HELP WITH HORNADY CASES

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mashburn posted this 16 September 2019

Although I have reloaded for over 50 years, I had never reloaded a Hornady brand case until a few months ago. I had fired two boxes of factory Hornady 25-06 cartridges and decided to reload these instead of cases that I had available of other brands. Here is the problem: I could not find a primer that would seat below the surface of the case head. I made a cutter to cut the primer pockets a little deeper and after doing a few cases, I soon said why do this when I have Remington and Winchester cases in abundance. Are all Hornady cases like this or does it take a special primer for these cases I don't keep up with all of the new stuff because I'm very set in my ways when it comes to guns and reloading. This is the first factory Hornady that I ever fired in my life.. The primers in the factory Hornady ammunition look funny and appear to be awful soft upon inspection after firing. Someone who has loaded Hornady cases please give me some information.

Mashburn

David a. Cogburn

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mashburn posted this 02 October 2019

Hello tlkeizer,

Thanks for your comments and input. I'm like you, I can't stand to see good brass left laying on the ground. I always pick it up regardless if I have a use for it or not.

Mashburn

David a. Cogburn

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tlkeizer posted this 01 October 2019

Greetings,

All the Hornady 45-70 cases I have had were shorter than normal, but the primer pockets were all good.  I have been given/picked up Hornady 45-70 cases a few times, and they were always short so I stopped trying to reload them for accuracy and then just stopped reloading them.  Since I use BP the short cases have not worked for me very well.   A couple friends with newer rifles reload the Hornady and like them, so if I find any at the range I give them to my friends (it amazes me how many people leave factory brass, usually in large rifle calibers like 45-70, 7mm Rem Mag, .300 Win Mag, and larger, but then for 5 or 6 shots a year reloading isn't too appealing for them I guess).

TK

 

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mashburn posted this 01 October 2019

Hello M3 Mitch,

More that likely your brass will be fine. I think that I got a bad run of cartridges. I found another full box of the Hornady ammo that I didn't know that I had. It was bought in a different area and the purchases were about a year and a half apart.. I'm going to disassemble a cartridge or two and do some measuring and inspection. I haven't called Hornady as of now, when my absent mind thinks of it,it isn't during business hours. Keep us posted on the quality of your brass.

Good luck,

Mashburn 

David a. Cogburn

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M3 Mitch posted this 30 September 2019

Well, I ordered a couple of 50 round packs of 300 H&H brass, Hornady brand.  The packs are labeled "Made in USA" pretty prominently.  The brass looks good.  I have not opened the box yet, but I will be surprised if the primer pockets are anything other than standard.

This is an interesting thread, with Hornady being a big reloading component maker, I am surprised they would make up factory ammo that can't be reloaded using more or less common, standard US Boxer primers. 

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mashburn posted this 21 September 2019

Hello again Ken,

Since I got your email about the 25-06 Mashburn reamer, my feeble mind has been spinning all of its gears .I've been trying to dig up a diagram of the cartridge but with no luck so far. Tell me something; is this a cartridge with a shorter neck than the Ackley Imp. version. Mashburn quite often blew his  improved cartridges out farther for more capacity and left shorter necks in the process .Also what is the shoulder angle. I've got two different angles from some of the idiots on the shooting forums.I would appreciate any information,

David

David a. Cogburn

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mashburn posted this 20 September 2019

Hello Ken,

When I get caught up with some gun projects around here, I definitely want to make a 25-06 Mashburn out of my El-Cheapo Savage. When you get ready to build the .17 Mashburn let me know and I will send you my .17 reamer.  Oh, a close friend of mine who was the last closest friend of Old Man Mashburn passed away recently. His Dad also worked for Roy Weatherby during Weatherbys  early beginning.

David Cogburn

 

Mashburn

David a. Cogburn

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Ken Campbell Iowa posted this 20 September 2019

mr mashburn ... heh, while sorting through my stash, i remembered that i have a " 25-06 Mashburn " bushing chamber reamer by jgs ... i thought sure somebody by now would want me to make a coyote barrel with this, but so far, no takers  ....   thought you might get a kick out of this ...  geepers, maybe all the dog guys have gone to AR15  ... or video games ...  ken

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mashburn posted this 20 September 2019

Hello again,

I have used some starline brass, mostly in my revolvers and my old 50-70. The rims on the 50-70 starline cases are so much thicker I had to deepen my chamber a little. Like I said when I was younger I would stick a bullet in anything that would hold powder. With experience and better finances I stopped. It has been so long since I loaded a federal case I couldn't honestly say anything good or bad.

