Gun show find today - Winchester brass, new in bag $27. per bag of 50.  How long has it been since this was available?  Is it good brass?  Just wondering.

Winchester brass is not too unusual and is just fine. You paid a fair price for this new brass! I think around 50c each is a good price for new brass.

Some brass doesn't have the rim that the 30-40 round is designed originally with. If your's doesn't have the rim, it will shoot just fine but might have some feeding problem from the magazine. There have been posts written about this. I am speaking from having read the posts, not from experience.

Good luck reloading and shooting your new brass!

Winchester brass is about as good as it gets!  Out of the thousand or so rounds of brass I have in rotation, the Winchester brass makes up about 1/4 of it.  It's the longest lasting and most consistent in regards to weight.  It also polishes up the brightest.  Of course, these are just individual observances, and your results may vary!

I don't have any Winchester 30-40 brass.  I had some in 30-06, and noted it was lighter than GI or Remington.  Hey I used to be up in N. IN, in Kendallville, and shot at Young's Longshot.  I miss that range and wish there was something like it around here!

Six bags left.  20 bucks per


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Just bought 2 bags after reading and following the link. Although at 17.95 the shipping charges were a bit high, still the price per bag delivered was better than any others I'd found.

Thanks for the heads up, guys!

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For about 25 years, I used only Norma and Remington brass. Then, about 10 years ago I had a complete head separation on a .30-06 Remington cartridge that had been reloaded only 3 times.  The rifle was an "03 Springfield, manufactured in 1918. The load was moderate with 45 grs. of Accurate 2520 pushing a 165 gr Hornady BTSP Interlock bullet. Candidly, that incident scared the hell out of me. I ditched all my Remington brass and switched to Winchester Brass for the 5 calibers I reload for. 
I find the Winchester brass easy to work with in the case preparation process, and have not had any problems with any reloads.  I still use Norma brass for my Savage model 99 in .303 Savage because there is no other brass available for that caliber except Privi and Graf's private label brass.

Got around to prepping the first bag of Winchester Brass I picked up a week or so ago, and lost 5 of 50 to neck defects. Splits, folded over brass at the mouth, I assume was due to the neck trim dies being worn. 

I'm loading for a sporterized Krag, 22 inch barrel. Would a faster powder than IMR 4350 be preferred for 220 gr RN Hornaday's? I have H4350, RL 15, RL16, RL17, H380,Varget, 3031, 4320, to name a few.

Texas10 - FWIW, I gave you advice on damaged/faulty Winchester Brass on Ammo Porn thread.

Texas10 wrote on Nov 20^th, 2019 at 5:53pm:

Got around to prepping the first bag of Winchester Brass I picked up a week or so ago, and lost 5 of 50 to neck defects. Splits, folded over brass at the mouth, I assume was due to the neck trim dies being worn.  I'm loading for a sporterized Krag, 22 inch barrel. Would a faster powder than IMR 4350 be preferred for 220 gr RN Hornaday's? I have H4350, RL 15, RL16, RL17, H380,Varget, 3031, 4320, to name a few.

Load data is going to be hard to come by for many of the powders you're listed. I did find a listing on Steve'spages.com.  His info is a compilation of anything he could find, with no velocity or pressure mentioned.  He gave a wide range of from 31.5-42gr of H380.  The H380 would probably work better with a magnum or CCI#34 primer.  It's not much faster than H4350, and supposedly about the same burn rate as RL15.  Varget and 4064 are about the same burn rate in relation to each other, faster than either RL15 or H380, and I see a range of 29.3-40gr for 4064 on Steve'spages.

butlersrangers wrote on Nov 20^th, 2019 at 6:42pm:

Texas10 - FWIW, I gave you advice on damaged/faulty Winchester Brass on Ammo Porn thread.

Thanks, found that after your post. Tried to straighten them but just too wrinkled. Ended up losing 4 and haven't opened up the second bag yet.

I did find some IMR-4350 on the shelf at Bass Pro so will try a standard load to start. I also have several loading manuals from late 40's that list loads with powders that are still in production.

Just have to find out what works best.

Old reloading data should be checked against more current manuals.

Some old loads may be excessive and generate dangerous pressures.

There is no point in trying to make the .30-40 something it is not. There is plenty of good data available.

Lots of changes have taken place since those old manuals were printed.   A lot of powders just aren't the same, for example the IMRs aren't even made where they used to be.  Relatively close, but still not the same.  Start low, work up, have fun!

Last Week I prepped the Winchester brass that I originally started this thread about.  Of the two bags I had (100 pieces) five or six of the cases had what look like splits on the case neck.  Not something I would have expected from new brass. 

IMHO - You got a faulty bag of brass. Possibly they had an annealing 'glitch' on the day it was made. I would contact Winchester.

I haven't seen this with any of my new Winchester. I would call the company. They should send you a new bag free because they have a good reputation they want to protect.