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Old 10-10-2014, 04:17 AM
bburrell bburrell is offline
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Default 204 brass options

Getting ready to make a large brass purchase but am not familiar with the options for 204. From reading many comments made on this forum and on others, a lot of reloaders do not like Hornady brass. Winchester gets fairly good reviews, but I do not hear much about Norma or Nosler brass. What is your experience with 204 brass and which would you select to build up your brass supply for reloading? Burt
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Old 10-10-2014, 04:21 AM
trotterlg trotterlg is offline
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I only have Hornady brass, and I turned it all into 17-204. But, I did it in one pass and never lost a single piece. Larry
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Old 10-10-2014, 04:51 AM
montdoug montdoug is offline
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I bought a 500 lot of Winchester brass and weight segregated it all into lots of 50, uniformed the primer pockets, reamed the flash holes etc. etc.
The rifle is a CZ Varmint Kevlar .204 with the HS Precision stock. I had Greg Tannel set it's already accurate barrel back a bit, single point the action and re-chamber it with a match .204 chamber with a snug no-turn neck and zero free-bore. It was accurate stock and is very accurate now. I say all that to put into perspective the fact that in my CZ .204 the Winchester brass I worked over is capable of shooting beyond my meager capabilities . 39 grain BlitzKings, RL10X, 7 1/2BR primers for 3,780ish FPS and repeated loadings in brass that's still going strong.
I'm sure the Nosler/Norma brass is better brass and would certainly take less work but is it worth the $$$ difference over the reworked Winchester?? Up to the spare time and wallet thickness of the guy buy'n the brass I guess . As for me, I still have a fair number of that original 500 lot of Winchester brass unfired in MTM boxes waiting for when I finish off the original couple hundred I loaded up a number of years back . Gives a guy kind of a cozy, warm fuzzy feeling in these times of tight to nonexistent component availability .
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Old 10-10-2014, 05:40 AM
Groundhog Devastation Groundhog Devastation is offline
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From what I've experienced with various 204's while either developing them for myself or breaking in/ developing loads for others, just plain inherrent accuracy!! Brass choice? HORNADY has for some reason RIDICOULOUSLY tight primer pockets.....so tight that most "primer uniforming"tools have a hard time fitting!!........don't worry with it! Prime, load and shoot! Unless you are an anal BR person, you can't tell the difference! And I doubt whether most of them could either........since I've never seen a 204 Ruger in a BR match.......but I did outshoot a bunch of BR rifles in a 500 yard egg shoot while I was using a SAVAGE VLP absolutely stock 204R and the brass it shot that day.......HORNADY!! Winchester, Remington, Federal, did not matter with any of the 204's I dealt with. If it makes you feel better to think you "uniformed a primer pocket"... Get some Rem, Win, Fed and have at it. My advise is to get whatever 204 brass you can get and load it and be happy! You won't be able to tel the difference from one to the other as far as usefull life goes. You may be able to discern that Win or Rem or Fed or Horn may vary .1-.2 of a grain of powder to achieve the same velocity as another but usefullness and longevity will be un-discern able as to difference. These brass discussions always make me smile and chuckle!! Tonight I just finished NECKING UP 300 more pieces of 17 FIREBALL REMINGTON brass that had been fired as 17 Fireball to 20 VT!! I lost a total of 3 pieces!! May have been due to press operator error.......myself!! And somewhere on this forum I read that "You can't "neck up"!! Easier to neck down. How the hell did the old guys ever get those 6x47's and 6x45's to shoot???!!!! GHD
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Old 10-11-2014, 05:52 PM
NeilA. NeilA. is offline
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Hi,

I researched the same question a couple of years back and ended up going with Winchester. Second choice would be Remington. I volume load and have 1000 pcs.
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Old 10-11-2014, 10:21 PM
xswanted xswanted is offline
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I'm using Nosler in mine.

My dad has ran Hornady and Remington brass in his.

I personally think they all work very well. I'm a little partial to Nosler, but that doesn't mean its working better than the others.
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  #7  
Old 10-11-2014, 11:59 PM
Daryl Daryl is offline
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The Nosler brass I looked at, several different calibres, along with the 9.3x62 Nosler brass I bought has been incredibly well prepared. Flash-holes de-burred, consistent primer pockets, trimmed to exact length and inside & outside chamfered and all EXACTLY the same weight - but expensive - for those big cases - $1.10 each CDN + sales tax for 50 rounds of brass. I don't know what the .204 brass is running - they (Wholesale Sports) had some in stock.
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