Mashburn

David a. Cogburn

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mashburn posted this 20 September 2019

Hello again Mitch,

Thanks for your good  opinion on quality firearms (old versus new). I've had some old Savages come through my shop in the past that were good looking well fit rifles and yes nearly all Savage barrels shoot very well.one of the prettiest best made custom rifles that I ever saw was built on a Savage long magnum action in the caliber 7X61 Sharp and Hart. I bought a Savage Axis about 3 years ago in 25-06 just to play with and see what I could do with it. I like to build my own parts. I got this thing shooting unreal with some mods. Now, I through with it, mission accomplished. It will probably set the rest of my life now. At the time there were no steel bases available for the Axis, I had to make my own steel bases. I reworked the standard trigger and it makes the Accu trigger seem crude. That is my favorite thing to do-take a ugly step child and see what it can be made to do.

I got on the CZ bandwagon early. I wish they were as cheap now as they were when I bought my first one.

Thanks for your good reply,

Mashburn

David a. Cogburn

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M3 Mitch posted this 19 September 2019

Hello M3 Mitch,

That's a good question that you posed about uninformed shooters. I don't know if all Hornady brass is like these, evidently not from other peoples comments. There are so many people that don't realize that cartridges of different brands don't impact in the same place and they don't know that bullet weight also affects impact point. I only load Winchester and Remington cases. When I was 50 years younger and very, very broke I would reload anything that I could get my hands on. But I'm much smarter now and somewhat better off financially. 

Thanks for your reply and comments,

Mashburn

 

Have you tried Starline brass?  In my limited experience, it seems to be as good as Winchester or Remington.  In my experience Norma is excellent.   Lapua is excellent.

What do you think of Federal brass?  I think Ed has said at least once that Federal '06 brass was no good for using in a Garand, too soft or something like that.

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M3 Mitch posted this 19 September 2019

Well, it seems to me the American firearms market has split into at least 2 pieces - first one is the "utility/cheap" market, where Ruger and Savage both play and to an extent they play it at different levels.  For example Ruger has the old Single-Six .22 revolver, and a cheaper model with an aluminum frame.  Rugers have always been tough, a good value for what you spend, but never have had and far as I can tell never aspired to the craftsmanship of old Winchester, Marlin, Colt, S&W, etc.  Savage has usually been dealing towards the lower price market since founding, but, on and off they have made some really fine guns like the older M99s.  One thing I will note is that the M-110 bolt guns from Savage have always provided top-drawer accuracy, with rare exceptions, and don't usually need any smithing on them to get them to shoot.  You show me a M110 shooting big groups, and I'll show you either something wrong with the scope or mounting, or a guy shooting junk ammo.  Now apparently Remington has fallen on hard times, but even 20 years ago, they built a quite decent gun, have several M700s and a of course a M 870 pump 12 gauge, these are not exactly finely crafted, but decent guns.

Then you have the semi-custom market, the Coopers, the various Sharps builders, mostly small firms building bolt guns.  These, it seems to me, are at as high a level of craftsmanship as you are going to get.  The fine British builders will make a gun with that intangible "whatever" in greater abundance, but not likely to be that much better a gun.  To an extent, modern CNC machining has made it possible to make an "old school" construction gun that in the past required a lot of hand fitting, without all the hand work.

But I agree that the European makers do make something more like the old American makers used to make.  Particularly Steyr and CZ.  And the CZ guns are something of a bargain, considering what you get, both in terms of cosmetics and performance.  Of course you have Italian firms like Perazzi, who make shotguns, at least, to as high a standard as I think can be accomplished by mortal men.  But you pay for that.  Still, as Ferris Buehler said: "It is so choice.  If you have the means, I highly recommend you pick one up!" FN guns are also quite finely crafted, not up to Perazzi's standard, but not up to their price either.

