FGMM/SSA/Remington Brass, which would you choose if you had to?

[Shooter_308]

Hey guys, I know from experience (and obviously tons of input on here) that the normal go-to for brass is generally Winchester, Lapua and Norma for .308 load development. That being said, i'm just getting back into reloading and I have a bunch of brass to use to start doing some load development. I have Remington Core Lokt Brass, Federal Gold Medal Match and Silver State Armory all once-fired and ready to be sized/loaded but can't decide which of the 3 would be the better choice. Eventually, yes I will be buying some Lapua again, but I can't do it at this time and don't want to waste this stuff.

So, which of the 3 do you think would be the better of the 3 I have? I'm thinking Federal, SSA, Remington in that order.

 

[FCS]

Depends on how hard you want to push the brass.

Fed brass marked "FC 308 WIN" or "FC XX" with XX being last two digits of year manufactured? FC XX is more durable brass in my experience then is the FC 308 Win.

SSA, I haven't used any current production but do know that the stuff I used in '06-'07 time frame had a tendency to give up primer pockets pretty quickly. First firing I lost about 10-12% of cases, 2nd firing about 5% but beyond that the brass that had survived held up well.

RP - Worked pretty well, wouldn't push the load too hard and you can expect pretty decent results.

I'd find most accurate load in each, run the brass until it fails to meet your accuracy requirements.

SSA I have used had more case capacity then RP, RP had more then FC.

FC pretty nice as long as not pushing too hard, same with RP.
SSA, depends on vintage as I only have experience with '06-'07 vintage brass from SSA.

 

[kansas]

I bought a bunch of once fired FGMM and didn't care for the runout on the case necks. I ran it in my son's M1A instead of my bolt gun and it was fine but couldn't come close to matching the quality of Lapua. I helped another shooter load some of his Remington brass and it had pretty decent runout. Guess If I had a runout gauge I'd check the necks on the three different brands and see which one had the least runout and start there.

 

[Shooter_308]

Thanks for the input guys, the SSA was literally bought and fired last week, so i'd say it's fairly newer than 2007. Maybe i'll just make up some loads in all 3, and see how it goes from there. I'm not going to be pushing max loads, so I'm not TOO worried.

 

[CBeck]

How many of each do you have? That would help me decide.

 

[dauntedfuture]

I tend to stay from FED GM 223 and 308 brass. I have picked up loads of it from Perry over the years and tried to reload it. The primer pockets are usually for one reload then they are loose and this is not with a hot load. with Some of the 223 FC brass I have picked up primer pockets are too loose to reload even once.

 

[samnev]

I primarily use Lapua brass but have had good results with RP brass.

 

[Greg Langelius *]

I use PPU, Win, and Rem brass in that order of preference.

I also reprime and reuse TulAmmo .223 steel cases, but they have smaller case capacity and must be treated as an entirely different chambering than brass .223 cases.

Never saw the justification to paying more for Lapua (except for 6mm BR cases), since I prep all my brass anyway. Trust but verify. I have had short and unacceptable case life issues with Fed, and to a smaller extent, with Rem.

Greg

 

[BCP]

Bitch of it is you will end up with 3 different loads, one for each type of brass. For tactical type loads they will be fine.

 

[roggom]

RP is the pickup truck of brass. Not fancy, takes a little work, but durable and can be accurate (as far as case loading can). I am no benchrest shooter, but really like RP for steel and hunting. It lasts longer then Lapua (for me with mid 44.5 or so RE15 loads and 175's). With proper annealing I get over 20 loads per case. You can find once fired online for close to nothing, even a few of the Hide Vendors will offer them up pretty cheap.

I have Lapua, Winchester, FC, Norma, and Hornady. For the most precise loads I like the Hornady Match and Lapua

 

[Seandradamus]

No one seems to like fgmm, I have always had good experiences with it myself although maybe reloaded around 4 or 5 times but still in good shape.

 

[Greg Langelius *]

I don't dislike FGMM brass specifically, but that could be because I also favor loads in the less energetic range. They spare primer pockets, which is where most of my case retirements originate.

Greg