barrel, Rem M 700 Stainless WW Brass with 68 gr. of Reloder 25, CCI 200 Primers and 175 gr. Hornady Spire Point bullets. Lee Factory crimped bullets after seating. All 5 shot groups.

338 Winchester Magnum

25” Lothar Walther Moly Steel Barrel on a Rem M 700 Action using WW Brass with Federal 215 Primers under 68 gr of IMR 4831 and 250 gr Hornady RN Bullets. All bullets crimped with Lee Factory Crimper after seating. All 5 shot groups.

300 Winchester Magnum

24” Adams & Bennett Moly barrel (From Midway USA) on a FN Mauser Action using WW Brass with 180 gr Hornady SPBT bullets, with 80 gr. of Reloder 25 Powder and CCI 200 primers. Again all bullets crimped with Lee Factory Crimper after seating, and firing 5 shot groups.

30-06

24” Stainless Rem M 700. WW Brass with 58 gr. of Reloder 19 using CCI 200 primers, with 180 gr Speer Mag Tips. All bullets crimped with Lee Factory Crimper after seating and firing 5 shot groups.

Now I added all the velocities together to get the Velocity average. Then did the same thing with the Group sizes and the Extreme Spread (ES). This may or may not tell us if loading virgin brass has any advantage over once fired brass or visa versa.

What does all this tell us? It tells me that we could do these tests all over again and come out with the numbers reversed.

I really thought it would make more difference that it did. The fact that it made so little difference is great, because we can do our load development and testing with fired brass and then load virgin brass to take hunting and not have a major difference in performance.

One could go on and on about the data provided, and we could factor in all kinds of variables and go on forever talking about it. But it was fun and always interesting and an excuse to spend lots of time on the range and reloading.

Feel free to put in your 2 cents worth to Terry at tblauwkamp@superior-sales.com