Anyway, for whatever it's worth, I'm out there, bit younger than you, about to turn 62, and, yes, I do appreciate and seek out guns built to a high level of craftsmanship. 

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mashburn posted this 19 September 2019

Ross,

Amen to both of your statements. Firearms made years ago are a form of art to me and the modern junk is definitely ugly junk. You have to go to Japan or Eastern Europe to find a decently constructed firearm these days. There are customs of course but most people can't afford those. Fortunately, the good Lord gave me the skills to build my own.

I purchased a side by side double shot gun from a pawn shop in the wrong part of St. Louis last week and is it beautiful .It isn't a gun safe queen, just a good solid shotgun and is it pretty. All steel except the barrels are totally engraved and the barrels are engraved where they meet the breech. I haven't measured the checkering but I'm guessing it somewhere between 28-30 LPI. I've owned lots of old firearms and the problem is, there is a lot of them that I don't have anymore. It does not wear the Makers name but the bottom of the barrels have both Belgium and English proof marks. Here is the problem, we have fewer and fewer people who appreciate this kind of craftsmanship.

Thanks for you response,

Mashburn

Mashburn

David a. Cogburn

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Ross Smith posted this 19 September 2019

Huge-Mass-Production might have some bearing also. Kinda like the remington syndrome?

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mashburn posted this 19 September 2019

Hello M3 Mitch,

That's a good question that you posed about uninformed shooters. I don't know if all Hornady brass is like these, evidently not from other peoples comments. There are so many people that don't realize that cartridges of different brands don't impact in the same place and they don't know that bullet weight also affects impact point. I only load Winchester and Remington cases. When I was 50 years younger and very, very broke I would reload anything that I could get my hands on. But I'm much smarter now and somewhat better off financially. 

Thanks for your reply and comments,

Mashburn

David a. Cogburn

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M3 Mitch posted this 19 September 2019

I wonder if the Hornady empty brass I see in catalogs is like this.  I would think/hope not.  We have to remember that we are unicorns, not only do few people load their own cast bullets, relatively few shooters reload at all.  So Joe Average Shooter would just leave the empty brass where-ever, and would never know it has non-standard primer pockets.  I mean to me non-reloading shooters are like chow hounds who never learn to cook, but I guess those are out there in the wild as well.

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RicinYakima posted this 18 September 2019

Where were they made? It depends upon what caliber, what day of the week and of course, what the bid price was. Early revolver ammo was made by Fiocchi in Italy, but the last 9mm I bought was from Serbia. FWIW

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mashburn posted this 18 September 2019

Hello Ricin Yakima,

Like I've said I have no past experience with Hornady brass or ammo. The two boxes that I bought were American Whitetail and were the first Hornady ammo that I ever purchased. They were quite accurate but evidently the brass in that particular lot is junk. I bought  a box of the American Whitetail cartridges at the same time but haven't tested their accuracy as of now. I like Hornady dies and all of their bullets that I eve ever used were quite accurate and effective on game. Where are the American Whitetail cartridges manufactured? I'm not one to report on the quality of factory ammo: I was nearly fifty years old before I killed a deer with factory ammo, my first deer ever killed when I was at a  very young age was with one of my reloads.

Thanks again for your replies,

Mashburn

David a. Cogburn

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mashburn posted this 18 September 2019

Hello Ross,

Like I said, I've had no experience with Hornady brass in the past. I have several sets of their reloading dies and I shoot a lot of their .375 Interlock flat nose bullets, I've found them to be very accurate and  are deadly on deer. Winchester has had that information about their cases for sometime. Regardless of brand, I always size and trim new brass.

Thanks for your input,

Mashburn

David a. Cogburn

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RicinYakima posted this 18 September 2019

Their made in Mexico stuff is not of very good quality.

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Ross Smith posted this 18 September 2019

Mash: I had the same experience with the factory .223 match ammo. Just didn't reload for beans for me and the case weight was the only parameter I pursued. I do find other problems with other "range brass" and loose primer pockets is one. That's on presumably once fired brass. I bought 100 winchester brass for my 30-30 and I had to completely re work the brass, size, trim, etc. But when I got done , they were all ok. By the way ,winchester put a note in the bag stating the brass might be dented,squished and long. They were .

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